Friday Relaxation

Friday July 19^th

We woke up just in time to eat breakfast before it closed down. The hostel is probably the nicest one I have stayed in to date. The rooms are kept clean, the sheets have no weird stains, there is a concierge, a kitchen for visitor use, a bar, a move theater, and free breakfast and wifi. I was quite surprised. 

Traveling with a large group was not however as I expected. But, despite the frustration it brought I think that it worked out for the best that we split up into groups. Sarah and I both wanted to go to Old City to visit the Hadaya jewlery store to have jewelry made. I figured if I was going to spend most of my money on something it should be memorable so I invested in a long chained circle necklace with the shema on one side and the words lech lecha (in hebrew) and a heart on the other side. Lech lecha is a command to go forth and the song has always been one of my favorites so I choose it as a symbol of my overcoming whatever comes my way. Our journey to the store was probably one of the best parts of my weekend. We took the light rail down and then walked up to the New Gate. Next thing we knew we were navigating through the Christian quarter and Arab market to get to the store. Despite our confusion walking through the Old City in absolute silence was an amazing experience. For some reason the simple act of being in the Old City just makes everything else in the world feel non-existent, no wonder why its one of my favorite places. 

Just to add to the calmness of the city, a woman casually playing harp in the Jaffa Gate

After our adventures in the Old City Sarah and I made our way back to the Ben yehuda/shuk area to meet up with everyone else from our group. They were all walking around an art festival when we found them. From there some of us went to the shuk (Mahane Yehuda) to grab lunch. I ended up also buying some really tasty roasted nuts along with a salad from Aroma, which isn't very symbolic of being at the shuk but it was the easiest choice. After lunch we all needed some down time so we went back to the hostel to rest. I ended up staying at the hostel longer than everyone else because that is where Shai was picking me up. (Shai is a cousin who lives right next to Kibbutz Tzuba-where I stayed on EIE- with his wife and two kids). 

Shai picked me up around 5:30 for family Shabbat dinner. It was so nice to see a familiar face, especially that of a family member. When I was on EIE I would go to shabbat dinners at his house, would run into his son, Itay, in the dining hall, and would get random food drop offs. Shai works for a genetics company working on produce genetics so it was nice to get to talk a little about my career goals since he knows a lot about whats going on in the genetics world. As family, we also have similiar ideas about the Orthodoxy and Israel so it was also nice to be surrounded by a group of people who all had similar ideals. Shai even told me that he had heard that in some orthodox communities the teens are all genetically tested in high school and the results are compiled into a database. To prevent risk of kids with diseases or genetic mutations being born match makers use the results to match people up. If there is a chance of your genetics not matching well you will never even meet the person. On one hand I think this is actually kind of a smart idea but on the other I believe in finding your true love (the side effect of too many romantic comedies and disney movies) and that completely defeats the purpose in general. 

Anyway, dinner was fantastic. It ended up being Shai, his wife Michal, his daughter, Maya, son, Itay, sister, and mother (who is originally from England and has a fantastic accent). On top of having a really tasty homemade meal (complete with salsa made from tomatoes Shai brought home form work) and great conversation I got to learn about our family. For example I learned that Shai's grandma was a member of the first female class at Yale, moved to south to help African Americans get the ability to vote, and then moved to Israel where she was a lead journalist. His other grandma drove all the way to Israel from England!

Seeing as clothes in Israel are expensive I also brought some clothes for Maya and Itay from the states. They loved them, especially Itay would immediately tried it all on. Maya has grown up so much since the last time I saw here 3 years ago. She is probably one of the most level headed and logical 12 year-olds I have met. She is participating in a soccer team that is made up of Israeli and arab girls and as part of the program she gets to do a lot of volunteering and gets to go on a trip in the fall (I forget where the trip is to but it sounded really exciting). She also told me all about the bar/bat-mitzvah scene in Israel and I was really surprised to find out how different it is. Because girls don't read from the torah they don't really have services and because things are closed on Shabbat the celebration typically happens on a Thursday. Most of the parties she has gone to are pool parties. Maya simply had a small family party and then went to the movies. I thought it really showed the difference between the relaxed culture of Israel and the U.S.

Overall dinner was a lot of fun and I even decided to stay with them over my next free weekend. It was so relaxing just being there and I mean they already had me on the calendar so it was simply meant to be :)