October 17, 2013

Today was a great day and great start to an incredible weekend. I had class until 2pm and then came back to my room and got ready and packed up for the weekend. My dad and Debbie were here for the weekend and we were going touring and sightseeing for the weekend. The first stop is a family reunion and get together in Jerusalem tonight.

After class, I came back to the dorms, got ready, packed up a bag for the weekend, and left. I had to take a cab to Abra's house to meet her there, and from there, we took a cab together to the Tel Aviv central bus station. From the bus station, we were able to get a sherut to Jerusalem. I was very surprised because the sherut only cost me twenty-five shekels and only took about an hour and fifteen minutes. It really was not hard at all to get to Jerusalem! Once Abra and I got there, it took us a few minutes to find the restaurant. Finally, we knew we had found it when we were greeted outside by two people that said they remembered me from when I was just a baby. At this moment, I knew we were there. The dinner was very interesting; there were about twenty-five of us, at one long table, and everybody was from two sets of parents. All of the family members there, some I have met and some I have not, were very religious. One of the sets of parents, Roz and Paul, have eight children (seven boys and one girl) and thirty grandchildren. All of the "children" are older now though, the ages range from twenty two (he came in his army uniform with a gun in hand) to forty. Everybody at the table was very interesting because to me, they represented a true Jewish family. There were very religious people, not-so religious children, the three of us who are not religious really at all, people who are in the army currently, people who are still in the intelligence units late into their forties, Americans, Israelis, and everybody had different interest. It was fun to see everybody get together and get along! The dinner started out with all of us sitting down at the table and then one-by-one, we went around the table and introduced ourselves. The rest of the night went really well, everybody was getting along and talking and having a great time! I got a few invites from some of the families for me to come to their houses for Shabbat some weekends. It was a great feeling to be in Israel and meet up with people from all different backgrounds, that are all in the same family! After dinner, we were back to the King David hotel and off to bed, we have an early morning of touring tomorrow.