Over the Thanksgiving weekend I decided to join my uncle, who lives in New Jersey, on a trip to Montreal, Canada to visit my Grandparents and other family. He offered me the ride, and it sounded like a good idea.
The night before we left my uncle gave me a call,
"With all the traffic for the Thanksgiving Day Parade there's no way I'll be able to make it to you in Brooklyn -you need to meet me in Jersey."
Great.
So I took a subway from Crown Heights to Penn Station. To my luck, I arrived at 12:00, just as all the good American folk who came for the parade began to return to their homes for their sumptuous turkeys. Unfortunately, when everyone tries to return at the same time, it makes for quite a push. With what felt to surely be over a hundred people squeezing through a door that no more then three or four could walk through at one time, I managed, somehow to get onto a train run by the NJ Transit with my body, and wallet, intact.
When I left New York it was a balmy (for the Fall at least) 60 some odd degrees. The sun shone warmly down upon Montgomery street when I left my flat, yellow and red leaves danced on their branches, at times breaking free from their wooden bonds to fly through the air and carpet the ground in myriad of colors -all bathed in the golden light of the sky.
As we progressed towards Montreal, the air become cooler, the wind picked up, and upon crossing the Canadian border I was met by the glistening white of snow.
On Motzei Shabbos I went with my uncle to visit a cousin of mine, this cousin in turn was with another cousin (who I have in fact never met in person) at a party . . .
Now trust me, it is my last intention to strive into party held by a group of Twenty-Something year olds on a Saturday night, but after peaking in briefly, I saw this was far from a wild party. In fact, I wonder if party could even describe what I was seeing - a bunch of grad-students schmoozing with a food and light background music, seemed more like a group of bochurim after seder then a 'party'. Due to the cold weather, everyone was dressed appropriately, all in all it was safe enough , in my mind at least, to enter and say hi.
The host, a nice Jewish guy (I would say Nice Jewish boy, but why fall into clichés, especially when I don't really know him), wanting to give me something Kosher, offered me a drink . . . about a quarter of a cup of Troika Vodka.
After catching up S. - my cousin, I turned to the host and toasted l'chaim.
The vodka was warm, and surprisingly harsh.
I coughed for a second.
"Are you ok?" he asked me.
I was fine, if learned one thing in my time spent in Warsaw (especially from my good friend Simcha) it was how to drink my Wóda (the Polish diminutive for Vodka) like Woda (water). It was the odd combination of the brand and temperature that threw me . . . but no one else seemed to think so.
Sigh.
The Yesovitch Family, taken shortly before leaving Mogilev Podolski, Ukraine.
Before leaving Montreal I went to visit my Aunti Rachel. In truth she isn't my aunt, nor even my mothers, but rather my grandmother's (She can be seen left of center in the picture above).
The view from Maimonides Hospital.
Now I have since returned to (relatively) warmer Crown Heights. Until the next trip.
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