My wife Jody and I try to go out for a date night once a week. Sometimes we slip to once every two or three weeks. So when we do get out, we want to make sure it’s good.

Regular readers will know we’re big fans of sushi. So when we heard that our favorite sushi bar had opened a new branch just a few minutes drive from our home, we hastened to give it a try.

We knew something was wrong when we arrived. There were no tables and chairs in the restaurant. Was this a new twist on trendy – the standing room only establishment? We asked at the counter.

“Sorry, we’re only open for take out this week,” the friendly proprietress told us. It was a few days before the Passover holiday, and they were cleaning out their hametz – the leavened bread forbidden during the seven days of Pesach.

Now, a sushi bar doesn’t serve bread per se, but rice is one of the grains classified as kitniyot, “legumes” that appear similar enough to the main prohibited foods that the Rabbis forbade them on Pesach as well.

I was sorely disappointed. I had my heart set on a satisfying sushi meal and it seemed a shame to leave empty handed. Jody had an alternative proposal. “Why don’t we do take out and eat it in a park?” she suggested.

I was hesitant. I had imagined a sumptuous sit down meal with sake and miso soup for an opening course. After some back and forth discussion, I eventually acceded and we ordered some tuna sashimi, sea bass maki and a unique sushi sandwich with sesame seed peppered rice arranged on three sides and a special sauce doused liberally on top.

We took our sushi and headed for nearby San Simon Park. We parked ourselves under a tree, took out our chopsticks and dug in.

Little did we know we were doing exactly what scientists say a long married couple ought to in order to rekindle the romantic love that brought them together in the first place.

In an article by Tara Parker-Pope entitled “Reinventing Date Night for Long-Married Couples” appearing in the New York Times on February 12, 2008, Parker-Pope argues that “simply spending quality time together is probably not enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale.”

“Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts,” Parker-Pope writes, “couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy.” Parker-Pope cites Arthur Agron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York: “The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty in the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more thrilling, like taking an art class or going to an amusement park.”

Or having sushi on a sunset picnic dinner in a local park.

Reinventing date night is not just new age pseudo-psychology. It’s based on serious brain science. New experiences activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. “These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner,” Parker-Pope writes.

“We don’t really know what’s going on in the brain,” comments anthropologist Helen E. Fisher of Rutgers University. “It seems that as you trigger and amp up this reward system in the brain that is associated with romantic love, it’s reasonable to suggest that it’s enabling you to feel more romantic love.”

Experiments prove out the theory. In one study, researchers recruited 53 middle-aged couples. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers measured the couples’ relationship quality and then randomly assigned them to one of three groups.

The first group was instructed to spend 90 minutes a week doing familiar and pleasant activities like dining out or going to a movie. Couples in the second group were told to spend their 90 minutes on “exciting” activities that that the couple didn’t usually do, like attending a concert, hiking or dancing. The third group was not assigned any particular activity.

After 10 weeks, the couples again took tests to gauge the quality of their relationships. Those who had undertaken the “exciting” date, Parker-Pope writes, showed a significantly greater increase in marital satisfaction over the “pleasant” date night group.

Our own experience was similar. As we sat under that tree in the park, thoroughly enjoying our elegant take out meal as a warm Jerusalem breeze fluttered around us and the sun slowly sank between the almond trees, both Jody and I commented on how romantic our evening had become. “Much better than sitting in a loud, crowded restaurant,” Jody said to me as we held hands and watched mothers pushing strollers around the park and dogs romping with their owners.

“You don’t have to swing from the chandeliers,” Dr. Fisher told Parker-Pope. “Just go to a new part of town, take a drive in the country or better yet, don’t make plans at all and see what happens to you.”

Which, however inadvertently our night started out, is exactly what we did.

A Japanese company contacted me by email a couple of weeks ago expressing interest in the new startup I’m in the process of launching. The company, which was representing a large Internet Service Provider based in Osaka, wanted to explore possibilities for collaboration.

I was needless to say quite excited. This was the first time a potential partner had contacted me about my new company, a fact made even more significant given that we’ve done no publicity whatsoever. The Japanese company apparently had learned about me from a conference to which I’d applied (and was turned down from).

I wrote back immediately asking for more information. The Japanese company thanked me for my prompt response and suggested that we set up a meeting for the following week. Two representatives from the company would fly to Israel specifically to meet with me. Wow! My head was swelling with thoughts of where this lucky break could lead.

In order to impress my new suitors I scrambled to build a sample website for the company demonstrating our technology. It ought to be in Japanese, I thought, to demonstrate that our software supports Kanji characters.

The only problem was that I don’t speak Japanese. No worries. A few years ago, I tried to start a company called Onago which was to build web and mobile services for “on the go” travelers, hence the oh-so-clever name. I had assembled a technology dream team, but alas, the timing for the company couldn’t be worse – it was mid-2000 and the dot.com bubble had just burst and no one could raise money. We quietly shelved our plans and I took another job.

When we were doing an Internet name search for Onago, we came across a Japanese site of the same name (but without the .com suffix). I also knew that Onago was a kind of sushi. So, needing Japanese text for my current business, I paid a visit to Onago.jp.

The site was a little strange, such that I could tell given that I didn’t understand a word that was written. It appeared to be a teenager’s blog. There were strands of what looked like poetry, lots of little hearts, and a recipe for preparing fish (complete with pictures).

That seemed innocuous enough for me. Throwing caution to the wind, and with still no idea of what I was reading, I copied several lines of Japanese characters from the site and pasted them into mine. In a few minutes I’d finished creating a web page for the Japanese company that had contacted me. I then sent them the URL of this new demo site and waited for their delighted response.

Unlike the previous day, I didn’t hear back immediately this time. Another day passed and then another. I became concerned. Had I done something wrong? Was the seemingly harmless text I’d blindly copied in fact been offensive? Had I unwittingly expropriated content from a pornography site and caused my suitors to lose face such that they were now assiduously avoiding me?

I should have known better. How many times have I castigated Israelis attempting (and I use the term loosely) to translate ads from Hebrew into what can best be described as pidgin English.

I typed “translate Japanese to English” into Google. A number of translation services came up on the list, including “Google Translate.” Duh…how could I have been so obtuse? I hurriedly pasted the text I’d used into the translation engine. The result was baffling. It read:

Garden of the holy. Also use the last!
We are introduced.
The same fixture
Garden dish made of the holy

I have been told that Japanese is a language based on metaphors. What did “Garden of the holy” mean? Could “We are introduced” be a code name for a dating site? What would be the implications of two things having “the same fixture?” My mind raced.

In desperation, I sent the text to my brother who lived in Japan for 5 years and speaks a decent Japanese (he had been traveling when I first needed the Japanese text). I also asked him to look at the Onago.jp website.

“I can’t figure this site out at all,” he wrote back. “Lord it’s strange. It looks kind of like a Facebook type of thing, but it could also be porn or maybe wife swapping. It’s pretty cheesy and a bit risky. Myself, I’d probably stay away.”

Oh boy…My fears heightened, I went back to Onago.jp myself and started digging deeper. I clicked some of the links. They all went to another site called Special Ribbon which had pages of pictures of women. I clicked one. Oh no…it was a very fat woman wearing a thong. Another click and there was an obese woman in her underwear. Another click. No underwear at all.

Did “Onago” have undesirable connotations going beyond fish?

After a week, I finally broke down and wrote to the Japanese again. Were we still meeting, I asked? The response came immediately. “Of course. See you on Friday.”

