The longest lines sometimes lead you to the most wonderful experiences!! Among the many fun things to do during Sukkot (I promise to finish writing about Sukkot before Hanukkah), the President of Israel has an open sukkah. Anyone who wants to wait in line, can meet the current president! Shimon! It's been so long! Why do we always wait till the holidays to get together? Because there's a lot of security involved, that's why!!Disneyworld could learn something from these lines. First of all, they were shaded the entire time. And if you happened to move off to the side where it was too sunny, there was a hired Bubbe to move you back into the shade. Overheard: "Move back!! No need to stand in the sun! There's shade! You two(to an older gentleman and his wife), you shouldn't be standing so long...come with me! Your knees hurt from standing? Come with me. I'll get you a chair and some babka. Are you drinking enough water? Let me get you a cup! The bathrooms are around the corner." Okay, no babka, but everything else was true! And the portapotties were the cleanest and nicest ones I've ever been in! I didn't even throw up a little when I went in! They were that nice!"
There were water stations every 15 feet or so, with cups available. There were security guards every 15 inches or so, with machine guns available.
This is a picture of the wall, taken at the request of one security guard to prove that sometimes, a camera is just a camera (Freudian security!! Rock on!!). There was one tense security moment, when I realized that only Loren had his passport (the first round of security was asking for them). Fortunately, we (by which I mean Loren) answered the questions b'ivrit about why we were there, and we were allowed to continue our expedition into the President's house ever so slowly inching forward to the music of the military band playing in the garden!There was also a collection of the most interesting group of Israelis and visitors I've ever seen! Religious Jews and secular, dressed fancy and dressed regular (guess which guest called a friend to see if a particular family needed to dress up to meet the President? It's Israel! People wear jeans to a wedding!). We were also right next to some Bretzlover chassidim in full dress who were bringing a petition to the President to bring the bones of Rebbe Nachman from Uman in the Ukraine to Israel. I guess that would put this trip out of business!
This is the face of a girl made to wait for a long, long time!!!
Once we were inside, there was a lot of beautiful art to distract us on the walls and on the ceiling! A group of teenager musicians from all faiths were performing for us.
That is a family that had to wait even longer than us!
We were getting so close! We could actually see people forcing the media to put down their equipment so that they could take a picture for them! I, of course volunteered Loren to make those same arrangements for us, but he was not comfortable walking in that out door.
Oh, my rule-following hubby, I love you! But love and respect for another's job won't get us a family picture with Peres! Even though the women directly behind us looked like she was there on a mission to get her personal agenda across to Shimon (clues: she was speaking to herself in an aggressive way, seeming to rehearse her plans for world domination. I could have worked on the security detail. I would have had the bubbenator approach her, "Motek, you look worn out, come sit in the back of this air conditioned van while we escort you to the nearest health-care facility!"). I don't know who took Madge's pic, but ours turned out great! Thanks to anonymous lady behind us! Hope your plans work out!
Her Madgesty and Peres!!!
After we got our 6 seconds with Shimon, Amalya asked, "So was it worth waiting two and a half hours in that line to meet Shimon Peres for 6 seconds?"
You bet!
