Last night, I returned, along with my family, from a recent trip to Israel. Having been to Israel ten times already, it wasn't new to me, however, it was our first time travelling with four children, including two children three and younger. This was quite an experience, but it was certainly a nice family trip.
I think that's the best way to describe it for me: a family trip. In addition to bringing along our four children, we slept at my wife's oldest brother's residence, and we met up a few times with my wife's second oldest brother's family, we also spent time with my father-in-law. Moreover, the trip was less about us and more about thinking about going to places that were kid-friendly.
A couple of places we visited featured animals (Gan Garoo and The Biblical Museum of Natural History), although we mostly were fairly gastronomically-oriented. We also visited the Bloomfield Science Museum, which was neat for the kids. We went to a bunch of restaurants, visited Shuk HaCarmel and Shuk Mahaneh Yehudah a couple of times each, and enjoyed the food (my wife, especially, was excited for the food (she is a foodie, after all)). Curiously, I never had shawarma this trip (my last visit to Israel, while staffing a Taglit-Birthright Israel trip, I had shawarma for lunch pretty much every day), which is somewhat unfortunate, as I greatly enjoy eating it while when visiting, but I did regularly consume shakshuka, which was great. The most enjoyable soup I had was a spicy and sour soup at Pagoda in Tiberias, which was very delicious and powerfully tasty. I also enjoyed the novelty of being able to call and order kosher pizza for delivery (we ordered from Pizza Hut), which was super convenient!
Speaking of consumption, I wasn't able to visit many breweries or drink much beer while there, however, I was able to visit Dancing Camel on my final night there, as well as having visited Beer Bazaar in Jerusalem for my first time. I got to try all nine beers on-tap at Dancing Camel, which was neat, while meeting up with someone who had moved to Israel a year ago from Long Beach. At Beer Bazaar, I got to enjoy a ten-shot taster roulette, which is a great way to try a bunch of beers - I wish more breweries or bars offered such a tasting option. One special treat I got to enjoy was visiting the Modi'in homebrewers meeting, which was quite fortuitously-timed, as I had experienced two years prior, enjoying not only a bunch of beers, but also being able to better discern flavors, as well as learning some tidbits about brewing and more. Thanks to my father-in-law, I also got to experience the somewhat relatively new Whiskey Bar and Museum in Tel Aviv, which has a really cool set-up in a former wine cellar and offers over 1,000 whiskies.
As opposed to previous trips where I typically have bought things there, I was not focussed on procuring such products, since it was more family-oriented. Usually, I buy and bring back bottles of liquor (usually, vermouths, since they have decent kosher vermouth there (which is, sadly, lacking Stateside)), but did not do so this time. Also, I typically acquire Jewish books (usually Hebrew (and often halakhic works)), but, alas, we did not make it to any bookstores. And I also usually avail myself of buying a few kippot while there, but wasn't able to spend much time shopping for them.
Speaking of not being able to spend much time: while we were fortunate in meeting up with a few people, we were unable to meet up with others with whom it would have been great to reconnect. However, that is one of the handicaps of travelling with children - it is harder to easily move around and meet up with people, especially when trying to coordinate with others in the family.
As with our previous trip two years ago, we rented a car and drove around, which is a lot easier than trying to use public transportation with the kids. However, this time, I drove on a few occasions, making it my first time ever driving in Israel, which was not as crazy of an experience as I had expected. Yes, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, it is not so easy driving around (for different reasons for each city), but the highway driving was a breeze and it was pleasant. The only issue we had was the car we rented was advertised as being a seven-seater, but that doesn't really allow for trunk space, in addition to being small for its size. Then again, in Israel, there aren't such spacious cars as they have here in the US.
It was great to allow our children to experience Israel again, especially since our oldest two may have remembered their last trip, but our youngest daughter hadn't. Clearly, one of the best parts of the trip for them was connecting and re-connecting with their cousins, as they had a lot of fun with them. While their cousins live in different countries, it was great for all of them to spend with each other, as well as for us adults to spend time with each other, as well. That is certainly a major takeaway for us from this trip.
