The Jersey Shore comes with its own lexicon: custard is soft serve ice cream, “golf” always implies windmills and clown faces, not bunkers and dog lefts right, and directionally it’s “down the shore” even if you’re going east or north relative to your home address. Less happy connotations are attached to “shoobies” (people who supposedly put their shoes in boxes before going on the beach) and “bennies” (an acronym-turned-diminutive-turned-ugly of Bayonne Elizabeth Newark, the cities at the head end of the rail line that connected them down the shore in the 50s). Bennie now refers to anyone who behaves badly while down the shore.

Examples abound:

Stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, people on bikes, families going to or from the beach with body boards, umbrellas and chairs. Even if there’s not a crosswalk, stop sign or other traffic flow indicator, stop your car.

Puddles are a by product of any amount of rain. The water table tends to be high near the shore, and storm drains take a while to sink an inch or two of rainwater into the nearest bay. Do not drive through puddles so fast that you splash people. First of all, if you’re splashing, you’re going too fast and second, it violates the de facto law of respecting pedestrians.

Give the bike lanes a wide berth. Don’t drive in them, especially to make a tight right turn after not stopping for someone waiting to cross the side street.

Despite the obvious progression of the time arrow and some economic realities, it was great to be back down the shore. A few favorite houses have been torn down and replaced with much more expensive and expansive retreats. Shermat’s Amusements is long gone (at least a decade now), replaced by a short row of townhouses. The Ship’s Wheel II in Harvey Cedars, rebuilt after the 1962 hurricane that pushed the first edition of that store into the bay, has retired like its original owners. The Hands and Surf City 5&10 department stores, stock more clothing and less in the way of hardware and tools in light of the declining number of DIY homeowners. But the Crust and Crumb bakery still makes sugary treats that are worth the calories, the wait, and the anticipation of walking back to your humble abode with a bag of elephant ears. Skate and surf culture have made a strong comeback, and there are at least half a dozen surf shops to outfit kids longboarding on the boulevard. The Showplace Ice Cream Parlor remains the best way to end a great day entertained by up and coming musical theater talent.

Even the occasional bad bennie behavior can’t detract from this: The sun sinks over the yardarms of the Bay Village Schooner (forever the Lucy Evelyn in my mind), the beach gear is rinsed off and you’re out for a walk with a girl you fell in love with 40 years earlier. Even if you’re splashed by a passing BMW with New York plates, you’re down the shore.

Monday May 10, Bangalore to Hyderabad. Every time I’m in Bangalore I find something new and amazing. On our way from the Juniper Networks office to the (new) airport, we passed a statue of Ganesh that was easily three meters tall; we took a few detours onto some minor roads and had to jam on the brakes whle three monkeys crossed in front of our van. At the airport in Hyderabad, I grabbed bottle of water from a vending machine for 20 rupees (about 50 US cents) and enjoyed seeing the vegetarian McDonalds on the ground floor – McSpicy and McPaneer sandwiches bringing an American fast food flavor to Indian cuisine. I’m not sure this is a good thing; the food served in the Juniper cafeteria was just as fast, more “authentic” and probably a lot better tasting. Of all of the traits to export in American companies, “fast” isn’t necessarily the best.

Tuesday May 11, Java One Hyderabad. An early rehearsal time coupled with a random night’s sleep meant it was oatmeal for breakfast, washed down with iced coffee and lots of water. I always travel with a few instant oatmeal packets and a few Powerbars for those times when my logistics and the buffet schedules don’t coincide. The early rehearsal was well worth it, however, as I got the feel for an exceptionally wide and well-produced stage set. Java One was scheduled to start at 9:00, and at 8:58 the room was filled with more than 2,000 developers. It was truly a great crowd, from the opening keynote to the technical tracks and the Oracle Technology Network reception that evening. I kicked off the OTN event by telling the crowd “Today was technical; tonight is techno”. It’s nice when a joke translates across cultures, even if helped along by the house DJ.