We had a very productive meeting. My presentation was flawless and the Japanese seemed impressed. At one point, the Japanese characters I’d copied appeared on the screen. The Japanese moved closer. “Ah,” said one of the Japanese, gazing intently at my site. “That means ‘Hi everyone!’” Everyone laughed, though mine was more a sigh of relief than a guffaw.

Nevertheless, the whole incident reminded me of a famous example from the automotive industry (which has since been proven to be an urban legend but is instructive nonetheless). Chevrolet had done what they thought was a comprehensive name search when they came up with the Nova. It apparently wasn’t enough. The name translated into Spanish as “no go,” about the worse appellation you could think of for a new car.

In the story, Chevy learned its lesson the hard way. I got off more easily. Now I’m working on a follow up site, also in Japanese. But this time, I’m getting a translator!

I’m generally not one to shy away from adventure. I’ll be the first to travel to exotic locations like India and Egypt. 20 years ago I jumped out of an airplane. But there was something about SCUBA diving that freaked me out. After all, human beings can’t naturally breathe under water. So the idea of submerging even just a paltry few meters with only a flimsy air tube separating me from imminent drowning led to great discomfort if not outright fear.

At the same time, I felt like SCUBA diving is something I ought to do. Many of my friends swear by it. An introductory dive, they reassured me, where an instructor accompanies you every step of the way, is not in any way dangerous.

So, on a recent trip to Eilat, I decided to take the plunge. The whole family, actually. It was a typically warm Eilati December day when we headed over to the Red Sea Sports Club to give it the old college try. The following is a primer for any other chicken littles deciding to go all the way.

The dive process actually can be divided into two parts: suiting up and the dive itself. Getting into our wet suits would prove to be the most difficult part of the entire experience.

I’d be generous in calling the wet suit a tight fit. The suit is so form fitting that the only way to get it on is to wiggle around in a hot shower while pouring buckets of liquid soap up and down your legs and arms as you struggle to pull the darn thing over surprisingly bulbous limbs.

The scene was vaguely tragic-comical as the entire Blum family tugged and grunted in the communal shower, standing, sitting and panting heavily. It took us 20 minutes, but we were ultimately successful. Then there was another surprise waiting for us to complete the getting dressed part of the dive: weights. Our instructors tied a belt with virtual barbells around our waists, strapped on a backpack with a heavy air tank and instructed us to walk across the road to the sea.

We must have been some sight – strutting like stiff penguins in our form fitting suits as if we were lugging a walrus across the heavily trafficked highway leading to the Egyptian border.

Eventually we got to the water and climbed in, holding on to the fence that leads to the Coral Beach diving area. We were given our masks, told to spit into and rinse them to keep them from steaming up (mine did anyway) and given last minute instructions on what to do if you accidentally smile while submerged (water gets into the mask which you can exhume by pressing the top of the mask and blowing out with your nose). We were reminded how to “pop” our ears as we descended and taught various hand signals that our instructors would use to guide our dives (up, down, spin like a top…OK I made the last one up).

We had now reached the point of no return. Still, I had a hard time shaking my apprehensions. What if I had a panic attack and couldn’t breathe? What if I opened my mouth too wide and I swallowed water instead of air? What if they’d neglected to fill my oxygen tank all the way and I found myself sucking on nothing (never mind the fact that the tank holds a full 2 hours of air, more than enough for our brief introduction).

But there was no time to contemplate further. My dive instructor nearly pushed me under and then there I was floating and breathing and being pulled down, deeper and deeper.

Well, not that deep. The introductory dive doesn’t go very far out or down – no more than about 5 meters. Still there was plenty to look at – brightly colored clown fish, some lovely striped lion fish, a couple of big blue parrot fish, multi-colored anemones plus plenty of yellow and orange coral waving in the still water with little white eels poking their heads out. It was all absolutely charming and enough to give a good impression of what a full-fledged dive is all about.

We stayed down about 25 minutes before returning to our starting point then trudging out to the shore and back across the road where we were faced with the equally laborious task of removing our wet suits. All told, the entire dive experience lasted just under two hours.

I’d like to be able to tell you that I felt like my friends under the water – free, weightless and at peace. Maybe that comes with time – and space. During the introductory dive, you’re never alone; your guide holds your hand – literally - pointing out interesting fish, and does most of the propulsion for you. Not that I’m complaining. For a first timer, a little help was greatly welcomed.

After the dive, I asked the family if they’d like to do another one. The kids answered with an immediate yes. I was less sure. I hadn’t shaken off my fears entirely. And then there was that wet suit to contend with. But I was certainly glad we’d tried. It was worthwhile experience if not entirely SCUBAduper.

After the fourth litter, we started to reconsider whether to continue our inadvertent role of playing birthing hospital to a family of incestuous rodents.

14-year-old Merav has had hamsters for a year and a half now. We started with just one, a male, but Merav felt he’d be lonely, so we got him a companion, a female. We thought it would be educational to have little hamster babies. And so it was the first time. Merav went positively ga-ga when Mazie the mother started squeezing out these tiny pink little peanut shaped critters. The babies, blind and unable to crawl, let alone walk, squirmed and nursed and were as adorable as little rodents can be.

When Mazie started to eat the runts, however, Merav had a different reaction. “How can she do that?” Merav implored, finding fur and bones in the cage one morning. But that too was an education in the vicissitudes of hamster life.

The surviving babies grew and ran on the wheel, climbed the monkey bars and kicked their food onto the rug in Merav’s room. The more hamsters there were, the more pungent the smell. But everything was still so educational

Then came the second litter. We’re not sure who mated with whom. Baby hamsters become sexually mature in only a few months. The result is a fact of life, but the thought of mother and child “doing it,” as Merav so diminutively put it, was nevertheless not a little bit “icky.”

Shortly thereafter, the mother died. It was undoubtedly from old age (hamsters only live a couple of years and she was fully grown when we’d bought her). Merav was nevertheless choked up and we gave the hamster mom a short funeral before burying her in a flower pot.

Regardless of mom’s departure, the hamster cage was getting full. Fortunately, our local pet store has a policy of buying back baby hamsters for a few shekels. Merav reluctantly parted with some of the older ones from the first litter but wasn’t able to tell which of the remaining babies were males and which were females.

Not surprisingly, a third litter followed. By this time, the incestuous predilections of hamsters were clear and it was all we could do to keep up with their unholy unions, and take more hamsters to the pet store. Our educational process was starting to resemble the Israeli school system: overcrowded and rife with discipline problems.

The more hamsters we had, the more aggressive they became. One day, Merav returned from school to find one of the smaller hamsters with an injured foot. He’d gotten in a tussle with one of his older siblings (or was it a parent?) and was now bleeding and limping around the cage. Merav insisted we call a veterinarian, but I protested: what could a vet do for a broken hamster paw – apply a little hamster cast perhaps?

The next day, the other hamsters had decapitated their injured peer and eaten most of his body.

That was the last straw for Merav. “A year and a half is enough,” she said. She would get rid of all of them.

Bad news was waiting for us: the pet store was all full up. Not only were they not paying, they weren’t taking any new hamsters at all. Merav was in a panic “What am I going to do?” she asked. “Another baby is going to get hurt.”

She called several pet stores until she found one on the other side of town that would take four – but only the young ones. The six-month-old adults were already too “elderly.” Merav brought in the hamsters to the store and we said a not particularly tearful goodbye.

But what would we do with the remaining three? “We could feed them to Bob’s snakes,” I suggested not entirely in jest. Bob already buys frozen mice to feed to his pets; a live hamster would be a real delicacy.

“Abba, that’s disgusting!” Merav replied curtly, visibly offended that I would even think of such a thing.

“Well, we could set them free,” I offered.

“No!” Merav shrieked. “They wouldn’t last an hour. They’d get eaten by cats.”

