Our first shabbat/motzei shabbat in Jerusalem was definitely an adventure! On Friday morning, Aliza and I leisurely woke up and rolled out of bed after spending a night on the town on Ben Yehuda street on Thursday night. I spent time in my favorite place from this summer, called Egon, which was so exciting! We made our way to the Machane Yehuda shuk (open-air marketplace) to buy some pre-shabbat food to have in the apartment. Also, the shuk is known for incredible produce and just a fun and exciting pre-shabbat in Israel atmosphere. We bought lots of fresh and yummy vegetables with plans to make a big salad sometime during shabbat, and some assorted other things (dried fruit, some cute scarves, and the most delicious rugelach in all the world--Marzipan!!) and mostly just stumbled around the shuk, taking it all in. I have been to the shuk before, but never on a Friday morning/afternoon. After the shuk, we needed some caffeine so we got our caffeine fix from Aroma (a Starbucks-y cafe with delicious coffee) and walked around for a little while. We came back to the dorm and put our groceries away and decided that we needed to do some cleaning. Since we moved in to an apartment that was already occupied last semester, we inherited a good amount of pots and pans and plates and silverware, and also a HUGE mess. Neither Aliza nor I is a neat freak, but the amount of dirt on the refrigerator and lining the refrigerator shelves was just disgusting, and we decided it must be taken care of! So we chatted and cleaned for a couple of hours, in preparations for Shabbat.
Later in the night, we had a nice big shabbat dinner planned for us by our madrichim (counselors, but used loosely to mean 'advisors', basically) at a nice big hotel near our dorms called the Regency Hotel. It was a huge and delicious buffet line and a pretty large amount of people from our program went to dinner, which was nice. I got to sit with some new people that I hadn't met yet, which was really nice. After dinner, some friends threw an oneg and a bunch of people crammed into their apartment and ate, drank, and really had a good time.
On Saturday morning, I had heard that a couple people were going to the Conservative shul right near our dorms (just about a 5-minute walk). Since I hadn't been feeling well on Friday night during services, I decided that I would go to services on Saturday morning, to start getting a feel for what shuls were around the dorms, to keep my options open for shabbatot to come. I met up with a group of people and we all walked over together, probably 10 or 12 in total, and I thoroughly enjoyed services at this Conservative shul right near our dorms. Nearly everyone in the congregation was from America, having made aliyah to Israel some years earlier (average age: approximately 65). After services, there was a nice kiddush where the people from the synagogue came and introduced themselves to us and played some Jewish geography (someone always knows someone who knows someone, etc!). One of the women asks if anyone in the group of us likes to sing. Not knowing where she was going to go next, I offered myself up--that I'm in an a cappella group and school and I like to sing. So this 60/65-year-old woman coerces me into coming back to the synagogue at 5:30 to meet her at the shul so that I can join their synagogue choir practice for the night. I tentatively agree, hoping that one of my brave friends will join me!
After we got back from synagogue, some friends and I decided to go to a Chabad-sponsored Shabbat lunch, which was pretty absurd and ridiculous, but pretty interesting and a diverse crowd. Something that was fun to see, but we all decided we probably wouldn't do again.
I convince Aliza to come with me come choir time, and we make our way to this couple's house near the synagogue. The following hour and a half was pretty much the most hilarious thing I've ever witnessed. This 60ish-year-old woman, Penina, was so intense and serious about her synagogue choir of which she was very obviously the self-proclaimed leader and musical director. My favorite moment of hers was when she was warming everyone up and instructing the choir in vocal techniques and pretty much yelled at this probably 80ish-year-old woman named Annette "keep your chin down for goodness sake, Annette! Don't lift your chin!" Annette looked fairly frightened, and lowered her chin at once...
Aliza and I decided that it was a hilarious experience and we probably would leave it at that. They were a pretty funny crowd but the music they sang was melodic and pretty, but fairly archaic liturgical music (literally a Renaissance version of Adon Olam) that is pretty boring to me.
Then later in the night after shabbat was over, I went to Emek Refaim (a pretty popular street with shops and bars and cafes) with some friends and we just drank coffee and ate delicious (and beuatifully prepared!!) french toast and chatted for awhile.
All in all, it was a pretty eventful couple of days--and absolutely memorable! See picture below (if I can get them to work!)
(the disgustingly dirty fridge shelves. The people who lived here before us just left things open and out until they rotted and melted and oozed everywhere. GROSS!)
Yay! Reunited at last! A fun, relaxed hookah bar where we spent much of our first night on Ben Yehuda.
(Doesn't that look scrumptious?! It was delicious, and just the perfect amount of richness for the 5 of us to share.)
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