My sponsor keynote for Java One was a bit of an homage to James Gosling and his continued references to Deutsch’s Eight Fallacies of distributed applications. Historically, applications have informed networks of their demands – latency ceilings, bandwidth to storage, and a cross-section of user interactions and access points. Most of the time, applications get this wrong, or make incomplete assumptions about the network itself per Deutch’s list. The value of network applications, and of having a developer platform that exposes the network to general purpose developers, is that the network can now inform applications. Whether it’s identifying the signature of an over-simplification (like assuming transit times or cost round to zero) or providing details on ingress and egress data volumes and cost models, nework applications have a symbiotic relationship with user-level applications. It was encouraging to hear Nandini Ramani from Oracle’s Fusion Middleware Group discuss Oracle’s goals of providing network-aware libraries in a future release of Java. Even more interesting to me was Nandini’s hint that Java 9 will include data integration capabillities via name/value stores, because the procedural and data-driven domains need to remain joined at the coder’s hip (and hipness).

Leaving Hyderabad for Kuala Lumpur and then Ho Chi Minh City, one of the Duty Free store staff recognized the Juniper logo on my backpack and had some nice words about my company. That’s the kind of brand recognition you want; we can operate as an ingredient brand by making networks faster, more scalable and more efficient, and we have top-level brand recognition for that engineering leadership. It was a nice close to a 16-hour day.

Wednesday May 12, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I was immediately struck by four things at the airport: A huge number of construction cranes (the best indicator of an economy’s growth); an almost impassable sea of people with white driver pick-up signs (the second indicator of growth); intense, tropical heat and very smooth, rich iced coffee to offset the heat and crush of people. Someone joked with me that Ho Chi Minh City has 8 million residents with 12 million motorbikes, and the swarm of two-wheelers at every intersection didn’t make that seem like hyperbole. Both India and Vietnam benefit from the literal mobility of a new middle class, empowered by fast enough personal transportation. More amazingly, Vietnam is home to about 90 million people: roughly one-quarter the population of the US. It’s a country rich in many ways, from people to culture to a construction boom that was accepting materials at 3:00 AM (at least from the way I interpreted the noises at that hour).

We had a wonderful summit with our Juniper Networks partners from Southeast Asia, and I discussed the value of software and its integration. My attempts to imitate the fan dancers who welcomed us into the morning session was less humorous that I had hoped (I stapled a 20,000 VND note to a fan and waved it up the aisle, showing that “Software is Money”). However, nobody fell asleep (or left the room) in my post-lunch slot, which is my first metric for a good afternoon.

I left the hotel at 3:30 AM Friday morning for the first leg of my outbound flight to Hong Kong. After tracking downs and distance for the early part of the week, I realized that I didn’t really complete a small circle tour. My total flight plan described a pair of small semi-circles, going parallel to the equator en route to Hong Kong and then perpendicular to it over the Arctic on the way back to New York. Total distance: seven flight legs, three hotels, somewhere between six and eight buffets, way too many hot peppers, and about 21,000 miles in the air. Overall, an impressively smooth and well-organized trip, thanks to each of our local offices and the folks who ran Oracle Develop/Java One India.

Despite going to bed at 2:30 AM, I was awakened nearly 90 minutes later by the sun streaming through a crack in the drapery. When you have only one time zone for a country that has the east-west coverage of two or three, being in the western part of the country means you’re an early riser. Nothing I couldn’t fight off with iced coffee, eggs and mango pickles. Also tried kolchari, which were exceptionally spicy ground chicken filled dumpings that were lightly fried.

Driving from the hotel to the Juniper campus, I was struck by how much Bangalore seems to have evolved in the two years since I’ve been here. City streets have speed bumps (perhaps in response to the growth in the number of cars?). There are a few signs for “Major Road” and “1st Cross” or “3rd Cross” streets, the first obvious signage I’ve seen (I cannot drive in Bangalore, because it truly requires mental knowledge of the entire city layout). A truck was out picking up garbage along one of the side streets. At the same time, the Incredible India indicators remain – getting stuck behind a slow-moving cow on a narrow street, seeing a tractor adorned with yellow flower garlands, the cacophony of car and rickshaw horns that substitute for directional signals.

Had a great set of meetings with our engineers in Bangalore, including a fairly intense set of future design and direction discussions. Met a group of about a dozen interns who will be working for two months on experimental ideas – great to see enthusiastic, capable and smiling new faces. And three hours post-lunch, feeling is returning to my mouth after enjoying aloo capsicum – potatoes and hot peppers. Didn’t need the mango pickles to punch it up a notch or seven.

During my personal introduction to the team, I mentioned that I like music and loudness in general (something about that Northeast US heritage). Add in my fondness for spiciness, and it turns out that I have a prediliction for things measured on logarithmic scales (Scovilles and decibels). An engineering joke waiting to be trotted out at a future staff meeting.