“We could let them go in the Jerusalem Forest. There are no cats there.” (Well, not many, I thought.)

Merav pondered about that for a while. We debated the pros and cons of freeing pets into the wild. While they probably wouldn’t survive long, they might really enjoy their brief moments of freedom beyond the cage.

The hamsters’ savior came in the form of a phone call from our friend Naomi. She would take them. She had little kids who would enjoy watching the hamsters play. But only the girl hamsters. Naomi wasn’t interested in opening her own breeding facility. Fortunately, the babies had grown up enough to be able to distinguish which sex was which.

That left Merav with one male who is now living a life of solitary confinement. We figure his days as one of the “old men” are numbered anyway. No need to shorten them with a trip to the great outdoors.

If you’re thinking of getting hamsters to entertain or educate your kids, just keep in mind it’s not for the squeamish. Birth, death, even murder – in our hamster education, we’ve seen it all.

On our recent trip to my brother’s wedding, we stopped off in New York before heading to California. We had three days and three kids who had never spent any time in Manhattan before. We packed it in and had a great time. Here’s some of what we did:

Bike Riding in Central Park

Entirely man-made, Central Park is strikingly beautiful and, because it’s mostly flat, superb for bike riding. If you go on a Sunday, the park’s roads are closed off to vehicular traffic, creating a haven for bikers and joggers. You can circle the entire perimeter of the park on two wheels in about an hour and a half at a leisurely pace.

We were lucky that our day in Central Park was clear and warm. However, that also meant that the bike rental shop, near the boathouse, was completely sold out of bikes when we arrived just after noon. We found a shop a 20-minute walk away called Pedal Pushers at 2nd Avenue and 69th Street that was well supplied and very friendly. Our bike ride was cited by most of our family as one of the high points of the trip. The only tricky part was riding in traffic the few blocks from Pedal Pushers to and from the park.

Pedal Pushers
1306 Second Ave (@E 69th St)
(212) 288-5592 or toll free (877) 257-9437
http://pedalpusherbikeshop.com
$5.99 per hour (up to $24.99 for a day). Helmets an extra $3.99 each.

Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum

My grandfather and his sisters came through Ellis Island in the early 1900s, so a visit to this gateway to the U.S. was a historical education for our kids. The island is now a museum run by the National Park Service. It has a good audio tour and a number of rooms with relics from the 60 or so years from 1892 to 1954 the island was operational. More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island during that time. The tour was more interesting for our older kids – 9-year-old Aviv got a bit bored and frustrated near the end of the hour and a half walk through.

You get to Ellis Island on the Statue Cruises boat from Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan and it includes a free stopover to view the Statue of Liberty – there’s an audio tour there too. The boat leaves every half hour, so you can stop over for thirty minutes at Lady Liberty and hop back on. A scheduling tip: the lines for the boat (which includes a tight security check akin to getting on a plane) can get long midday, so arrive early.

We followed up our historical New York experience with a fascinating visit to the lesser-known Tenement Museum which is located on Orchard Street Street in New York’s Lower East Side. The museum (which must be booked in advance) currently runs three tours – “Getting By,” “Piecing it Together” and the “Confino Living History Tour” – all of which lead groups of 20 or so people on a one-hour walk through a restored tenement building. A personable guide tells the stories of how immigrants lived in the early part of the 20th Century. Although the tour tries to present a variety of nationalities, a look at the list of residents in the building shows mostly Jewish names and a spreadsheet showing working hours indicates that a good 2/3 didn’t work on Saturdays.

For us, the visit was important because my grandfather and his sisters lived on Orchard Street – maybe in that very same building. It’s fascinating to retrace their first steps in a new country.

Ellis Island
(212) 363-3200
Open daily 9:15 AM to 5:00 PM. Closed Dec. 25. Extended hours in the summer
No entrance fee, but the Statue Cruises ferry costs $11.50 for adults, $4.50 for kids ages 3 to 17. Boats leave Battery Park in Manhattan every 30 minutes on the half hour.
www.ellisisland.com

Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street at Delancey
Advanced reservations highly recommended: call (866) 811-4111 or book online at http://www.tenement.org. Same day tours can be reserved after 11:00 AM. Tours run every 40 minutes from 1:00 PM until 5:00 PM.
Single tour ticket prices: $17 adults, $13 students. There are discounts for booking multiple tours.

Paley Center for Media (formerly The Museum of Television and Radio)

I have wanted to visit the Museum of Television and Radio for 15 years, ever since I missed one of the crucial concluding episodes of that classic angst written TV drama thirtysomething, the one where Michael finally quits and tells evil boss Miles Drentell that “it doesn’t always have to be the best, but it has to be yours.”

The Paley Center for Media (as its now been renamed) is not a museum in the conventional sense. You start off in a room filled with computers attached to a massive database of some 120,000 TV shows. You pick up to 2 shows, then are ushered into another room filled with cubicle-sized watching stations. You type in your show number and it instantly appears on the screen in front of you. For parents, this is an opportunity to wax nostalgic (I also watched an episode of my favorite kids show, The Banana Splits). Amir watched episodes of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Aviv viewed Goosebumps and an animated video Tin Tin. Everyone was in boob tube heaven.

Paley Center for Media.
25 West 52 Street
(212) 621-6600
Open Tuesday – Sunday noon to 6:00 PM, Thursday until 8:00 PM.
$10 adults, $8 students, $5 for children under 13.
http://www.mtr.org/

The American Museum of Natural History

New York’s Natural History Museum is considered to be the best of its kind. A massive structure along Central Park, the museum contains exhibits on everything from geology to human evolution. The dinosaur room, with its huge reconstructed dinosaur skeletons is a perennial kid-friendly favorite.

For our family though, it was the Hayden Planetarium that scored top marks. Maybe it was because our kids had never been to a planetarium before, but they were utterly fascinated. The show, narrated by Robert Redford, chronicles the creation of stars, planets and the universe itself through “cosmic collisions,” past present and future. The entire planetarium shakes as a meteor hits earth, stunning NASA imagery shows the violent face of our sun. As we were exiting the show, Amir turned to me and said “it was too short.” That’s high praise from a teenager.

Outside the planetarium are additional exhibits showing a timeline of events since the Big Bang and the relative sizes and distances from Earth of various celestial bodies. The show runs every half hour from 10:30 AM until 4:30 PM (Wednesday starting at 11:00 AM) and Friday until 7:00 PM.

American Museum of Natural History
Main Entrance: 79th Street at Central Park West
(212) 313-7278
Open 10:00 AM – 5:45 PM
General Admission $19 adults, $12.50 children. With planetarium $26 adults, $17 children
http://www.amnh.org/

Broadway

No trip to New York would be complete without a Broadway show and we indulged this expensive passion with the family friendly musical Hairspray. Rather than pay full price, we had two options: stand in line at the TKTS half price ticket booth in Times Square and hope that a show we wanted to see had tickets available that day, or buy them online before we took off.

We opted for the latter. Do a Google search for the show you want and add “discount tickets” – you’ll come up with several different organizations selling orchestra and mezzanine tickets for around $50 each. Hairspray was available through Playbill (the site requires play seekers to sign up for a free membership and receive daily emails before Playbill will open up the pearly half price gates).

After a show, visit the three floor M&Ms World headquarters in Times Square for some chocolately fun. You’ll never believe how many shapes, sizes and flavors M&Ms come in!

M&M’s World
1600 Broadway
(212) 295-3850
http://www.mymms.com/service/locations.asp

The Millburn Hotel

When does a hotel become an attraction of its own? When it’s ranked 2nd for “Top Ten Family Friendly Hotels” in the authoritative guide “New York with Kids.” What that means in practical terms is that the hotel has a decent if not extensive lending library of kid-oriented DVDs and provides free access to PlayStation II video game consoles in the room (there’s also cable with HBO and wireless Internet access).

