Unleavened Fun, part 1

Passover started, and I finally started feeling human again. At seder, I went through about a box of tissues, but as the Chag drew to a close, it was so much easier for me to breathe. Seder was co-hosted by Rafi's family and Anya's family (Anya, Elie's girlfriend). Seder was big and came complete with many interesting people: generations from grandparents to teenagers (Anya's family), students studying in Cairo (Anya's sister and her friend), someone who works in Eastern Europe as a consultant (also Anya's sister's friend), and a wide variety of studens at JTS, Hebrew U, and the Conservative Yeshiva. Seder was great fun, and included extra songs and writings from a variety of haggadot and supplements.

I would've enjoyed it more had I been able to breathe, but I did get a kick out of employing, so to speak, my friend Dan as my waiter. I refused to touch the plates of food in an effort to protect those around me. Therefore, Dan placed on my mini-seder plate quite the assortment of almonds, a few apricots, and he topped it all off with a date. It's a special seder when you get a date from your engaged friend while sitting next to your boyfriend.

My waiter and I enjoy some laffa BEFORE passover (Northern Exposure weekend).

This picture is not K-for-P, but I figured Dan deserved a picture, and I don't have one from seder.

The next day, I slept the sickness off even more, and the first day of non-chag, I was excited to wake up feeling relatively normal, and go on a little road trip with Rafi's family.

I woke thinking we were going to Haifa, but we ended up going to Yaffo and Tel Aviv for the morning. We walked around Yaffo's crazy shuk (where you can get a broken telephone at a truly bargain price!), and then drove around Tel Aviv, vaguely looking for kosher food. When that didn't work out, we made our way to K'far Sabba (literally, Grandfather Village) and dined at a mall. It was pretty crazy for me to get a kosher-for-passover meal anywhere outside of a house, and in a coffee shop it was pretty close to surreal. After K'far Sabba, we ended up in the coastal town of Netanya. Rafi, his dad and his brother went swimming, while Rafi's mom and I sat on the beach. I spent a lot of that time watching an incredibly adorable dog jumping up and down over the waves.

It was really beautiful in Netanya, and we noticed around town that it is a very heavily French place. There were signs in French, and most of the people on the beach were talking in French, too. As Rafi put it, "the lingua franca was...franca." I was more impressed at the open ice cream bar, selling kosher for passover ice cream. I didn't have any, but I was impressed.

Swimming was a success!

Rafi and I enjoy time on the beach in Netanya.

Checking out the beautiful horizon above the Netanya beach.

After Netanya, we came back to Jerusalem, where Rafi's dad cooked something incredible. We hung out for a while, but I was still feeling pretty exhausted and not 100%, so I went back and got some much-needed sleep.