So I realized I have been kind of lame lately and not really putting so much effort into these posts. I mean, I forgot to mention my birthday! Really? Thats just sad. Anyway, I apologize for that and have taken special time today to try to make this email more exciting and interesting than the past few weeks.
We'll start with this past Shabbat, which was a flurry of social activity. Rafi was with me for Shabbat and I hosted another 14 people for dinner. It was loud and hot, but the food was great and the company greater. This theme continued Shabbat day when we went to my friend Jay's and had a giant delicious lunch and hung out there most of the rest of the day.
Sunday night was Tu B'Av, the Jewish festival in which young single ladies used to dress up in white dresses and go dancing in the hills so that young single Jewish men could grab them and take them home to be their wives (kinda weird story, but have you ever actually read about St. Valentine?). Today it is treated like the Israeli Valentine's Day. So, in very modern fashion, I went out dancing with my single lady friends (no white dresses- I mean really? Who owns a white dress?). Stayed up way too late and was totally pooped the next day, but it was worth it. Or at least it was until Shachaf started arguing politics with me and I was ganged up on my all the crazy-ass leftists in my office. So I spent most of Monday hiding in the computer room so I wouldnt have to go over ONCE AGAIN, why the disengagement from Gaza clearly didnt work.
Anyway, Tuesday I got the super exciting job of updating the airplane manuals (read: going thrugh 20+ binders and replacing random pages), which of course I got to do with Shachaf. This man is apparently not used to going to school, because I managed to do 18 binders in the time it took him to do 4. This may be explained by the fact that he was way to busy complaining about the army and saying things that made me want to strangle him.
So, needless to say, by Wednesday I needed a vacation, and since Rafi is leaving on Sunday I took the day off to hang out with him. We were planning on hiking from Jerusalem to the neighboring city of Mevasseret Zion (where our family lived when we were little), but ended up not quite making it. This was due to the fact that we started our hike in Lifta, an arab village in the valley next to Jeruslaem that was abandoned in 1948. Today it is sort of a national park, but they havent renovated or restored anything, and the place is kind of a dump. There is a maayan/pool there where lots of people go to swim, but the part that interested me and Rafi was the old houses. There are dozens of old crumbling Arab houses that were clearly beautiful back in the day. Now they are falling apart and have trees growing in the middle (and in some cases homeless people living there), but Rafi and I spent a great 2-3 hours wandering about and exploring the houses. We couldnt stay too long as I had a wedding that night, but it was enough to get a sunburn and some great pictures (which I will have to attach in the next email).
Thursday was a half-day so again, Rafi and I hung out (the lazy bum slept until 2PM!!). We headed to Efrat to see my fam and stayed up way too late hanging out with them. We are going to Alon Shvut, the neighboring settlement where my friends David and Davida live and spending Shabbat with them.
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