This week has been all about enjoying the small pleasures of being an adult with no job. There was alot of dancing around my apartment in my pajamas, alot of sleeping in and staying up late, and alot of cereal because I didnt feel like cooking. Twas wonderful.
I did get out of the house occasionally, and went to the arts and crafts festival outside the old city. They have booths from all over the world selling clothes and art and jewelry (I got to try on some craaazy hats- see attached pic), and performers set up throughout the fair. I got to watch some Korean dancers shake it to "Celebrate", and most importantly, I finally got to go to a fair where I could eat the food. Unfortunately no one in this country has ever heard of funnel cake :( but I had some excellent cotton candy AND I got my face painted :) Yehudit Ravitz was also playing, but I got there too late and couldnt get into the concert, so I had to dance outside with the few hundred other Israelis that didnt make it in.
Today was a day for Israeliness. I spent the morning at the Shuk marvelling at the hairy Israeli men trying to outshout each other and the Bubbe's pushing their carts through the crowd, while loading up on the amazingly fresh veggies. Then I prepared an Israeli salad for 25, cutting all of my vegetables into very tiny pieces (all 11 cucumbers and 9 tomatoes) and eliciting quite a few "my how Israeli of you" compliments during dinner. Why, you ask was I making salad for 25? Well tonight, four friends and I hosted a Sheva Brachot for David and Davida. (The week after a Jewish couple gets married there are seven meals hosted for them, at which, if you have ten men, seven blessings are said for the newlyweds.) Unfortunately, this was a Sheva Brachot for all of Davida's friends, and we ended up with only four men and were not going to be able to say the brachot (blessings). But, as the determined young souls we were, we did not give up. First we called the Rabbi and made sure that we couldnt do it with ten women, and then, we scoured the park where we were eating trying to wrangle up some Jewish men. After about twenty minutes and a slightly awkward interruption of a Tai Chi class, we had gathered the necessary men (we even got one extra!) and were able to say the Sheva Brachot. My favorite part was knowing that we could walk up to strange men in a park and tell them we were trying to make a minyan (a group of ten men), and not only did they know what we were talking about, but they eagerly came to participate.
Anyway, I am headed up north tomorrow to go camp on the beach so I am going to go to bed now. OH! I forgot to tell some of you. I am flying to America next week :) I will be landing in NY on the 20th, and heading to boston for the weekend. I will then be visiting the g'rents up in NH, coming back to NY for shabbat and from then on Im all MD!! Ill be in the DC metropolitan area for about three weeks and would love to see everyone! So email, fb, after the 30th I will have a cell phone. I should warn you, that I cannot plan anything too far in advance. So sorry if that makes me kind of flaky.
