A Lovely Shabbat

tangent: Last Thursday night I saw Balkan Beat Box perform for Earth day, good stuff. Very typical Israel does Earth Day...let's turn on ALL the lights around the square so people notice when we turn them off for an hour then we'll turn them ALL back on again. good energy conservation skills. (although, to give them credit, they did power the lights from people riding stationary bikes and by using the excess oil from falafel stands, haha).

For the past Shabbat I went to Jerusalem to my friend Daniel's. I was pretty nervous since my Hebrew isn't superb and I was going to be eating dinner with his family. Plus the typical concern: I didn't know they're Shabbat customs and I didn't want to, basically, make myself look like a fool for doing something stupid. Well I got there, we hung around, went up to some part of what I guess would be the "country-side" of Jerusalem to watch the sunset over the city/valley, then went back for dinner. Daniel's mom is from France, she made Aliyah here when she was 22 and his dad is from Argentina and came here when he was 15. Ohh, Zionism. So that means his mom speaks French, Hebrew, and English, his dad Spanish, Hebrew, and English and him all 4. His dad's mom was at Shabbat dinner as well, and she speaks Spanish and Hebrew, no English. I would soon find this out when I tried to respond in English and she stared at me blankely. Dinner was delicious, and the conversations were plenty, although almost entirely in Spanish and Hebrew. yayyy Spanish! I haven't listened/spoke in so long! I actually understood a lot more than I thought of the Spanish but that was probably because his grandmother speaks really slow. I paid attention very well in hopes to not be so left out, and I actually followed the conversations pretty well. I kept getting caught up in the moment though, thinking about the situation I was in and how cool it was that I could understand, and then I couldn't understand cause I had stopped listening. Saturday we went on a mini hike to a spring and enjoyed beautiful sites.
All in all, it was a wonderful Shabbat and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Updates on Yom Hazicharon and Yom Ha'atzmaut (memorial day and independence day) when I have time to process. Big Independence pick-up ultimate game today then the last leadership conference tomorrow.

61 years and going strong :).