Friday!
I fell asleep on Thursday night in the Sharon Hotel, listening to the rush of the Mediterranean Sea and crickets (since my room was overlooking the Sea). It was so wonderful that as I was falling asleep, I was trying to figure out how I could duplicate the sound for home...
I slept SOOO well, and woke up to Julie being in the shower (8:45am) and stayed in bed til 9am. I went on the mirpeset (patio) and watched the waves come in and felt the sunshine fall on me. Finally, we got going and went downstairs for breakfast. We shoved some tables together to make room for everyone, and by 9:50a or so, we were all eating together.
I heard all about the wedding plans for the last 14 months, how Auntie Clara got everything done and met everyone who ended up working for the wedding, how it all came together, how she bought the lottery tickets last year (and hand-wrote each little card for the wedding), how they chose the hotel, everything! It was really cool to hear how everything came together.
The breakfast food was really good too, and such choices! I really am eating my way through Israel - good thing I'm walking an average of four miles per day. Anyhoo, breakfast and chatting went til they kicked us out around 11:15am, which is when we packed up our stuff and headed out.
Julie and I checked out, and while the Gabas and her left, I then hiked down to the beach. One of the beach guys started hitting on me, asking if I wanted to have a drink with him (typical Israeli line). I declined, saying I was walking down the beach. He told me if I changed my mind, I should come back. Ha.
I ended up walking all the way down to the Hof Acadia and made myself comfortable. Not many people were around because it wasn't all that warm out, but there were a lot of surfers. I ended up tanning for about an hour, and when the wind picked up a little, I decided to build a sandcastle.
I worked on my castle for two and a half hours, and a couple surfer dudes came by to talk to me for a little bit while they packed up their stuff. One of them thought it was pretty funny that I came to the beach to build a sandcastle - I am of the opinion that it's not just for kids. And anyway, when I was almost done, a guy came by and said it was pretty impressive. He asked if it was something I had seen; I replied that it was only from my head.
When I finally finished my knees hurt since I had been leaning on them for two+ hours. I got up, took some pictures of it, and started heading back to the apartment so I could change and get ready for dinner with the family.
I got back a little after four and just relaxed, playing on my computer. I changed and Ilana called me a little after five to let me know that dinner (at Dagim) was at 730p. So I chilled some more, chatted with Hillary and Lauren and Alex and Hila a little until it was time to go.
I was the first one at the restaurant, but it didn't take long for people to show up. We had a whole room in the restaurant to ourselves, with about 30 people in it. I got to sit by the french cousins and Ron and Julie - it was quite entertaining, especially when the french guy (who spoke only French and a mix of French/Arabic) told me (via sign language and Yisrael translating) that he was toasting to George Bush (I'm pretty sure he was kidding even though I toasted that) as well as me getting married in the next year and that'd he'd come to my wedding. I asked, in America? He said of course!!! He even wrote down his address for me on a napkin (and put his last name as "Bush" haha).
I had a whole conversation with Shoshana's daughter (she is a lawyer in Israel) about law here - it was fascinating, as well as Uncle Arthur and pictures that he has of our family. I had great conversations with so many people all night, and dinner was AMAZING! Our waiter was announcing to our room what was available for dinner, and the french guy interrupted, saying he had to say the choices in three languages, English, Hebrew, and French. The guy said, no problem, and actually did it! It was so funny.
I ended up choosing the denis with teriyaki, and after Uncle Arthur did the kiddush and Gabe did the hamotzei, oh my goodness, was that fish amazing. SoOoOo good. The wine was great, the side dishes were great, and the desserts (alllll the different kinds - so I had one bite of each) were dee-lish. I ate so much!
Unfortunately, the night had to end, but luckily, I was able to get a ride home with Shoshana, Dudi, and Moti (he drove) since they live in Herzliyah. They dropped me off and I walked the rest of the way home. When I got home, there were people over (all of Hil's classmates and friends - including the guys we hung out with the other night) and we chilled out until I went to sleep around 1am...
I was told that there was shul (Shabbat Katan) at 7am in Ramat Gan - that's what sephardis do (the shabbos after the wedding instead of before - Auntie Clara told me why [see Saturday's blog] - but I would have had to get up so freakin' early, so I told them I'd meet them afterwards for the brunch in Ohr Yehuda at Entebba Restaurant at 1015am... Had I known it would cost almost 100 shekel to get there by taxi, I woulda gotten up. Oh well.