Street Performances, Beach, and the Feines

Last Tuesday, when Meredith, Rebecca, and I walked around Ben Yehuda, we watched some of the street performers. I casually joked that Meredith should come here and play her violin for some money.

Well, she did it!!!! She did it with her partner, Mika (an incoming freshman to Yale), who plas ethnic drums. I went with them before I met up with Paige just to help them get set up. Within 5 minutes of playing, they actually had a good crowd! I love hearing Meredith play her violin- she does it soooo beautifully and she's really passionate about it. Here are some of the pictures.

So they earned a grand total of 155 shekelim which is about $40- they each earned $10/hour. I don't know what they're planning to do with the money but Meredith can't wait to get rid of her agoras (the 1/10 of a shekel coin) tomorrow.

While they played, Paige and I went for some fabulous sushi at Sakura, a Japanese restaurant in Jerusalem Courtyard. The fish was unbelievably fresh!!!! Then we talked for a long time over coffee and chocolate afterwards at Cafe Hillel. I love doing this- girls' night out, enjoying good food and conversation.

Friday, I went off to Tel Aviv for the beach. I was supposed to meet up with Uri, an Israeli from May's trip, but I wasn't feeling so good and I didn't really want to meet with him. Fortunately, he developed a migraine and couldn't come in. That was fine with me. The water was really warm for some reason at 12 PM but it cooled down later on... it was just weird. I couldn't cool down for a while, yuck. There was also a volleyball tournament going on nearby.... Of course, I couldn't leave without an Israeli saying "hi!" in a super friendly way... The bus rides weren't bad at all- not as insane as back in June. I wonder why.

For dinner, I went over to the Feines' (Zvi and Ruthie) in Ramot. They had a view of Begin North in front of Jerusalem. It was SOOOO creepy because once I saw it, I knew immediately that before 1967, it was not possible to be standing here. It's one of those moments when you're in a country that fought so hard for land and pushed the borders to make it safer and you realize that you're in once enemy territory. It's really weird- you don't feel that when you're in the US because the US never had to be in that position (except for the Mexican Cession, but that was seriously long time ago and Mexico wasn't exactly a country who wanted to wipe another off the map). Anyway, Ruthie makes a mean goulash- I had double portion because I decided that I'd rather have another portion than to have some goulash AND chicken. She also made some chocolate chip cookies... thank goodness.... And yummy chocolate ice cream. Zvi told me a bit about his trip to Russia that he had just gone on, vsiting the Jewish communities in the Urals. The dinner conversation was all in Hebrew. Fortunately, since they are Americans, they speak like the Americans- slowly. So I could actually follow some of it! I even spoke Hebrew when I could! I noticed the difference in Hebrew between the older and younger generations. I reasoned that being in the Army can change how non-Israelis speak Hebrew since the older generations didn't really serve in the Army in the same ways as their children did. The young people spoke faster Hebrew and really as if it was truly their first language.

It's going to be a long road.

Got it