The pants, the bar, and the frummy

Shabbat in Har Nof was a nice relaxed experience. Friday night a bunch of us went to a traveling Carlebach minyan that happened to be right in out area this week. It was held in someone's house, and the men were in the living room, while the women were in the kitchen.. It was nice to be at a minyan that sings, but this wasn't like the Carlebach minyans in the states, that's for sure. For dinner, another girl from She'arim and I went to a very frum family who have been living in Israel for about 35 years. They had lots of kids, and their 20 year old is engaged and is getting married in 8 weeks.
They had a bunch of other couples there, one of which has a very interesting story.

They're both Russian - the guy, who's 51, was living in New York studying with Rebbetzin Jungreiss, known for her creation of Hineni, and the girl, in her 30s, was studying in Israel. Reb. Jungreiss went to Israel, met this girl, flew back to NY and told the guy that his soul mate was studying in Israel, and he needs to go there to meet her. So he goes to Israel, they meet right before the month of Adar I (the month with Purim that sometimes repeats because of a Jewish leap year), they get engaged at the end of Adar I, and are married by the end of Adar II. And, what makes it more amazing, is the fact that his birthday is in Adar I, and hers is in Adar II! It's such an amazing story.

There was also a cute baby there, and so we were distracted for part of the meal with his cuteness. The whole meal was very frum - many d'var torahs (words of torah) were given, and lots of singing. It kind of reminded me of the Chabad at Binghamton. After the meal, I walked back with another girl from my school who was set up at that family with me, and got into a very interesting conversation about dreams, life, Judaism, and other random things that came up. I got back at 10:15 and was completely passed out by 10:30.

Shabbos morning I didn't quite make it to shul, so I just went to the other family's apartment for lunch. The wife had a baby 3 weeks ago, so I was really impressed that she was up for hosting anybody at all. The baby was crying pretty much the whole first part of the meal until the wife fed him, then he slept. He was cute, but all babies are cute... Her slightly older son, I think he was 2 1/2-3, was way more interesting. He was such a little mentsch! I mean it's weird, because the family is Sfardi - and Sfardi's name their kids after family members who are still living - and the wife said that this son is EXACTLY like the family member he was named after.
So this kid - he saw that there were books and bentchers (small books that just have shabbos songs and the Grace after meals) on his father's chair - so he takes them one by one and puts them away. Then he takes these super heavy books and puts them on the book shelf! I was so impressed. If that weren't enough, after putting books away, he got into his high chair all by himself, buckled himself in, and sat there - completely still for 10 minutes until the meal started. Wow. We should all be blessed to have children as well-behaved as that child.
The husband is from Gibraltar, so we had an interesting discussion of the political vs. geographical setup of Gibraltar. I think it's going on my list of places I need to visit soon.

After lunch, I went back to the apartment, met up with Francesca, and we went for a walk around our area - there's this really nice and mountainous park right nearby - and we walked down to a nice and sunny bench, hung out for a little bit, and then walked back up. I decided it was definitely a good time for a nap - and I napped right up until the end of Shabbos.

After Shabbos, I had plans to go meet the Parkers at this Ethiopian restaurant for dinner. I heard that they serve you the food on a big giant pancake, and you eat it without any utensils! It sounded like fun, so I went to meet them. Apparently on motzei (after) shabbos, they don't restock their food, so whatever they have, they have. Tonight, they didn't have very much, so we left after being told they didn't have any food. Don't know what good being open does them if they don't have any food. Also, we noticed some people were able to get food, so I'm not really sure how that works.

So we left the Ethiopian place and went to a bar that has kosher bar food! Chicken wings, burgers, fries, onion rings - the works! So we ordered the "Meat Platter" between 4 of us, and a side of chicken wings and onion rings. Yum. The sauce on the wings was soooooo good, we were all dipping the fries and onion rings in the wings sauce - and yes, we did lick the platter clean. MMM. I also had myself a half of a liter of HoeGaarden. Yummy. We were properly full, and by that time it was already so late, so I went to the bus stop, said goodbye to the Parkers and went back to Har Nof.

Just a tidbit of info - I went down to town tonight wearing pants - haha the looks I got on the bus.... oy. Such a shonde!