The upshot for my wife Jody and me was that we were able to leave the kids in the hotel by themselves happily playing games and watching videos while we treated ourselves to a gourmet meal at Le Marais, a kosher French steakhouse in midtown Manhattan. When you travel with kids, you don’t get a lot of alone time with your spouse. Our night out, courtesy of the Millburn, was worth every penny of Manhattan’s notorious high hotel rates.

Millburn Hotel
242 West 76th Street (between West End and Broadway)
(212) 362-1006 or toll free (800) 833-9622
Suites and individual rooms available; our one bedroom suite ran $369 a night plus tax and local hotel fees.
http://www.milburnhotel.com/

Madras Mahal Indian Restaurant

On Lexington Avenue, between 26th and 27th Streets, there are no less than 5 Indian vegetarian restaurants, two of them even being kosher. Our kids love Indian food (see my column on eTested – Restaurant Reviews) and at lunch time, several of the restaurants on this block offer all you can eat buffets. Madras Mahal, the kosher establishment where we ate, charged just $8.95 each for a sumptuous meal consisting of Indian bread, dosa (a lentil-rice filled crepe), several curries, rice, a bean soup and rice pudding for dessert. Everyone was satiated and our pocket books weren’t drained.

Madras Mahal
104 Lexington Ave
(212) 684-4010
Buffet open 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM daily
http://madrasmahal.tripod.com

The Empire State Building

No visit to New York would be complete without a trip up to the top of the Empire State Building. We were warned that the lines would be long as there were separate queues to buy tickets, go through security and wait for the next elevator, but when we arrived at 9:00 AM, the waits were relatively short and we were up on the 86th floor in short order.

We ordered a couple of audio tours where Joe the Taxi Driver explained what we were looking at – helpful if you’re not a native. A tip: the audio headset has jacks for two headphones – bring your own and more than one person can share a headset at the same time.

As you’re waiting in line, various Empire State Building barkers will try to sell you on the optional “Skyride” motion simulator. Don’t be taken in. We were, and it was a waste of time and money at best, and a nauseating jolt of a ride for some in our party. It’s expensive and the only time during our trip we felt we had truly overspent unnecessarily.

Empire State Building
350 Fifth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets
(212) 736-3100
Open 8:00 AM to 2:00 AM (last elevators go up at 1:45 AM)
$18 adults, $13 Youth (12-17), $12 child (6-11)
http://www.esbnyc.com/

A year ago my wife Jody and I attended a wine festival at the Israel Museum. It was the same night as katyusha rockets started to rain down on Haifa as the Second Lebanon War kicked into high gear. The experience was surreal – here we were hopping from winery to winery, sniffing and sipping and sloshing our way through the latest Merlot and Cabernet blends, while a mere 2 hour drive away, our fellow citizens were cowering in bomb shelters.

This year we went back to the wine festival and the northern front was quiet. All those existential questions of whether we should or could be enjoying ourselves in the midst of the war were no longer relevant. The atmosphere was more like a festive garden party. So Jody and I celebrated by doing what we should have done last year, but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to: we got totally plastered.

We weren’t alone. As we staggered between booths offering tastes from the Tishbi, Binyamina, Yatir, Golan, Carmel and Teva wineries (the show attracts the best of both mainstream and boutique shops) I remarked to Jody that the staff who work here must really enjoy their job: all the customers are so happy. And that giddiness only increases as the evening wears on. By the end of the night, we would-be wine connoisseurs were as tipsy as a ladder missing a rung.

The wine festival had moved this year to the Billy Rose Art Garden, a large gravel strewn square dotted with oversized outdoor artwork. Entrance was NIS 50 ($8.50) with each person receiving a pretty wine glass which he or she totes from winery to winery refilling at will. This year our favorite was a Cabernet from the Kadesh-Barnea winery, along with a couple of Gewürztraminers which Jody particularly enjoyed.

Now, for Jody and me, getting drunk is definitely out of the norm. In high school, I was a freak (or a geek, choose your epithet) at least by teenage drinking standards: a near teetotaler in a mid-70s landscape when alcohol flowed like the oil that fueled the gas guzzlers that got us there. Maybe it was my form of rebellion not to party. That good clean lifestyle has served me well over the years but every once in awhile I suppose it’s OK to let your hair down (just don’t tell the kids).

About two hours into the revelry at the Israel Museum, with guests weaving in and out, brushing up against each other inappropriately and dancing to the live jazz that was playing on a central stage, it occurred to Jody and me that if we were going to drive home we needed to sober up. Not accustomed to being anything but sober, this was a new experience. How long would it take for our blood alcohol levels to settle down to a point where it was safe to take to the road, we wondered?

The wine festival had conveniently provided a “chill out” area full of white couches, white beanbag chairs and low white tables on white mats. We found a couple of open spots and collapsed, hoping that time and a little stargazing would temper the wobbly effects of the wine. Three men sitting near us started to flirt with Jody (this tends to happen even when she’s not drunk…)

“What’s up with your husband?” one asked as I lay somberly on my beanbag watching the clouds move past so that the stars appeared to be soaring like airplanes through the muggy night sky.

“You want a peanut?” another asked Jody, holding out a bag.

“No thanks,” Jody answered.

“They’re kosher,” the man assured Jody.

“What about him?” asked his friend. “Does he want some nuts?”

I managed a smile and a shrug without lifting my head.

Now you might think that a wine festival where most of the guests have to drive to get there might have set up a free coffee stand near the exit, but no, there was only more wine and a solitary booth selling sushi. Caffeinated sushi, now there’s a novel idea. Kind of like that Buzz Beer from TV’s The Drew Carey Show.

After about an hour of detoxifying, I finally felt competent enough to drive home. I resolved to drive very slowly and give everyone else the right of way. I would break for a pedestrian a mile off.

I’m happy to say we made it home safe and sound. Perhaps we should have grabbed a cab and picked up the car later. Or assigned one of us to be the designated driver (though what’s the fun of going to a wine festival if only one of you can drink?)

War could still break out – the news the next morning reported on the latest Syrian maneuvers on the border with the Golan Heights. But for one night, we let a little wine tasting work its magic over us. After all, in a country that’s constantly stressed out waiting for the next attack, what could be more “normal” than getting totally plastered every once in awhile.

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The audio version of this article (completely sober, I promise) can be found here.

One of the benefits of working from home is that you can take time off whenever you want, as long as you get your work done, of course. For me, my one consistent break has been a weekly trip to our local falafel stand with my friend Bob. To my exceedingly good fortune, we have what in my opinion is the best falafel in Israel a short 5-minute walk from our respective houses.

Now, falafel is a highly subjective taste and most Israelis will swear by their neighborhood joint. But Falafel Oved on Jerusalem’s Derech Bethlehem in Baka has a few things going for it that make the experience truly outstanding. There’s always a line for ordering, which means that the falafel balls are usually fresh out of the oil. There’s nothing as disappointing as old, cold or soggy falafel balls and Falafel Oved delivers the hot and crispy variety 90% of the time.

Falafel Oved’s other big secret is a garlic sauce that is liberally applied along with humous, harif (hot sauce) and tehina. While a lot of falafel restaurants can make good balls, the garlic sauce elevates Falafel Oved’s concoctions to another plane of existence. Yes, I know I’m laying it on thick, but wrapped up in a soft Arabic-style laffa, it’s just that good.