Flight legs: 2 Total Air Miles: About 8,000 Flight Hours: 16 Total hours in Bangalore: 15 (yes, that seems wrong)

Greetings from Frankfurt, Germany. Lufthansa is remarkably well organized, and unlike Air France, they insist on seeing your baggage claim receipt so they can ensure your luggage is transferred and bag matched on your connecting flight. Confidences are high that I won’t have to dip into the emergency t-shirt collection once I land in Bangalore.

I know enough German to order breakfast, mostly from listening Kraftwerk and to my grandparents speaking Yiddish when I was quite young. Unfortunately, the words I remember are “mun” (poppyseeds), “tzweinzig” (twenty), “drei” (three), “konfiture” (it passes for jelly), “apfel” (apple) and a few other things. “Computerlieber” (Computer Lover) has not come up. I won’t starve, and I can mangle “iced coffee without milk” sufficiently to get fueled up for the 2nd leg of the long inbound to Bangalore.

Doing my part for independent artists: Two different people have asked me about my Jeph Jacques “Bear Monster” t-shirt. It’s one of my favorite travel shirts because it’s soft and the screening is centered and small enough such that it breathes even on a stuffy airplane. The Continental check-in agent asked for the website to buy one of her own, and one woman working the secondary screening at Frankfurt suggested that it reminds her of her co-worker when she’s been on duty more than four hours. Commenting on that could not possibly end well.

Someone just sat down next to me wearing a suit jacket and leather pants. We live in a richly varied world, and that’s a good thing. I’m going to give him a Jeph-ref too.

Background: I’m meeting with our Juniper Networks Bangalore engineers on Monday, speaking at JavaOne/Oracle Develop in Hyderabad, India on Tuesday, and speaking at a Juniper Partners conference in Viet Nam on Thursday. Adding in some one-on-one time, a partner reception, the JavaOne pavillion reception, and travel day in the middle and it’s going to be an intense trip.

Launch: Tons of logistics in each city, from how to get from airport to hotel to what the local traffic patterns require in terms of airport lead time (four hours plus in Bangalore, for example, which means dinner is going to be Powerbars and oatmeal). Significant help from my wonderful administrative assistant, who did everything from make sure I was in the correct Novotel in Hyderabad (who knew there were two, and one is connected to the convention center where I’m speaking?) to find a passport service that acquired a Vietnamese visa in five days round trip from Jersey.

Contingencies: Movies, books, magazines, paper reading, Kindle. Extra paperback in my checked bag in case I don’t like the hardcover in my carry-on. Two days of clothing in the carry-on, just in case my luggage decides it likes Frankfurt and takes an extended layover there (I learned the hard way that it’s not always possible to “buy something on the other end” especially when you are odd-shaped; I once was forced to purchase and wear a very nice but very small sweater on a customer visit thanks to Air France randomness). Powerbars cure a lot of travel related ills, from minor stomach upset to missing breakfast to forgetting that it might be dinner time. Six packages of instant oatmeal, for breakfast when my body wants it and the airport, airplane or hotel lobby aren’t dealing food. And yes, I bring a plastic spoon. If you’re on a plane, you can always get a half cup of hot water that mixes nicely with about 3/4 of an oatmeal package, and you have breakfast in a cup. Finally: I’m going to stretch as much as possible. Sitting for that long tightens up your hamstrings, calves and back, so some good yoga stretches (pigeon, upward and downward dog, cobbler, and downward dogs with extended legs) are in order each morning and evening.

Goals: Meet as many people as I can. Distribute the entire box of 250 business cards. Share Juniper Networks’ vision of the programmable network, where we are making network devices and flows accessible to Java (and other) developers so that networks can inform applications (instead of the usual, other direction) to drive optimization, efficiency and enable new service creation. Enjoy some local Indian cuisine, possibly including some achar and whole mango pickles (a specialty in Karnataka, the Indian state in which Bangalore is situated). Explore Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday afternoon (modulo jet lag and general exhaustion after four solid days on the road). Take a lot of pictures. Buy something for my wonderful wife as I’m travelling on Mother’s Day. Add to the collection of pictures of Richard Stevens’ Clango t-shirts (usually while I’m wearing one) taken in various spots around the world. Add to my yoga teacher’s shelf of Hindu gods and goddesses.

And sleep somewhere in there. Next stop: Frankfurt, Germany to change planes.

