Downtown for the last time

Today was jam-packed with goodies - classes were awesome, as they are on Mondays and Wednesdays, and after classes was another fun night in town.

I actually had two shalom bayit classes today - one in the morning with a group, and one in the afternoon, privately with the Rebbetzin who wrote the book on Shalom Bayit - literally. She wrote a book called "Dear Kallah," which I haven't read yet, but basically, she knows what she's talking about.
She said a few things I didn't totally agree with, like, the man is king of the castle - and you can't ever criticize your husband, but she said a lot of things that sounded like good advice. Like, respect, acceptance, and loyalty are the most important things in a marriage, and you need to start thinking in terms of "we." She told me about this book called "The Surrendered Wife" which was written by an ex-feminist. She apparently used such a controversial title to get people to buy the book - I guess it worked. Don't know if I'll read it though.

The rest of the classes were good (we're still learning the halacha of muktsa), and we had an interesting discussion about death in a statement of Pirei Avot. After classes were over, Francesca, a girl I know from New York, and I went down to town. I went to the shuk to get this picture I really wanted, and they went to Mea Shearim. I found the picture place in the shuk okay, but when I got there, the man who owns the store wasn't there, and some punk Israeli chick was. I told her in very broken Hebrew which picture I wanted - the view from the back of the prayer area of the Kotel with the bride on one side and the groom on the other - and she told me that they only had it in the small size. I wasn't terribly thrilled about it, but the small size of the picture is better than no picture at all. And, since I didn't spend as much money on the picture as I expected to, I bought myself a fun Israeli scarf.

I met back up with Francesca and Sari (the girl I know from NY) she went off to meet her friends, and Francesca and I went to the Kotel to do some quality davening. After we finished davening, we noticed a large amount of soldiers standing around at attention. They all sang HaTikvah (the Israeli national anthem) while they were looking at the flag, and they saluted and cheered towards the Kotel. It was really moving, and we saw some female soldiers wearing army green colored skirts! I guess that's what they do for religious girls in the army...

After the kotel, we planned on going to this yummy bakery/restaurant to get the exploding chocolate pudding thing, but they didn't have them tonight. Being disappointed, we went down to the next store where they sell Bagel Toasts. A bagel toast is basically a bagel, with stuff on it, shoved in a panini toaster and flattened like there's no tomorrow. It's delicious. Unfortuately, this place was closing and wasn't making any more bagel toasts. 0 for 2. So we go to Cafe Hillel, Francesca got her chocolate exploding pudding cake, that came with a side of ice cream, and I got myself a half sandwich of goat cheese and roasted red pepper with a glass of Limonada (Fresh Lemonade).
After being very satisfied, we headed to the bus stop. The bus made it usual route, with one extra stop... Apparently the bus driver wanted pizza, because we stopped by the shopping center with the pizza place. We thought he just saw someone he knew and was saying hi, which is weird enough for a public bus to do, but then the guy went in the store and brought out a slice of pizza! It was crazy. Talk about drive through service. I couldn't imagine a bus driver in New York pulling that shtick and getting away with it. The passengers in Israel just accept that as part of the deal - the bus driver will take you where you're supposed to go, but he may make a stop to deal some drugs, say hi to friends, or buy some pizza.