Of course, the real reason Bob and I make our weekly pilgrimage to Falafel Oved is not really for the falafel but the conversation. Bob and I will talk about everything under the sun – from shul gossip to why our kids hate school, which are the best anti-depression pills to whether God exists and if so, what She thinks we should do about Hamas and the Gaza Strip. In the middle of a day that is otherwise defined by long hours staring at a computer screen, alone without the company of annoying work colleagues to come knocking at the cubicle door to distract me at inappropriate times, our weekly falafel date cannot be underestimated.

On occasion, Bob and I have experimented with other locations. When we heard that a branch of the Ra’anana yuppie falafel chain Falafel Bis had come to our neighborhood, we resolved to give them a chance. Bis’s claim to fame is flavored falafel balls – there’s green with a cilantro, petrazilla and parsley flavor; red which includes chili and hot sauce in a Mexican style; and yellow which symbolizes extra garlic with a slight onion-y tang. The idea is good, but the execution disappoints. The falafel balls themselves are crispy on the outside but mere mush inside. You want your falafel to have a little fight in them, not melt in your mouth.

Bis, which is located on Ben Zakai Street in the Katamon neighborhood, is also too much of a fast food operation for my taste, just not as heimish as Falafel Oved which is run by two scrawny ultra-Orthodox guys who’ve plastered the walls with photos of Rabbis (mystical master Rav Kadouri is a favorite) and kabbalistic faith healers, set up boxes for donation to various charities (there were 11 at my last count), give away CDs with religious lectures, and often play Sephardic cantorial music while you sit in the two wobbly tables on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Bis, on the other hand has clean tile walls done up in alternating blocks of red, white and black and no quasi-spiritual paraphernalia. It does have one thing going for it that Falafel Oved doesn’t – fried garlic bread strips, dripping in oil and artery-hardening calories and free for the taking. You can pile them in a pita or eat them on the side. Afterwards, you feel like crap but it almost makes up for the less than stellar quality of the falafel itself.

Bob had long held that the best falafel in town was at Shlomo Falafel in Jerusalem’s Bucharian Quarter. It’s owned by relatives of his wife. One week we drove across town to give it a shot. The verdict: the balls were better but we found the overall gastronomic experience lacking. No garlic sauce, only a rather plain cabbage salad and not even any humous! Bob’s family favorite was no more.

Falafel is one of the constants of my life in the Middle East. I’ve eaten all over the country and had quite presentable meals in Haifa, Ramat HaSharon, Beersheva and beyond. During our family’s recent trip to Egypt, we got to know the falafel there as well. The Egyptians make a flatter, more oblong ball and put only 2-3 of them in a very small pita (at 25 cents a sandwich, it’s kind of like the White Castle of North Africa). Surprisingly they serve it with potato chips rather than French fries as is usually the case in Israel. We found them quite tasty, but upon our return to Israel, a visit to Falafel Oved confirmed that our local supplier still remained king.

Do Bob and I ever consider branching out to something more exotic, say a burger or a plate of pasta? Nah…that would defeat the down and dirty experience of indulging in Israel’s quintessential national fast food and feeling somehow patriotic while stuffing our guts. And besides, that garlic sauce is just to die for.

Falafel Oved is located just north of Yehuda Street on Derech Bethlehem, between the dry cleaner and the Frankfurter old age home. There’s no phone, no take out and no reservations. Get in line like the rest of us suckers and prepare to indulge. Falafel in a pita runs 11 shekels, in a laffa it’s NIS 15. Bring your own napkins!

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Listen to this post and subscribe to the This Normal Life podcast here.

Following the successful conclusion of her first dog-sitting job, my 13-year-old daughter Merav has been looking for ways to expand her business, especially now that she has extra time due to the two and a half week Pesach vacation that began last week. An article last week in the Israeli daily newspaper Idiot Ahronot may very well point the way.

During Pesach, observant Jews are required to rid their homes of any hametz – leavened bread and products made of wheat, barley and other flours. But what about food items that are not clearly edible, like an old burned piece of toast or a shampoo that may have some ingredients containing possible hametz? Jewish law explains that if a dog would not eat it, then it is not hametz.

That was the impetus for a new business launched in Jerusalem by the improbably named Frumie R. Pesach. “Not Fit for a Dog – Canine Kosher for Pesach Inspections” pledges to put even the most stringent minds at ease by guaranteeing that one’s home is ready for the holiday.

Ms. Pesach has trained a team of six dogs who accompany her or one of her staff on pre-Passover visits to clients’ homes. The pooches then scour the house sniffing for would-be hametz. If they find any offending leaven, the dogs eat it up, removing any probable cause for holiday concern. If the dogs won’t touch a questionable item, it can safely be considered not hametz. Clients can hire up to three dogs to sniff at once, ensuring both a quicker and more thorough search.

“The idea came to me one day when I was catching a plane,” Ms. Pesach told Idiot Ahronot. “I noticed a security officer with a dog checking for bombs and I thought, finding hametz in the middle of the seder is no less of a tragedy for the observant Jewish household.”

Following every inspection, “Not Fit for a Dog” grants its own kosher for Pesach “paw-print” seal. Despite the whimsical approach, this is serious stuff: the operation is under the strict supervision of Rabbi Leib Ben Rador of Bnei Bark.

Pricing is based on the number of dogs employed, how many rooms are sniffed, and a per item fee for “spot checking” where customers can bring specific items down from hard to reach cabinets for the dogs to give the once over. This is especially handy for pharmaceuticals and toiletries which some kosher consumers consider in the same category as food. Homeowners with more than one residence receive a discount for volume. “Not Fit for a Dog” has a partnership with the LiceBusters service in case any of its “employees” pick up inadvertent hitchhikers.

“Not Fit for a Dog” has two Golden Retrievers (one purebred), a miniature poodle, a Dachshund and two mutts on its staff. The Retrievers are most in demand. “They’re fast and really know how to search,” Ms. Pesach explains. The poodle is also popular. “A very smart animal.” The Dachshund is mostly used in homes with furniture in hard to reach places.

“Not Fit for a Dog” is currently self-financed and business has been booming so far. Next up: an Internet site where it will be possible to make reservations for 2008 months in advance as well as additional services. “We’re hoping to train the dogs to clean ovens and lick down refrigerators,” Ms. Pesach says.

What do the dogs do in the long off-season between Passovers? “They go back to their owners, of course,” Ms. Pesach says, where they are prized for their newly learned manners. “After working with us, these dogs no longer sniff each other’s…well, you know. I guess they’ve developed more refined tastes.”

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This article was published in The Jerusalem Post's April 2, 2007 Pesach Supplement and can be found here.
The audio version of this article can be found here.

The votes are in and the result is decidedly…inconclusive.

On February 8, I posted two pictures of me – one with short and one with long hair and asked readers to vote on which I should keep. I pointed out that my daughter Merav favored the long look while my wife Jody felt I was sexier with short hair. The goal was to grow it until Purim so Merav could dress me up like a girl for the holiday, then decide what to do. A month after the original post appeared here, the Jerusalem Post published the article in its Friday edition, both print and online.

As a result of all this exposure, over the course of the last month and a half I have received hundreds of opinions – by email, posted as comments to the blog, and in person - at one point a mini-van literally screeched to a halt in front of me as I was jogging and the driver yelled out "keep it long!"

Despite that dramatic proclamation, the votes were split almost evenly. Here are some of my favorite responses.










That final point was emphasized this past Shabbat in shul when Jody told me that, when she looked across the mechitza (don’t tell me that she shouldn’t be doing that, come on...we all do it), she was just not attracted to the man she found looking back. Well, what choice did I have. Two days later, Dave my haircutter worked his magic and I am once more my true love’s paragon.

