Empty Shuk!

September 10, 2010

Friday Hannah and I decided to go explore in downtown Tel Aviv. Our goal was the Hacarmel Markets, which is a sort of outdoor market with people hawking their wares in your face. However, we forgot that it was the second day of Rosh Hashanah, which meant that (1) the buses weren’t running, and (2) zero shops were open. So we walked for about an hour into Tel Aviv, and arrived at the market to find it ghost town. Literally zero people in sight. Then we met up with Hannah’s friend from Harvard and Morgan and Jodi (from the Tel Aviv group) and we wandered around until we found one street that was semi-open, called Rothschild, which is the hip young people center in downtown Tel Aviv. We got some gourmet ice cream with savory flavors and hung out in the shade for a while. Then we meandered back along the coast and put our feet in the water, which was really nice, although we were sweating immensely at that point, so we wished we were swimming instead of walking.

Then we bought bourekas, which are pastries with made of filo dough with cheese or potato inside them. I had a potato one, which was like knish but with filo dough. Delicious. Best street food ever. And only 10 sheckles!

After we got home, I google mapped how far we walked – turns out it was 6.5 miles! That’s a lot of walking, especially in the immense heat. I just looked it up, and it was 90 degrees with 75% humidity. So intense! So after showering all of that off, we had Shabbat dinner!

We decided to have a Yafo group bonding activity and have a potluck Shabbat dinner downstairs. Every apartment brought food and we all had a great time. It was really nice to have a family bonding activity like that. And some people made super delicious food! It was awesome. My contribution was financial and I washed every single dish! So I feel that I significantly contributed. AND, Katie said she’d teach me how to cook anytime I want, which is also great. I hope we keep doing Yafo Shabbat together, cause it was really nice to all be there.