a weekend in herzliya or should i say heaven

What a great weekend! I went to go visit Doron. It was so nice to be able to spend some time with him and hang out. So Thursday night, I got on the number 28 bus to the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem, which despite being packed full of pushy and rude Israeli's it was a very nice bus station. I waited in a very long and eventually boarded a bus to Tel-Aviv. We got dropped off at the Tel-Aviv Central Bus Station, which is the complete 100% opposite from the Jerusalem one, it was dirty, disgusting, creepy, and full of very very weird people. But I found the right bus and go on the bus for Herzliya, once I got there, Doron and his sister picked me up and drove me back to their house. Now, this is not just some ordinary house, this a gorgeous two story house with like 6 bedrooms and a huge kitchen and a huge living and the wall were covered in original artwork. It was absolutely breathtaking on the inside, and the funny thing is, from the outside it just look like a normal house, because like most neighborhoods in Israel people care more about their privacy than showing off their homes so most houses are surrounded by really tall fences that are actually very ugly, but once on the inside you get to see how nice the houses really are. Now one important piece of information is that Doron's mom is Yemenite and thus makes the most delicious food in the world and when I got there Thursday night, Doron, his parents, and his two sisters and I sat down for a delicious dinner of falafel and humus, it wasn't just any falafel and humus it was homemade and it was the best I had ever had. Then Doron took me out on the town in Tel-Aviv, well actually he brought me to his favorite gay club, and it was sooooo ridiculous. So we all know I am a very open and accepting person but I was definitely uncomfortable in this club, there was just too much drunken kissing and grabbing going on, so after a few drinks, we went home to get some rest.
Friday we spent the whole day in the downtown shopping area of Tel-Aviv, Shuk HaCarmel and Nachlat Benjamin, we actually ended up not buying anything except food, which I must say was a huge surprise for the two of us, but it was just a really fun day. Then we went home for Shabbat dinner, once again cooked up Yemenite style by Doron's mom, it was really yummy and spicy and we didn't have challah, we had this really yummy pita instead. That night we spent the entire evening watching episodes and Sex and City together, it was such an us thing to do.
Saturday, we went down to the ruins of a old crusader fortress on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea called Apollania and then we walked along the beach for like three hours, the ruins were interesting and the views from the cliffslooking down on the water were amazing and then I got a great tan just from walking along the beach all day. Doron found like 6 jellyfish (check out the picture there on the right) and he kept picking them up to freak me out, I thought they were going to sting him. After the beach we got ice cream and headed to a cafe were we sat and played on my computer for a while, I felt so Israeli!
Then I sadly had to say goodbye and head back to Jerusalem and this time I wasn't freaked out the whole way which made it much better. Once back in the dorm, I got a call that some friends were heading out to pre-game and then head to the bars, so I got dressed and went out for the night, it actually ended up being really fun and chilling just dancing and drinking in one bar and then we came home. Today I didn't have class until 2:30 pm and I was my first class of the whole semester (whoo hoo) and it was my Jewish education internship class. The teacher is very nice and most of the material we are using in the class I have either used before in a class at B'deis or used on my Jewish camping research paper that I wrote last semester so the material is going to be pretty easy, plus later this week I am going to find out about my internship, which should be really fun!
For anyone who does not know, this is Doron, he was part of the Israeli delegation that worked at OSRUI this summer, he was assigned to Mosh and so we became very close friends over the summer, he is a great guy!
Secondly, this is just a really ridiculous picture of me, just wanted to bring home the fact that I am just crazy!

Much love to everyone, i'll be writing again soon!

Adra





ps- i miss you, rubber duckie