Day 42 - Shabbat

I slept rather late today, missing shabbat morning services, and waking up and showering just in time for shabbat lunch. Again, the apartment was full of people and stuffy, so we all grabbed some food and/or drinks and paper goods and headed across the street to Bar Ilan's campus, where Itamar had cleverly reserved a room (with *gasp* air conditioning!). We pushed a bunch of the double-desks together to form one large table and set up the food on another smaller table, said kiddush, and began. Lunch was a rather roudy affair, with people arriving in waves. More than 30 people showed up, all tolled. Again, the food was delicious.

After lunch and cleanup, which took a bit more effort this time because we had to wipe down the tables and leave everything as we found it, Dave, Itamar and I all took nice afternoon naps to help make up for the sleep lost with the intriguing discussions from last night. We woke up in the late afternoon as Josh returned, and more frozen grapes emerged to fuel further discussion. Shabbat in this apartment is rather chill, I have to say.

After a while, though, Dave began getting ready for havdalah, and I decided to call a cab to take me to the central bus station. Itamar, Dave, and Josh waited with me for it to arrive, and we were joined during that time by Omri and Michal, who happened to be walking by. I hugged them all goodbye when the cab pulled up. It was a great stay and I hope to see all of them again!

The bus station was packed, but I had no trouble finding the Rehovot sherut. One was about to leave, so I got on. For some odd reason there was a spectacularly large amount of debate over the pricing (people usually pass up money to the driver once the van starts on its way, and the fare is pretty static, from my limited experience). I really don't get why: you ask how much to your destination, the driver tells you, you pay. This did not seem to occur for at least 4 of the passengers. I think it would be interesting to have been able to understand the debacle. But they all got off at Rishon, and I managed to convey to the driver that I wanted to get off right in front of the main gate of Weizmann. Success!

I called Ari as I approached Clore. He said dinner was about to happen, so I put my stuff down and joined Ari, Jordan, and Joel for an outing to (guess where?) Hertzl Bar. Zvonimir and Onur were already there, so we sat at the adjacent table. We had a leisurely meal, mostly due to rather, um, relaxed service. There was a great deal of math talk, but I survived. Afterwards, Jordan and I stopped in Clore for moolah and walked to the mall in hopes of catching a showing of wall-E, but missed it by about 3 minutes and found ourselves in a gigantic line. We decided to put it off and go CD shopping instead. After lengthy deliberations, Jordan got a Lauryn Hill cd, while I purchased a DJ Shadow album and a relatively cheap 4.0 gig thumb drive (without U3, so my computer should be happy!). The girl working there and I bonded a bit over our musical taste. Hopefully we will find each other on facebook and prolong the musical sharing!

Jordan and I then walked back to Clore. On the way I began a call with Mom and Dad (and even Andrew!), which I continued in the lobby. Next I talked to Ben, which was much needed as well. For some reason sitting with me while I was on the phone was a must, because Joel and Ori decided to grab chairs near me. After both calls were over we talked, then Zvonimir broke out his guitar and we played around for a bit before I decided I really needed to go to bed.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend:

The streets of Tel Aviv

The shook by the craft fair

Some odd wares... Competing juice stands
A cool building near Dizengoff center
The sunset from Dave and Itamar's window