Here's the result, a few hours after the haircut:



Thanks to everyone for being so interactive. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been writing This Normal Life for nearly five years now. Blogging is not about one-way publishing – it’s the feedback makes all the difference. So please keep on reading…and writing in!

An audio version of this post can be found here (including some hair appropriate music from Pavement - check it out!)

Here is a slideshow of pictures from our trip to Egypt. It's in QuickTime format. Click on it to play or download the file.

Enjoy!

 
For the past several months, I’ve been growing my hair long. The official reason is that my thirteen-year-old daughter Merav wants to dress me up as a girl for Purim, and she wants my hair longer so she can braid it or work with it in some way.

But there’s another explanation. As my haircutter told me when he discovered the reason why he hadn’t seen me lately: “Every guy in his mid-40s tries to grow his hair long…if he can. Something about trying to reclaim his youth. He eventually decides it looks terrible and cuts it off. It’s just a matter of time.”

Yeah, that’s probably true. It does look pretty terrible. My wife Jody can barely tolerate it. I’ve seen her looking forlornly at the pictures from the kids’ bar and bat mizvahs, just a few years ago, when my hair was still tidy. “You looked so sexy,” she said wistfully one evening. Emphasis on the past tense.

Yet, still I persist. You see, for me, hair has always been about something more than just looks.

I first grew my hair long when I was a pre-teen. I wanted to rebel against the suburban kids who already had transformed my name “Brian” into “Brain” to reflect my grades. If they wouldn’t accept me, I’d go to a crowd that would: the hippie crowd. This was 1973.

The only problem was, my facial features hadn’t caught up with my hairstyle. One day we had a substitute in math class. The teacher called out “will the young woman in the back row please answer the next question?” I looked around to see who she was talking to. “You, young lady,” she persisted looking straight at me. From that day, I had a new nickname. “Briana.”

As soon as I was able, I added facial hair to my appearance. It didn’t grow so well. My English teacher, Mrs. Andreski, pulled me aside one day and, in what in hindsight I see was well meaning concern, suggested I take a black felt tip pen and fill in the gaps.

By college, my hair and my beard had both matured enough to require accessorizing. In went a little stud earring. I was now the complete picture of a San Francisco flower child. Just 15 years too late. But I was cool. I majored in creative writing and played new wave and punk rock on the campus radio station.

Then I moved to Israel and got religion. Suddenly, the hair and the earring (if not the beard) felt out of place with the white shirt and nice slacks I wore on Shabbat. The earring was the first to go – it clashed with the kippa now firmly in place on my head.

For the past few years, I’ve worn my hair very short, though I haven’t shaved my head like some of my compatriots (my hairline has receded a bit but it hasn’t gone balding...yet).

Then, sometime around my 46th birthday, I started to wonder: did my external appearance match my inner beliefs? The kippa and beard had long since come off (it made me look alternately like a Rabbi or a Hamas terrorist, neither of which fit). I’d been working at home already for a couple of years – no more meetings in hi-tech offices. And in the last few weeks, I’ve started a radio show – a podcast playing independent and small label bands and musicians – please check it out at Indiescrete.com. Maybe longer hair would be appropriate again?

It’s been almost six months since my last haircut. My hair is thinner than it used to be in college, and where it once hung down fashionably, it now sort of curls and flips. I can almost tie it into a ponytail. It’s unruly but it’s mine.

At the top of this post are two pictures, one with short and one with longer hair. Now I turn it over to you. What do you think? Should I keep going and please my daughter (and my inner rebel), or return to the easy-care neat and nifty look (and please my wife).

Vote by sending me an email or posting your comments on the blog. I’ll write about the results in a few weeks!

Special bonus picture: me in my college hippie days:



Here's the link to the audio version of this post.
And don't forget, check out Indiescrete, my new indie pop podcast!

There’s an old saying “the only thing that separates men from boys is the size of their toys.” When my wife Jody and I were first planning out our recently-completed home renovation, trying to decide about such critical issues as whether to redo one bathroom or three, the one thing I held out for was my toy: my TV.

Not just any TV though. I had my heart set on one of those big screen plasmas with the surround sound home theater – five speakers and a scary sub-woofer to pound out the bass. I wanted to be able to really feel the drama and excitement of Jack Bauer going after the bad guys in 24; to be scared silly by the smoke monster in the jungle of Lost across a breathtaking 42-inch widescreen display.

Well, Jody got her bathrooms and I got my flat screen…and, so I soon learned, a whole lot more, at least in terms of family drama.

We hired a company specializing in home theater to recommend and install the system. We debated between LCD and plasma, the future of high-definition connections, and the right size for our viewing distance (“no one ever complained about having a TV that’s too big,” our home theater consultant Max assured me).

The installation process was unbelievable: it took two guys a whole day – pretty much non-stop from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM with only one short break for lunch – to hang the TV and the speakers and connect everything with some $500 alone of the highest quality audio and video cable. They tweaked and tested and tried out every possible parameter.

At the end of the day, the cable guys came to install the Yes Max PVR (personal video recorder) – a TiVo-like device that allows us to digitally record programs with the push of a button.

For a gadget-head like me, this was pure heaven. When I die, skip the pearly gates, just take me straight to F.A.O. Circuit City.

When the system was finally in place, there was no question as to what would come next. We had to watch something. Our first film on the big screen as a family was nothing to write home about – Sweet Home Alabama, a sweet little comedy starring Reese Witherspoon. Still, the picture was spectacular and the sounds of birds chirping and country music came at us from front, back and center. Nothing like a scary sub-woofer to bring out the dulcet tones in a banjo.

The next night, we were back in front of the screen again. And the night after that too. Our previous experience going cold turkey on TV had long since stopped being enforced. That much was clear by where we located the TV in our new house: not in an out-of-the-way little TV nook but in the living room, right in the center of the house. After a few days with our new toy, it was clear we were back on the road to entertainment addiction.

What was I thinking? I figured we could handle it. As a family, we were older, more mature than when we banned the TV outright. Having a state-of-the-art system shouldn’t necessarily go hand-in-hand with the loss of will power. But, apparently, the larger the screen, the greater any existing familial tendencies will be exacerbated. Ours, we quickly learned, broke down into three main categories:

1. Social life? Who needs a social life? Or put another way: “You wanna go to the movies?” “Nah…”

OK, that’s not entirely fair. One of the reasons I bought the TV in the first place was to avoid having to go out to the theater. I mean, what’s the point of paying the equivalent of $8.00 to sit in an either over- or under-heated auditorium with a crappy sound system where you can hear the blam blam from the latest Vin Diesel film next door better than the contemplative Sofia Coppola you intended to see and, in any case, everyone around you is telegraphing the end by talking on their cell phones. If you ask me, you might as well stay home where you can at least hit the pause button.

But the TV with all its big screen and Dolby goodness has become such an allure that we’re finding ourselves turning down other offers…and not just to go to the movies. The other night, a hot new band was playing at a free outdoor concert. Did we get the kids in the car and head out? Of course not. We watched an episode of House MD on the big screen.

(The flip side of this is that now friends all seem to want to pop over to our house. But are they coming to see us…or to see what’s on?)

2. “There’s nothing to do. Can we watch TV?” Beyond eschewing invitations out, there’s also the amazing phenomenon that everything else in the house that once held some interest, particularly for the younger set, suddenly has become entirely and utterly boring.

Nothing else to do? Let’s make a list…hmmm, you could ride your bike, or read a book, or go to the park, or play the piano, or take a dip in the pool, or learn Java programming, or cook dinner, or do some mall hopping or floor mopping …so what do you mean there’s nothing to do but watch the same episode of Family Guy for the 17th time in a row!