Trip Odometer: 0 Air Miles, 0 Air Hours, 1 Airport (EWR)

4:10 PM There’s a knock on the door. That is unusual; there’s a door buzzer in the hotel and the staff religiously use it to get your attention. But it’s my son, and he’s clearly rushed across the hall to sputter out “Turn on the news…bus bombing…74 bus…just happened.”

4:11 PM I get the first English language news station on that I can find (France News 24), and the thoughts start to spiral: Our daughter takes the 74 bus to and from the Old City. It runs past our hotel. Wife, daughter and mother in law were out near Ben Yehuda/King George streets, the 74 bus route, and had no reason to take the bus home, but if they had trouble getting a taxi they may have tried the bus. They shouldn’t have gone near the central bus station, but they also said they were leaving 45 minutes earlier and should have been in the hotel by now.

My hands are shaking. We have taken the 74 bus up and down Derech Hevron a few times this week, and the pictures of that bombed bus make my skin crawl. I’ve been on one of them in the last 6 hours.

4:12 PM I get a call through; everyone is safe, they’re in the hotel and know what’s going on. A bit shaken but safe. The cellular networks strain under the load; no calls were completing so I had no indicators that they were well past the emegency area. Incoming calls (especially routed through the US networks) seemed better.

4:14 PM We collectively call my parents, work, our siblings, and friends to let them know we are safe.

7:00 PM We got out for dinner, and the restuarant (about a mile away from the bombing site) is busy. The bartender runs out of scotch and offers me a limoncello on the house as he’s also had a tough day. Other than that it’s business as usual for a Wednesday night, perhaps a bit lighter as the night wears on. I’m used to seeing Israeli restuarants start to fill up at 9:00 PM but by 10:00 PM it’s almost quiet. It’s harder to catch a taxi, due both to demand and (as we’re told) because many taxi drivers are Palestinians who will be held up for security checks.

The 74 bus is running and full of passengers.

9:00 AM Thursday. It’s life as usual in Israel. Things are as normal as they are when someone can pack two kilograms of explosive, screws, nails and ball bearings into a pipe, severely injure 30 people at a bus stop and hours later, people are back on the buses.

Stories emerge: Miraculously, only one person is dead, mostly due to the observation and quick thinking of the kiosk owner. He called in a suspicious bag threat to the 911 equivalent and hollered for people to get away from the bus stop. The bomb detonates while he’s on the emergency call. Medical and police vehicles were on site very quickly, and there are hospitals nearby. In New York, we sometimes smirk at the “If you see something, say something” signs in and around the subways and trains, wondering if they’re of good effect. They are. “Head on a swivel,” as our hockey coaches say, and it saved a lot of lives.

Your first reaction when something like this happens is to want vengeance. What I saw, though, is that the best offense was simply to continue living life as usual. No fear, no great evaluations, just a quick return to daily life although with a few more security checks and much more visible police presence.

We visited the Yitzhak Rabin Museum in Tel Aviv today, our last day in Israel. You enter into a round hall where there’s a wrap-around broadcast of Rabin’s speech at a peace rally in Tel Aviv, the night he was assassinated in 1994. “The way of peace is better than the way of war” were some of his last words, but 17 years later still very strong words by which to live.

The car has drawn some puzzled looks from friends. I’ve been driving a full-sized 4-door, wagon or SUV for as long as most people have known me. Deciding to trade in the SUV (replete with hockey smells, stick marks, and some outstanding bumper stickers) was a Springsteen moment for me. Growing up in Freehold, NJ, you have to develop an appreciation for the Boss, even if it was to laugh at the comedian’s joke: If you had one of those days when your parents kicked you out of the house, you broke up with your girlfriend and got in more trouble at school, you’d write a song about car. Fast cars, no so fast girls, and driving down the shore – life in New Jersey in a nutshell. I think that’s why so many people disliked – sometimes intensely – Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. It tells stories that are as dark as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road but as equally full of whatever counts for love when the asphalt runs out, either at the beach or in front of half a duplex. With three decades of hindsight, Darkness stands out as one of rock’s great albums, a collection of stories that was intended to be listened to from beginning to end. An album that produced no hit singles, limited commercial acclaim and probably drove some reviewers back to their typewriters with more cold coffee in hand, Darkness is powerful because its fast cars are raced with a sense of intellectual honesty.

