Ruminations upon Saturday August 24, 2024 in Berlin, Germany
According to our Friday night hosts, Shabbat morning services would end by 10:45AM. That is early for those of us from the States who are used to a two-and-a-half to three-hour service that starts at 9:00AM.
Thankfully, Chaim woke up around 8:45AM and got the rest of us moving. Well, we tried to move. We were still recovering from the previous two days and may have moved a bit slower than we hoped. Our walk to shul was lovely, except that we ended up turning too early and had to figure out our way through the streets. We managed, but it did not help my stress. Again, I was snappier than I wanted to be because I was worried about us missing our Shabbat host at shul. This was our only guaranteed opportunity for food. Again, it would have gone better had I shared the information with Chaim ahead of time.
We made it for the last ten minutes. So really, we made it just in time for kiddush when it is customary in many shuls to have a small (or large, depending on the community,) amount of food for everyone to enjoy before going home for Shabbat lunch. We were floored when we realized kiddush included a fish course, wafers (which the boys thoroughly enjoyed), and delicious olives and pickles, followed by chicken and delicious kugel. We ate to our hearts content. I was bursting with joy knowing the boys would have plenty to eat with another meal coming. The community members were incredibly welcoming. Everyone stopped by our table to say hello and welcome us to Berlin and the shul. We had a lovely time and enjoyed seeing and spending time with Pasha, Avital, and Rabbi Shlomo again.
Nechama’s daughter, Tamar, took us home from shul. She had just turned thirteen and already showed us that she could also speak four languages. Lunch was wonderful. Nechama welcomed us into her home with open arms. Her children were lovely companions for the boys – finding them toys, playing with them (once everyone warmed up to one another), and teaching us about life in Berlin. It was another meal that felt like we were spending time with old friends even though we had just met moments before. There was no end to the conversation, and we would have stayed even longer if not for the cats who were kindly being kept in the kids’ room for most of the meal.
The boys adore cats and wish we could have pets at home. Chaim, however, is highly allergic to cats. We promised the boys that they could play with the cats for the last few minutes before we left, knowing that we would need to wash our hands thoroughly and change once we returned to our hostel to avoid killing Chaim. The boys were thrilled when the cats came out. Two gigantic, hairy cats with fur everywhere. I love cats, too, and had to work hard to hold myself back from petting them. I like to tell Chaim that’s how he knows I love him. As the boys were playing with the two enormous furballs, Chaim was beginning to struggle with breathing. Then, we noticed that Matanel was sniffling, and Eitan’s eyes were really swollen. He had been putting his face on the cats and onto the couch. To this day he is adamant that he is not allergic to cats. Nechama was so sweet and rushed to give him allergy medicine, which he refused to take because it was in syrup form, and he is not allergic to cats. Instead, we decided it was time to part ways.
At the hostel we all stripped out of our cat-clothes and stuffed them right into our laundry bag. Eitan took a Claritin and Chaim promptly fell asleep in hopes of recovering quicker. The boys passed the time playing card games in their underwear. Two hours later, the boys needed to get out their energy and we all needed fresh air. We walked to the Neptune Fountain where they had a grand time playing. They also spent some time practicing their Tae Kwan Do forms. As the sun was setting, I needed to call out to the boys to remind them to stay where we could see them. A woman next to me glowered at me. Apparently, people do not yell across a plaza in Germany. Oops.
It was dark as we returned through Alexanderplatz, which was now teeming with nightlife. Club music thumping, kids and teenagers having the time of their lives on kiddie rides and bumper cars, and vendors looking for patrons. Hard to believe it was the same place we had traipsed through just thirty-six hours before.
Going to bed was a circus affair. Shai, thankfully, fell right asleep; his brothers remained wide awake. As Amichai entertained himself with a book on his Kindle, Matanel had so much energy that he kept pouncing on me like a lion cub eager to play. Eitan tried to go to sleep, but the poor guy couldn’t breathe and then ended up with a colossal nosebleed. On top of it all, they were all so hot that they kept asking me to rewet their shammies. The circus ended at midnight, or so I had hoped. I stayed up well past to catch up on my writing.