3. Quit hogging the remote! Or in the case of our new TV – remotes. Three of them, in fact. There’s the remote for the receiver, which controls the flow of video and audio in and out of the system; the remote for the personal video recorder which is where all the “taped” programs are now stored; and the remote for the DVD player. There’s also a fourth remote for the TV itself, but we only need that when we’re hooking up the laptop to play something we’ve downloaded…legally, from iTunes, of course. Max, my home theater guy, said he'd be glad to sell and program for us a single “universal” remote for us – for “only” another $500.

Whoever controls the remote gets to decide what program the rest of the family will be “allowed” to watch for the evening. This happened, of course, with our old TV. Somehow, though, the shift to 42-inches – ostensibly a mere doubling from our previous 21-incher – has led to proportionally much greater battles.

Despite an escalation in tensions likely to rival a spirited debate over cucumber prices in a Middle Eastern shuk on a particularly humid day, I don’t regret buying the big screen. It really is a sweet system. And, after two months, there are some signs that the novelty may be starting to wear off. Eight-year-old Aviv has made a list (posted prominently on the refrigerator) of “things to do that don’t include TV.” Jody and I got out of the house last week – twice – with friends.

But the truest sign that there may be light at the end of the boob tube came the other night. As we sat down for – you guessed it – another family movie night, we reviewed our selection on the PVR. There were three top contenders: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Elf, and Million Dollar Baby. Now which one would you pick?

•    A cute but mostly fluff-filled romantic story starring Kate Hudson
•    A slight comedy about a human somehow mistaken for one of Santa’s elves, or…
•    The Oscar-winning best picture of the year!

The kids voted for Elf. Jody and I vetoed them.

Thirteen-year-old Merav opted not to watch at all and went downstairs to read – itself an inconceivable possibility just a few short weeks before – though not before spouting off the siren call of the teenager girl: “it’s not fair, why do you always get to do what you want?”

Oh, I don’t know, because we’re the parents?

Fifteen-year-old Amir, however, chose to stay and watch despite being on the losing end. He spent the first half of the movie scowling, but by Baby’s devastatingly ending, though he would never admit it, he had clearly been won over.

And the best part: I got to hold the remote the entire time!

The area around the old train station in Jerusalem has been bustling with activity in the last year or so. New restaurants, bars and clubs have all sprung up, sharing the space that once was the end of the line for the Tel-Aviv Jerusalem train built over 100 years ago by the Turks and finished by the British.

While the train was closed in 1996, to be revamped and reopened only a few years ago, it now ends at a station next to the Malcha Mall. That’s left the old train station – located between German Colony and Baka in some of the city’s most prime real estate – open to new development.

My wife Jody and I find it pleasant to stroll through this rapidly gentrifying district. The other evening, we spotted a new sign for a place called “Negro.” I assume the literary connotation is with the Spanish word rather than any African-American racial stereotypes. Under the main title in the sign were the words “Active Bar.”

That sounded interesting. I imagined one of those high-energy establishments where the bartenders are all flamboyant showmen and women, masters at mixing up a drink while putting on a performance like in the inspiring but mediocre chick flick “Coyote Ugly.”

We decided to check it out. But first we had to meet the bouncer.

Now Jerusalem has always been a laid back kind of place. Its residents have never been particularly concerned about what someone’s wearing; in Israel’s capital city, everyone is equally trendy, trashy and nonchalant at once. Hippies, religious frumsters and even those suffering from delusions that they’re King David or Jesus have traditionally all been welcome in Jerusalem’s mostly casual restaurants and watering holes.

But the area around the old train station represents a “different” Jerusalem. The first restaurant opened on the site of a rusting fuel storage silo that sat astride the train depot, is one of the coolest places in the city. With funky chandeliers inside and a lively bar in the middle of a spacious outdoor sitting area, the Colony restaurant would seem more at home at the Tel Aviv Port (another yuppified entertainment center) than just a stone’s throw away from the Western Wall.

Colony is also totally treife, reveling in cheeseburgers and calamari. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just because it’s not my culinary cup of tea doesn’t mean that non-kosher Jerusalemites should be deprived of a trendy shellfish option. It’s just that it looks so inviting…

Nearby the Colony’s milk and meaty decadence is the Ma’abada (“the Lab”) – a state-of-the-art music club funded by venture capitalist turned civic entrepreneur Eral Margalit. The Ma’abada is now the premiere location for Israeli and overseas acts who want an intimate rather than stadium setting. I saw Matisyahu there last year.

Margalit has plans to open an international animation studio in the same area, attracting top Israeli talent to work for media networks in Israel and beyond. The restaurants and bars, presumably, will serve as social spillover for the hi-tech creative types who will spend their days dreaming up the next Toy Story or Monster’s Inc.

Whenever I’ve walked through the development at the old train station, I’ve been struck by the fashionistim who have discovered that Jerusalem can be cool and not just holy. This is a place to be seen and if Jerusalem has such a thing as paparazzi, this would be where they kick back between dashes at Yael Ben Zohar and Kobi Oz.

Which brings us back to the Negro Bar and its bouncer.

“Can we go in?” Jody innocently asked. The burly bouncer gave us a head to toe scan. I was wearing my typical uniform: jeans and a polo shirt. Jody had on a light flower-patterned dress, perfect for a warm Jerusalem night. The bouncer said he’d have to ask the manager. He disappeared for a few minutes and, when he returned, announced, “We’re not open for business yet.”

At that point, a group of black and leather-clad Tel Aviv trendies descended. Looking like a pack of leopards out for a prowl, sunglasses and cigarettes in hand, the bouncer gave them the same look over and then – remarkably – opened the curtain to let them in.

“Hey!” I said. “What’s that all about?” realizing that this bouncer was also a screener and we’d just been found wanting. After all, this wasn’t Studio 42 and Jerusalem isn’t New York in the 80s.

“You don’t want to come in,” the bouncer said in broken English.

“Why not?” I said, now feeling particularly indignant at this very un-Jerusalem-like treatment.

The bouncer stared back but didn’t answer.

“What kind of place is this anyway? Jody asked.

“It’s a peekabar,” the bouncer said.

“A what?” Jody replied and I thought: this would make a perfect round for one of our favorite kids’ games “This is a pen, a what, a pen, a what? Oh, a pen…”

“Well, peekaboo to you too,” I chimed in. “If that’s the case, can we just have a peek then?”

“I told you. It’s a peek-a-bar,” the bouncer repeated, enunciating the syllables. “And it’s really not for you.”

A few more rounds of this and then suddenly, it dawned on me. “Peekabar” must be the Hebrew transliteration of the English “pick up bar.” I whispered my revelation to Jody and we both giggled nervously.

“OK, then,” I said. “We’ll be going. Good luck with that peekabar now, you hear.”

I suppose it’s not so bad. In modern Jerusalem, there’s undoubtedly demand for even a pick up bar, however lurid the environment may seem to us old “religious” folk.

Just the same, on our next stroll, I’m not so sure we’ll be heading for the old train station area so quickly. I’ve kind of lost my taste for calamari and cheeseburgers.

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This article was also published in the Jerusalem Post's In Jerusalem magazine. Here's the link.

Here are two words you don't normally hear in the same sentence: "Exotic" and "Orlando."

Exotic is more frequently associated with places like Tahiti and Thailand or even Monte Carlo. Orlando, on the other hand, is heavy on such decidedly non-exotic offerings as Early Bird Specials and Premium Outlet Malls.

But for me, on a recent business trip to the U.S., Orlando was as exotic as they come.

