Another Great Shabbat

I feel like I always post about what I do on shabbat and today is no exception. (I think it's because during the week I have so much homework that it is difficult to go out and do things. Anyway on Friday my friend Sam and I decided that we were going to cook a nice meal of vegetables and pasta together in her room. I was on my way over to her apartment when she called and asked if it was ok if we went to an Israeli's guys apartment since he had invited her over just than. I agreed. Neither Sam nor I had met these people before but one of the guys asked Sam for dinner while she was on her way to the garbage- I love the spontaneous invites here! It turns out that two of the guys were Druz while the other was Jewish. The Jewish one was in his first year at college, and he lives on a Kibbutz. His English was really good which was very useful because my Hebrew is not so great. The two Druz guys spoke both Hebrew and Arabic fluently and their English was alright. I attempted to speak Arabic with one of the Druz and Hebrew with the Jewish one- although most of my sentences ended up being mainly in English- it was still fun to try. The three guys grilled three different types of meat for Sam and I and we sat around- eating with our fingers, talking and laughing. Lately I feel that the majority of my conversations that I have with Israelis ends up being political (whether it is Israeli or American politics) It is always very interesting to hear their perspective and so far I have not heard anything I wouldn't want to hear nor have said anything to offend others (at least I hope I haven't). One of the Druz men that we had dinner with was extremely pro-Israel- almost to the point of being obsessive and that was a little scary to hear him speak about that but the other two seemed much more moderate. After our meal with the Israelis Sam and I went back to her apartment and invited our friend Alex over for dinner. (Yes Sam and I had two dinners and they were both wonderful) It was Alex's birthday so we wanted to cook him dinner while he made us Turkish Coffee. Later that night- I forgot I locked myself out of my room at this point- forgetting my keys on my desk (great place mara). But anyway after dinner a bunch of us went to a bar to celebrate Alex's birthday- my friend Dori and I had picked up some cup cakes earlier that day and we gave them to him at the bar- singing happy birthday in Hebrew while other Israelis joined in. It was a fun, relaxing evening and luckily my roommate was in our room when i returned from the bar. (I had been planning on sleeping on the floor of someone's room in their sleeping bag so thank goodness my roommate was there)

On Saturday my cousins Motti and Ayala visited me from Tel Aviv. They picked me up from school and we went to a wonderful restaurant not far from my school. The best thing about the restaurant though I thought was the view- one could see everything from there. The windows looked out over the Mediterranean Sea and Motti told me that there are places to rent sailboats near the beach which i may look into. (I should learn how to sail first but hopefully it won't be too complicated) Since my cousins do not live in Haifa, nor do I believe they venture to Haifa very often they did not know where the restaurant was. I think it was my grandma who told me NEVER to drive with Motti and upon hearing this I simply assumed that Motti drove like most Israelis- crazy! however I was quite wrong- Not once or even twice but at least three times (maybe even four) he stopped in the middle of the two lane road to ask for directions. However what was unusual and probably what my grandma was referring to was the fact that he didn't pull off to the side of the road to ask for directions instead he just stopped in the middle of BOTH lanes, rolled down the window and asked who ever was passing by. In the mean time there were cars honking and squeezing around us. But not to worry everyone made it to everyone's destination safely.

I would love to write more but I must finish my homework now. I hope everyone is doing well, I send my love and apologize for the spelling and grammatical errors.