More Rosh Hashanah, And A Bunch Of Random Stuff

2nd day of Rosh Hashanah we first went to some long time friends of Rachel's parents home for a truly special meal. They have a very large apartment home, rare for Jerusalem, with multiple balconies of various sizes and a very open living/dining/kitchen area. They were very gracious and loving hosts and there were tons of people there of all ages. Their home was literally filled to the brim with the sweetness their friends and family brought with them. The food was fabulous, and more and more kept appearing on their large buffet table. Judging from this Rosh Hashana I could easily say that lasagna is a traditional new year's food to eat (we ate it at Thursday's lunch too) as there was what seemed like a never ending stream of lasagna coming from the oven that was truly divine. It really was one big free for all around the food table and we have an all new appreciation for the phrase "Dig in!" after surviving several rounds at the buffet table. And we came away from it all with no stains on our clothes! It was a joyous occasion enjoyed by many.

We left there after dessert (dessert was its own insanity!) for a classmate of Rachel's apartment where she and her boyfriend hosted folks for a relaxing afternoon lunch. We were both so full that we felt rude declining food initially, but we were there long enough to have little pockets open up in our stomachs to taste the fruit salad and desserts. It was nice to just hang out with folks and talk and laugh, mostly about inappropriate things, but hey, we can't be serious learned students and their SOs all the time now can we?!

We had talked all day about possibly going to services and left our friend's home intending to walk to Kol Hanishima. But we ended up standing on the sidewalk outside the apartment building talking to a friend of ours who is a fellow SO at HUC. We stood there for an hour and 45 minutes talking, never thinking to sit on the benches next to us and literally watching people we know walk to and from services, all in disbelief that we had stood there for that long talking. It was a wonderful time spent, and we were perfectly okay missing Shabbat services. We took a picture to commemorate our marathon conversation -- check it out on DropShots. Rachel and I then walked home and spent the rest of the evening relaxing in our PJs. Shabbat morning (today) we slept in rather than get up and go to services. Honestly, Saturdays truly are Rachel's only days of rest. I did some long overdue dishes (see hilarious picture on DropShots) and made us a nice dinner. We are looking forward to setting our clocks back one hour when we get in bed in a few, and tomorrow starts a new week here in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, with the end of Shabbat returns the loud traffic on Jabotinsky. We can't wait for cold weather when we can have all of our windows closed.

Until daylight savings in the U.S., effective tomorrow (Sunday) there is only a 6 hour time difference between Israel and the EST in the States. This will change in November when y'all fall back and the time difference will return to 7 hours. There are some random pictures I put on DropShots that y'all can check out. The link is towards the top of the left hand side of the blog home page. Happy New Year!