You see, it had been nearly three years since I was last in the States. In the twelve years since I immigrated to Israel, I’d never taken such a long gap between visits. During my first nine years in Israel, I traveled across the Atlantic frequently, whether on business or family vacations. It was part of an unwritten contract I made with myself before coming here, that I would never be too long without touching base with "the old country."

It's not like I didn't travel beyond Israel's borders at all these last years. My family and I have had some very enjoyable - and objectively much more exotic - vacations recently: We've been to Prague, Italy, Turkey, even India.

But America…I missed the country of my roots. And absence – combined with a healthy dose of subjugated culture shock – has the power to transform even the most typical slice of suburban America into a wild ride only somewhat less invigorating than a dash through traffic in downtown Delhi.

Truth be told, I was also itching for a break from Israel. My difficulty with Hebrew, the lack of anything one could reasonably describe as "customer service," the insane driving behavior … it all adds up. Despite the fact that Israeli Independence Day was just this week, I didn't feel unpatriotic. I just needed a little distance, that's all.

My introduction to “Exotic Orlando” began even before I left, when Daniella, the ten-year-old daughter of my friends Yuval and Hilorie, caught wind of where I was going.

"Can you get me a prize?" she asked in all earnestness and with great enthusiasm.

"A what?" I asked.

"A prize. They give away prizes at Disney World."

I had offhandedly mentioned that I had decided to take a day off to "play" as part of my trip. My brother arranged to fly out from California to meet me and we had planned an excursion to Disney's MGM Studios theme park.

"You know, I've been to Disney before and I've never gotten a prize," I said.

"You've got to be sad," Daniella went on. "They give away t-shirts and these things that shpritz water and have a little fan."

"But I'm not planning on being sad. I'm planning on being very happy." Disney World doesn't bill itself as "the happiest place on earth" for nothing.

"You could pretend to be sad."

"Anyway," I added, "How could I bring you back a prize and not get one for my own kids?"

"You'll have to look very sad."

Well, I'm sorry to report that I did not get Daniella a prize. But my brother and I had a great time. We rode on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride three times and the Aerosmith Rock 'n Roller Coaster twice.

At the end of a long and action packed day, America seemed as far away and foreign from Israel as a ride on a gondola in Venice though we could have done that too, sort of, if we’d had time to visit Disney's neighboring Epcot park.

The next day, my business meetings started with a "get to know you" team-building kind of event. The locale for our group bonding: "Gatorland" – lovingly described in literature and signage across the copious gift shop as "the alligator capital of the world."

And so it was. A 110-acre theme park with thousands of alligators and crocodiles of all sizes, Gatorland is most famous for its "Gator Wrestling" show and its "Gator Jumparoo" where the poor gators are enticed to leap four to five feet out of the water to snatch a dead chicken hanging from a pole on a string.

My daughter, the recently converted vegetarian, would have been appalled. But I thought to myself: It doesn't get better than this.

When my business meetings were over, I had a little time left to prowl the mall. I drove past a sea of McDonald's and stores selling sofas and hardwood floors, past the IHOP and the Waffle House and the "Steak and Shake." I caught a couple of flicks at the multiplex, and channel surfed until my remote finger was too pooped to click.

At the end of a week, my suitcase was stuffed with Dockers and Geoffrey Beene shirts bought at half price, toiletries from the Wal-Mart Super Center, a stack of computer equipment and one lonely bag of (half-eaten) Krispy Kreme mini-cruller doughnuts.

All during the trip, everyone was ever so polite. Salespeople hustled to help. The highways were wide and modern, and I didn't hear a word of Hebrew my entire stay.

Paradise?

Not quite. No one moves to a place just for the shopping (or do they)? But as a temporary break from Israel in a land of endless vistas (and endless shopping), big cars and low taxes, it was quite welcome … if not truly "exotic" in the purist sense of the term.

On my plane ride back to Israel, I was seated next to a group of young Israeli adults. They were loud and boisterous. They refused to stay confined to their seats. They slapped each other on the back and high-fived half the flight home.

In short, they represented everything I had wanted a break from. But that was before my trip. Now we were fellow travelers, returning from vacation. Of course they were filled with unbridled energy. Who wouldn't be after a trip abroad, and in particular to Orlando ... which will forever be known in my personal travelogue as "the most exotic place on earth?"

I hadn’t been to the dentist for almost a year. It wasn’t because I was afraid. Rather it was the opposite. The last time I went, there wasn’t enough pain.

Now before you accuse me of emulating the masochistic patient who begs for more from dentist in disguise Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, let me explain.

I have been seeing the same dentist for ten years. And for nine of those years, my hygienist was an Israeli woman named Ronit.

Ronit used to work on me like a tree surgeon wielding an axe. I’d walk out bloody and battered after some 40 minutes in the chair, but I knew she was thorough.

She’d berate me for not flossing enough and would stuff my pockets with special anti-bacterial mouthwash and long-necked toothbrushes, but I knew she cared.

When she told me I needed to see her every six months, then every four and finally every three, I knew it wasn’t just to scrape off plaque.

Now, I know one’s relationship with his or her hygienist is mostly unrequited. After all, despite sitting so close together alone in a closed room, only one person can do the talking. But Ronit would always ask me questions that required more than a monosyllabic response. You’d be amazed the range of emotion one can convey with a mouth stuck full of gauze.

Over nine years, we really got to know each other.

So when Ronit announced she was getting married, I was delighted.

“Mmm, uphlk, phlihs, pituaah,” I said as she brandished her pick.

“Thank you,” Ronit said. “His name is Itzhak and I’ll be moving with him to Los Angeles next month.”

“What?” I sputtered, enunciating my shock clearly enough for the receptionist to hear half way across the office.

But what was I to do? It wasn’t like I could talk her out of it. And she was still holding that pick. Who was I to stand in the way of true love?

And so, after nine satisfying years, I had to start all over with a new hygienist. Her name was Einat. She was pleasant enough as she set to work on my teeth. A little quiet, but we were still getting to know each other.

Fifteen minutes after she’d begun, she was removing the flimsy paper bib around my neck and telling me to spit. She was done.

“That’s it?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Why not?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was just so…well, it barely hurt.”

“You can come back in six months,” Einat said as she walked me over to the cashier.

Something wasn’t right here. Ronit used to take her time. She wanted to see me every three months. She was a sculptor and I was her work of art.

I felt like a dumped suitor.

When my six month reminder card came in the mail, I blew it off and cancelled the appointment. I rationalized my feelings. It wasn’t just that I was being jilted. No, I was getting jipped! Heck if I was going to go back and pay 175 shekels (just under $40) for fifteen minutes of inconsequential chit chat…with no pain.

Dr. Abramson, the dentist, got concerned. Nine months had gone by when he called.

“Is everything OK?” he asked. I didn’t have the courage to tell him the truth. By now, this whole mixed up love-hate-pain triangle thing had grown way out of proportion. Yet, I knew my teeth were being neglected.

Somehow I managed to blurt it out to the receptionist when she called shortly afterward to follow up on the dentist's call. “I’ll talk to her,” the receptionist said. “Leave it to me. You just come back in.”

A few days later, as I climbed back into the familiar chair, Einat smiled knowingly. She went to work. No words were exchanged; there was no need. Fifteen minutes went by. Then twenty. Then thirty. The water pressure stung my gums. The pick dug deep. There was pain.

And then Einat sighed and told me I’d need to come back in four months. She wrote out the name of some mouthwash with a funky name on a piece of paper. She even handed me a toothbrush.

OK, so it wasn’t three months. And she didn’t last the full forty minutes. But we were on the right track. I walked out with a spring in my step…and a mouth full of topical anesthetic.

This relationship just might have a future yet.