Big Orange Backpack

This was most likely the most amazing Shabbos ever. Julie, Jake, Gavin, Seth, Cloie and I went down to the Kotel to welcome the Sabbath - it was packed and really amazing, it was funny how many Americans were there. Julie and Cloie and I went down into the woman's section and I finally wrote a note to put into the wall, the past two times I didn't have paper or a pen - and there was a circle of women dancing and singing and we joined their group for about half an hour, singing and dancing. As we were walking out we spotted the boys fairly quickly (it's a good thing Gavin is so tall) and they had met up with two people the knew. Jake knew this girl Debbie and Gavin spotted his friend Jenn. I actually knew Jenn, she was one of the organisers for LTS, a Kesher (Reform) leadership conference I went to in DC in the winter. We chatted for a while, but Seth and Gavin decided to go home and do Shabbos with some of their friends, so it was just Jake, Debbie, Julie, and I. We decided we were hungry, looked at a map, and started walking towards ben Yehuda. So as we were walking I saw a kid in front of me with a Rutgers bag on, I yelled RU, RU Rutgers! and the kid turned around and it was my good friend from school Adrian. I had no idea he was going to be in Israel, and it was so surprising to see him. We yelled and hugged and chatted for a minute. He was with some people on their way to Shabbos dinner at one of their brother-in-law's houses and the guy whose house they were going to immediately asked what we were doing for dinner, and when we told him going to ben Yehuda for some shwarma he said "oh, no! you're coming to my brother in law's for Shabbos dinner! you can't go to ben Yehuda!" So we discovered on the way that Adrian had rag tagged along with their group (he randomly met a girl staying at the brother-in-law's house), and now we were rag tagging along with them. He now had six extra guests than he told his brother-in-law, but he didn't seem that concerned, and we walked to his house. The walk was about an hour and a half I'm told, way into the suburbs of Jerusalem, and I chatted with a really interesting guy from Stuyvesant town, David, who was also rag tagging along with their group. When we got there the owners of the apartment where we would be eating looked surprised to see so many guests, but when we told them that we were planning on going to ben Yehuda they were relieved that we came there instead. The meal was great, there was tons of singing, even a little dancing. The company was great, there were four kids there that were with birthright but extended their trips, and they were with their staff leader, who was the guy who invited us in the first place. We ended up walking halfway back into Jerusalem, catching a cab, and going back to Mt. Scopus, and we got here after 1am. I had amazing conversations with David and the brother-in-law, who is almost a rabbi, about conversion and my precarious halakic status... It was really an amazing night.

In a little while we're planning on going into the Christian quarter to tour a bit there. :) I love Israel.