There’s the turning point for me. I simply didn’t need that big a car, and I can’t continue to watch gas prices spiral upward and not take some personal action. It goes even deeper – the more we believe in freedom, and the more I continue to work for technology companies that enable organization and information dissemination, the more likely it is we’ll see disruptions in countries key to the supply of oil. It’s hard to say that you believe in freedom while you’re indentured to the gas pump. As someone commented on my Facebook status when I announced I was buying a hybrid: the dependency is broken one person at a time. I’d rather see $6 a gallon gas and more individual empowerment; that was the intellectual integrity quandry I felt needed an answer.

Full disclosure on intellectual honesty, though: this car is fun to drive. I’ll admit to being a bad driver; I like to go fast; I accelerate out of turns, up ramps, and along freeways more than I should; I over-use my brake pedal and utilize the full Jersey variety of signalling methods (some digital, some bulb-based). The CT200h has a much more compact, enclosed cockpit, it’s about a foot lower to the ground, and you just feel the road more. Balance that out with a cornucopia of sound options including XM radio, and the iPod car accessory system for iPhone or iPod use, and suddenly I’m thinking more about what I want to listen to going from point A to point B rather than how quickly I can make the trip. Real-time statistics from the gas/electric engines inform you of gas economy, mileage efficiency and cruising range. The dash backlighting changes to indicate when you’re charging the batteries rather than draining the gas tank, and I’ve found (in just four days) that my driving style has started to change. I’m trying to squeeze the most out of the gas; I’m gaming the cruising range indicator. I’ve discovered three new bands listening to XM Radio’s Octane (48), using the center console “joystick” to cut between GPS map and song information, purely by feel and without taking my eyes off of the road. I’m celebrating not hitting the gas station after the Dunkin’ Donuts this morning. Ergonomically, the car is a delight to drive and more personally, Roy Bittan’s piano on Racing in the Streets sounds just oh so good.

Tuesday morning, Toby and I were invited to volunteer at the Ben Gurion elementary school in Bat Yam, Israel. Our route to school was a cab ride to Elana’s apartment, walking half a kilometer to the #19 bus stop (picking up my morning soofganiya – Hanukah jelly donut – at the bakery across the street), and taking the #19 through Bat Yam to the school. Lessons for me began getting on the bus – once the last person is off the curb (or at least the last person the driver feels like picking up), the driver floors it. I’m surprised more bus windshields don’t have tourist imprints on them.

We arrived as recess began and got to see the full spectrum of 21st century Israel: kids of Israeli, Russian, and Ethiopian parents, dancing and playing soccer (using an outdoor basketball court with soccer nets built into the basketball hoop stanchions) and singing.

Our project was to help a fifth grade teacher work with her students during their English language lessons. All Israeli students learn English as early as the 1st or 2nd grade and Arabic in secondary school. But with 35 kids in a class, some of whom clearly didn’t leave their energy on the concrete soccer pitch, and a wide range of English skills, it was a challenge. American volunteers with Young Judea Year Course, like our daughter Elana, have been spending their time with these students over the past three months and we got to join in for just one hour.

It was a long hour, but I would do it again. And again.

I was given some of the more rambunctious boys – A, Y and AC – and was told (after 10 minutes) to complete the sentences on page 105 of our English workbooks. All three had wonderfully neat Hebrew handwriting, and learned quite a bit of English from watching “Drake and Josh” on TV. Y and AC are fairly recent Ethiopian immigrants, both of whom speak English well with that distinctive sub-Saharan inflection. All three have a remarkable knowledge of American sports and music.

A asked me if we (Americans) had something like “One State, One People”, and he sang “Hatikvah” (the Israeli national anthem) for me. I started on “The Star Spangled Banner” but stopped as soon as it was obvious that my singing was more painful than completing the sentences about getting dressed and taking your schoolbag from Mum (the English workbooks are excessively British). Y and AC took the musical interlude another step, and asked if I knew Usher, Jay-Z, and Beyonce. “Know” is a tough word, because it means “you know who they are, and like them” or it means “you know them personally.” Depends on how much you need to establish street cred, I guess. Younger Israelis hold out hope that New Yorkers know American idols personally. I wonder sometimes if the closing Anatevka scene in Fiddler on the Roof (where someone assumes that going to America means you’ll meet his cousin in Chicago) is based on some deeply rooted need to network that predates Facebook.

