Post-Parentalage

So after my parents left it was really party time.

The first day after they left I did homework (woooooo) and then went on a tiyul with a soon-to-be-married guy friend. Just lettin' y'all know, he is engaged thanks to me so if you yourself would like a shidduch... you know who to call.

We went to Ein Karem. Not only are the views there of the Jerusalem forests breathtaking and generally inspiring but there's also awesome churches and landmarks there. In particular we enjoyed visiting the church of visitation but failed at finding the awesome russian gold topped one, for a giant gold building it can be very sneaky and hard to locate in a forest.

At the end of the hike was the Chindak maayan. Since it was still holidays for yeshivot there were lots of haredim there. So I sent m good friend ahead of me to check out the lovely male specimens (jokes!) and to ascertain their clothing status. He reckoned it was safe to continue down to the maayan. However, at the exact moment that I came to the maayan total full frontal nekkid haredim exited the cave that joins the maayan.

Sooooo much naked haredi.

So we promptly made our exit and tried to bury those images deep in our subconsciousness for later treatment by psychologists.

The next day was spent at work for CWJ.

But that night I went to my friend's tekes kumta near Ashkelon. It was surprisingly moving. There was such a mix of communities there. There were standard Sephardi arse families standing next to Druze families, who were next to the north tel Aviv Ashkenazi bourgeois, who were next to Israeli-Arabs and they in turn were standing next to all of us crazy Australians.

The speech was quite poignant explaining why there has to be an army, what they are fighting for (freedom, democracy, the future of the nation...) and the family that these (very) young (yet so good looking) boys are entering.

Obviously, I'd prefer it if we didn't need compulsory military service, I certainly hope that my kids won't have to serve. But I feel like it was nevertheless kinda of the best of a not-ideal situation.

Friday was spent at Hof Ha-Palmachim sailing with my Swedish descended friend. It was wonderful, I got to steer and we didn't capsize (not the same can be said for the others...). Shabbat was spent at his place in Peduel, his parents were away (party!).

Other than that life is now back to normal. Back in university (the last bit), back in my beit midrash (Tamar Ross gave shiur klali this week) and back to work at CWJ (the Prime Minister's office called today).

Until next time....adieu