Happy Passover!

Now not everyone reading this may know, but Passover, one of the more important holidays in Judaism, started on Wednesday evening. It will last for 8 days. It is a little strange - but in a good way - to be in a country where it is a huge deal. As in, fewer stores are open, bread isn't sold ANYWHERE (I'll get to why in a minute), and people have shopped like it's Christmas.

Passover is a holiday that the Jews celebrate in rememberance of their escape from slavery in Egypt. God sent plagues until finally the pharoah let them free, but he (the pharoah, not God) kept changing his mind so the Jews had to flee and didn't have time to let the bread rise, so what came out of the oven was unleavened bread, which Jews to this day eat during this holiday, to appreciate what the ancestors had to go through. That's the superfast superficial version, in a nutshell. So in celebration there is a special meal, called a seder. (Random fact: this was Jesus' last meal before he was crucified) It is a long combination of praying, eating special symbolic foods, drinking wine, and eating until you think you might explode. Also, storytelling and singing aren't requirements, but you will rarely go to a seder that doesn't also include these.

I did the seder in Tel Aviv, at my uncle's wife's apartment. With them, my cousin and his wife, another cousin, and the first cousin's visiting friends, it was a nice little group. The friends were visiting from Turkey, so this was their first Passover, which was kind of neat. On the drive from Jerusalem I got a chance to talk to them a bit, and I learned some interesting things, among them: The Turkish alphabet is almost identical to Latin, but the grammer of the language is the exact same as Japanese.

Anyhow. I got to see my cousin who is in the army, which is always a treat. And it was kind of crazy to think that all these events we're talking about happened right here, in the area that I'm living in today. It makes the whole experience a bit more enhanced, I think.

I stayed in Tel Aviv and got a chance to take a nice long bike ride around the city, through Jaffo (the older Arab city linked to it), and along the beach. It was lovely, and perhaps I was a little quick in my harsh judgments. That said, there is no way I would want to live there in the summertime when it's like 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity, but I'm not as opposed to the idea of living there at some point as I was before.

In other news, I should be moving to my own place today!!! wooooooooooooo. well, except for the little detail about not having any furniture. But what can you do.