It was easy to be a little intimidated about flying to Israel for the first time. But it turns out that everyone speaks English and we haven’t had any trouble navigating around. The security measures at the airport were no tighter than what we’ve seen in any other cities. I had pretty low expectations for the entry and exit of the country, but so far so good. It’s not too expensive if you ignore the fact that the value of the dollar has been in a freefall. (Hooray that my salary is in Swiss Francs!) We’ve only been here for one evening so far. We’re staying in Tel Aviv for the night.

Tomorrow morning we get on another flight (ugh–you’re supposed to get to the airport 3 hours early 🙁 ) to Petra. We couldn’t just go to Petra today because the connections you need to get from Zurich to Petra are just synchronized horribly. The lady at the airport information desk told us that she’s never heard of flight number RJ343, and we should call ahead to make sure it really exists. 😕 But we checked with Royal Jordanian customer service and the recording assured us that the flight is still scheduled. She had us scared though. I am still not counting on there really being a flight for us. But we hope so! Wish us luck, we may need a lot if it.

It is nice to already feel like we are on vacation though. We spent the evening walking along the beach and piers and then finished off the night with a really good ice cream and a dip in the hotel’s hot tub. Everyone here is really into 80’s American songs. There’s only twice that we’ve heard local music. The first time was from a restaurant that was actually playing Miles Davis, but until I saw the album cover I assumed that it was a crazy atonal ethnic tune. It feels like we have to go out of our way to notice things that remind us we are in a new place.

• Photos of Tel Aviv

I remember telling Nick Adamson at one time that there was no reason he should ever expect me to visit Texas, not in a million years. But I was wrong, because Elisa and I made another trip to DFW last weekend. This trip was for Nick and Karen’s wedding, which was awesome.

Let’s start with the airline story. Our flight into New York was a little delayed, so we were running the risk of missing the connection. After we landed we spent forever waiting for both our suitcases to show up on the carousel. Elisa’s arrived, but mine never did! 😐 Bummer. Plus now it was already five minutes since our connection was supposed to have departed. I asked somebody about whether we could get on a different flight that night. He said that actually we couldn’t, because the last flight of the evening was canceled due to snowstorms in Dallas. Really??? In Dallas? I thought he was joking. I had checked the weather forecast two days earlier, and it was 60 and sunny all weekend long! This sounded like some yarn they spin for anybody that is late for a flight, so I didn’t trust him too much. Then he said that our original flight hadn’t left the gate yet, and they were going to hold it for us! 🙂 Whew! Now we knew that luck was on our side. We sprinted all the way across JFK, up and down stairs. I was very proud of myself, having been practically bedridden for the last few weeks. We weren’t even the last ones on the plane, because some other Zürich passengers hadn’t had the resourcefulness to cut in the passport control line. 🙂 I think we were the only ones who sprinted too, mostly because we didn’t actually trust them to hold the flight for us. So we waited at the gate and then finally took off for Dallas. About two hours into the flight the captain turned on the intercom. It’s never a good thing when the captain’s message includes the words, “In my 21 years as a pilot I’ve never had to do this before.” The snowstorm had indeed arrived in Dallas, earlier than expected. The airport was clogged, with planes expecting an 8-hour wait on the tarmac for gates to open up. Visibility was 1/8 mile. (Really??? In Dallas?) So the plane turned around in the air and brought us back to JFK in New York! How lucky were we really to make the flight? We found a hotel nearby and finally got to bed at 11 pm. For us, coming from Zürich, it felt like 5 am. Then we got up before 5 am New York time to attempt to stand-by on a 7:40 am flight. This time we made the flight and we got to Dallas.

We arrived in Dallas at about the same time as Michael Scoville and Merrick Schaefer. Nick met with us and treated us to a Tex-Mex lunch. Oh, it had been so long! It was nice to eat real, good food all weekend that neither Chad or I had to cook. Then we shopped for a formal for Elisa, and she did really good at finding something. I take forever to find anything usually and then go back and forth whether to buy anything forever. We must have found a modest gown, jewelery and shoes in under an hour. That has to be a record, especially being 3 months pregnant. That night was the rehearsal dinner. I made Nick late because I needed him to drop off some of his clothes for me. (My luggage didn’t show up until the night before we left.) Pretty much all weekend we were eating delicious food until we couldn’t hold any more. The rehearsal dinner was at a Sushi place where Nick and Karen went out together for the first time. They must have brought out 14 or so courses. I just started to taste everything because there was no room left to eat and I was so tired. It was a lot of fun to get to know both Nick and Karen better and their families too.

Saturday morning we got to dine at another American restaurant that we have really missed: Denny’s! Considering how much we like good food, I’m really surprised that’s one of the ones that we miss. But Denny’s has good breakfasts and they’re big enough to share. Then we bought some DVDs to keep us company on the long flight home.

Saturday afternoon we all met up for a Russian banya experience. Wow, those are cool. The banya near Nick’s house is co-ed (and non-nude) so the partners could all come. We’d like to find more of these near Zürich or Seattle. The Banya was a completely relaxing experience. When you think of going from the high dry temperatures of a Sauna and then dunking into a tank of freezing water, you do not think the word “Relaxing” but it was wonderful. I especially liked the Turkish steam bath and snacking on all the Russian food in between. I got to know the guys and Cristina a lot more and I really hope we can all do a couples trip sometime soon. After that I had to go participate in a bunch of picture-taking, so Elisa got to get her hair done at a spa.

And finally, Saturday night was the wedding. The ceremony was really well done, I am so happy for Nick and Karen. They had dancing and fake gambling (with charitable donations involved). So it was entertaining, like all good weddings. 🙂 I was hesitant to play along with the Black Jack but it was a lot of fun doing it with every one else. I was only bummed when everyone started dancing like crazy to the fabulous 80’s music. I was SO tired by that hour that I could only watch and be entertained. Next time! Nick and Karen looked really happy. Nick never seemed nervous. It was fun to sit with Merrick and Cristina, and to get to know Cristina better. We really like her.

Sunday morning we had to leave right after breakfast. THANK GOODNESS that the hotel clock automatically adjusted for daylight savings time! We had no idea! (Daylight savings time here in Europe starts 3 weeks later. It’s hard enough to remember when it is in your own time zone.) It was nice to arrive home, and receive all our luggage, and sleep in our own bed.

Elisa and I have some news. It’s a special, life-changing event. It’s not the kind of thing that you announce on a blog. It really deserves a face-to-face mention. So call us. Soon. Before you hear it from someone who already talked to us. 🙂

Elisa has been pretty sick for two straight weeks. She eats rice and toast and milk, on days when those don’t taste too strong for her. 😐 Blah–that’s all I have to say. She keeps trying to get out of doors and enjoy herself, but it is hard because of the stomach monsters rough-housing around inside her. I have to step up and eat all the chocolate.

Last week all the Google employees moved into the new building. I had already been working in the new building, on the 5th floor, which wasn’t really finished. I moved down to the 3rd floor with my team. I guess construction will now continue back on the 5th so that we have room for new employees.

The new building is a cool place. I was so bummed not to feel up for testing out the fire poles and slide which run floor to floor. It was really quite impressive. And in the new lunch room they even individually branded all their apples. That made them taste better I think. It’s a playpen for adults–that’s the best way to describe it. I also like the fact that we are no longer right underneath all the construction noise. If you look at the pictures in the article below, I work about 20 feet away from the hammock room, and about 40 feet from the igloos. (Really).

• Article on the new Google office, translated from German, with a slide show