shabbat!

so friday comes, and in some of our preparations for shabbat we go to the Shuk, an outdoor market! it was by no means a smashing success, but it was full of some hilarity, like a crazy juice man who shoved some stuff up my nose, down my throat, and sprayed something on my face! he also had some very good and interesting juices, like etrog juice! and i got a cup of kambucha! danny and i tried to find cool stores and my chocolate bar, but had some trouble. Eventually we found cool clothes, cheap falafel and wine for our family lunches on saturday.

Then back to the hotel to shower, and get pretty and dressed up for shabbat. Unfortunately any preparations were washed out a bit by the extensive amount of rain. we rode the bus to the old city, and walked thru the rain to a back-alley, alarmed, sketchy door. which led to our shabbos locale! we also made a trip to the Kotel/western wall. which because of the rain was not crazy crowded. Then more praying, singing, dinner, more singing, etc. We had to walk back to the hotel, which was kind of unfortunate because of the rain. but we all survived, and then oneg-ed it up for a bit.

the next morning we continued our rainy escapades and walked to a very cool part of town, where one of our leaders, Yifat, used to live. Her cousin has her old place, so that was our base of operations. We then had lunches with local familys. Mine was with the Rabbi's family (along with 3 other chevre) and it was great. Best meal so far, and hilarious kids.

Afterwards everyone met up, and we went to the shul for the third meal, which meant delicious pastries and stories. Then havdalah, singing and dancing. Afterwards we went into downtown Jerusalem and explored the streets. It had mostly stopped raining and it was nice to finally get a chance to see the city more on our own, than from the window of a bus! even though it is raining, its cool to people watch and get some cheap internet access