AC then began boasting to me that Usher is his uncle, and Jay-Z is his mother’s uncle, or his mother’s uncle’s son, with one family tree traversal ending up with AC and Jay-Z as brothers (that logical flaw I didn’t let slide). Bottom line: AC is very proud of American musicians who are, as he announced loudly, “African like me”.

One State, One People.

Y was quick to point out that “Jay-Z and Usher have big noses, not like us.” Many global people, although fifth graders are pretty much a universal constant.

When I explained that I was from New York (much more resonant than New Jersey, sadly), I heard “New York Mets” from Y. AC, however, is a Red Sox fan (big difference from our trip to Israel in 2004, when New York produced “Yankees” and not much else). This was my cue to teach English, sports, and geography all at once.

“Kevin Youkilis shel Red Sox yehudi” and repeated in English, “Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox is Jewish.” Eyes wide with amazement. I had to repeat myself, “Kayn, kayn, hoo yehudi” (Yes, yes, he is Jewish). Suddenly these boys were connected to an American star not solely by the color of their skin, but by their personal identities as well. I just had no idea what that meant.

AC closed the loop for me by hollering out “Kevin Youkilis does not eat bacon with the team!”

Morah Larissa (his teacher) is going to be scratching her head over that one for a while, as it had very little to do with Guy and Mary brushing their hair and their teeth in the morning, and most definitely wasn’t a sentence on pages 105 or 106 of their workbooks.

I tried to counter with “Kevin Youkilis lo haredi” (Kevin Youkilis isn’t Orthodox) but didn’t know how to go down the path of religious variety, where “Jewish in America” means everything from being modern Orthodox to being aware of your Jewish identity when the matzah comes out in the supermarket. In Israel, it’s hard to find pork products, and while religious variety even across Jewish people is quite strong, aversion to pork is much more universal. My three fifth graders identified being Jewish with some basic elements of keeping kosher. The image of Kevin Youkilis shunning bacon at the team buffet worked for them, and will stay with me the way that Sandy Koufax’s decision not to pitch on Yom Kippur colored our parents’ generation’s view of Jewish baseball players in the 1950s.

One people indeed. And I miss my students, who taught me quite a bit about being part of that Jewish people.

You experience the complete dynamic range of feelings – you laugh, cry tears of joy, yell in frustration, cry tears of remembrance, are shocked at the intensity of flavors in food and people, are prouder than you can ever believe, are comfortable and safe yet cautious and alert – all before lunch time.

You ask for a “to go” bag at the hotel breakfast buffet and are given a laundry bag accompanied by a shrug.

Someone doesn’t understand you, so you are ignored because it’s just easier than asking for clarification. Clearly you’re wrong, anyway (rule #1 of being Israeli)

You are marvelling at a great piece of engineering (rule #2 of being Israeli) and someone yelling into one of their three cell phones runs into you full bore. You were wrong, anyway, for standing there (see rule #1).

You wait in line and feel lonely. There is no line (rule #3 of being Israeli).

You take your rolling luggage on the bus to go to the supermarket, where more elbows are thrown than in a Flyers hockey game, especially if it’s Friday or the bakery has fresh soofganiyot.

You go to a dinner party at someone’s apartment and bring your own chair, also on the bus.

You enjoy all four food groups – hummus, eggplant, chocolate and snark – in every meal, especially breakfast.

You are welcomed, warmly, lovingly and repeatedly, by friends, coworkers, relatives of relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of friends. You’re part of a community that goes deeper than any Facebook friend of a friend of a friend relationship.

You speak Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian with an Israeli citizen from sub-Saharan Africa, and their pronunciation of all four is better than yours.

You get stares for wearing a sports team logo shirt that isn’t soccer-related.

You are so wrapped up in everything, and so busy, that you leave this blog entry half-written for five full days.

You realize, despite and because of all of the above, at least a few times a day, that it feels like Thanksgiving morning and New Year’s Eve (and maybe Christmas morning, although I can’t vouch for that from experience), all rolled into one because you are home, and independent of the politics, world opinion, economy, and personal differences, you’re in a country where you are immediately and forever welcome.

Been home seven hours and I miss Israel already.

Echoing the “Anatevka” scene (“You’re going to America? I have a cousin in Chicago”) that closes Fiddler on the Roof, the local falafel guy used to work at our kosher pizza place here in town. Elana’s realizing that I wasn’t kidding when I made up the three rules of being Israeli: We did it better, you’re wrong, and there is no line.

The over/under on hummus being a staple of her diet is 4 weeks. But it’s great following the action online.