I have had such a good Shabbat, that I can't help but not share with you all! On Friday, a group of us decided to go hang out at the beach in Tel Aviv for a while…and it was absolutely fantastic. I initially went with Aleah, Sabrina, Jonah, Matt, Alex, Kari and Jesse. We took the train to Tel Aviv, and then a sheirut to the Carmel Shuk. A sheirut is a shared taxi, where there are 10 seats and people come and go as they please along a route for a flat rate. The shuk is an open-air market where people sell food, clothing, jewelry, etc…and it is PACKED before Shabbat. It was such a cool experience walking through it though…and the falafel I got for 10 shekels (around $2.50 in the US) was so worth it. I had an absolutely amazing sitting at the beach and enjoying the gorgeous water. Eventually Noah and Ruthie met up with us there, which of course was great. I might be sunburned (ok, I'm really sunburned), but it was definitely worth it. We stayed until around 4:00pm, meaning that the trains and buses would no longer be working for Shabbat and we had to take a sheirut back to Rehovot. It got a little crazy, but we did it!
We got back with around 2 hours before Shabbat, and was lucky enough to have Chen and her friend stop by after their afternoon run with Chen's sister's dog, who she is watching while her sister is on her honeymoon. It was obviously great to see Chen and meet one of her friends, and we all fell in love with the dog. Unfortunately the visit wasn't too long, but totally made my day even better!
Aleah and I went to a family's house just down the road from us for Shabbat. They were an American family who were connected to Noam, one of the Israelis in our program. They were very welcoming, and guided us through the pre-Shabbat dinner prayers and rituals. It was a great experience, but we cut the dinner a bit short due to Aleah not feeling 100%. They were completely understanding, and it's so nice to see that families not related to our program want to welcome us into their homes. After we came back, we had people over for a power hour. I have only participated in one power hour, and it ended quite badly (thank you, Little 5), so I was a spectator of the event. Plus, I was just too exhausted!
I was able to sleep in until 11:00am today (minus some noise early that woke me up, but I ignored it and fell back asleep). Since then, I have sat around and watched movies all day - The Muppets (in Hebrew), She's the Man, Moneyball, Toy Story 3 (in Hebrew), and now people are watching The Princess Bride. I might be skyping with my mom in a little bit, and then tonight a group of us are going to go play pool for a bit at HaBirzia. It'll be an early night, because I have to be at my elementary school tomorrow morning at 8:00am for another day of observations, but I still want to go out and end the weekend on a bright note :)
This week will be an easy week…more on that when I update this next! Shavua tov, and hope everyone has a great week!
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