Tuesday: First Day in RBS

We made it through the packing and shlepping and even one last hurrah of cheap pizza (amusing story: I called at 11:00 to get a GF pizza [plain] plus a regular pizza with black olives and mushrooms delivered from the yummy place near Fern and Jonathan.  This is also one of the only places to get GF pizza in Jerusalem.  I was told it would take 40 minutes.  At 11:55, I called and told them that we were leaving any minute.  The owner said, 'he will be there in a few seconds'.  Yup, about 3 seconds later, there was the delivery scooter.  Unfortunately, he had only one box with him: a GF pizza with mushrooms and black olives.  Doh.  Fortunately, we were staying across the street from a pizza store which sells whole pies for 20 NIS--$5 [and a badatz hechsher to boot!].  Crisis averted ;))

The people in our new neighborhood are very nice.  We borrowed a folding table, chairs and air mattresses from a lovely woman who delivered it all to us and also brought a bottle of seltzer and tray of cinnamon buns.....We've been invited out for both Shabbos meals this week and for lunch next week.....Penina's e-penpal came over with two other girls who will also be in the class and brought a plate of candy and a sign welcoming her......and Ilana and I are being picked up tomorrow by the local gluten-free maven and her daughter who has celiac disease (one grade younger than Ilana, but same school).  They are going to show us all where all the GF goodies are hiding in the local supermarkets.

Unfortunately, we heard some less-than-delightful news about our lift today.  We had been hoping it would arrive next week, but the shipping company says that it left Boston after sitting in port 5 days there and is now almost to Italy where it will also likely get stuck for a number of days and will probably not arrive until the day before Rosh Hashanah.  We have been told by numerous people that the period around RH is (l'havdil) like the week between Xmas and New Year's in the US--nothing but nothing happens.  We were really hoping, of course, to avoid our lift arriving around RH and also hoping that our stuff would be here sooner (the best case scenario was that the lift would arrive next week).  Please send good vibes for a really quick stopover in Italy and that our lift arrives soon!!!