'get your ass over to my paddy's passover'

First of all, chag sameach and happy easter to everyone! I can't remember who I did and who I didn't email this to already, but basically, it's worth checking out again anyway- so have a look at www.atomfilms.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=matzah&preplay=1&ratingBar=off for a good chuckle. (You have to copy and paste the links into the address field because I still haven't worked out how to make these links hyperlinks, sorry!)
Also, check out http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/sarahknopman/my_photos
for the new 'A bit of Feb and March' album.

For first night Pesach, we went to one of Eli's Aunty's place for dinner up in the North. When we travel up North by the way, to visit Eli's family, it takes about 2 hours to get there. But on Pesach, the whole country is travelling places so it took about 3 and a half. The seder was good- extremely loud (I just can't get used to how loud a group of 12 Morroccans can get- it's insane!). We did a very abridged version of the haggadah reading, and basically got straight into the food after about 15 mins. I read in Hebrew for a bit and impressed everyone :-)

It's strange here, everyone gets Pesach presents from their employers- so I was pleasantly surprised to receive a big aromatherapy present from Wall Street (which included a big chunky mango candle and smaller candles and bath salts) plus a 250 shekel voucher for Golf- which is a designer label here for clothes and homeware. How cool is that? Yay!

Pesach is obviously very different to how I'm used to it back at home. First of all, being a Jewish country and all, everyone is basically on holidays right now, so many shops and businesses have closed down for the week. And everyone goes away. We spent the first 2 days in the North and we'll be going back there on Tuesday and Wednesday again to celebrate Maimoona with Eli's other side of the family. Maimoona is apparently a traditional Morroccan holiday which takes place on the last 2 days of Pesach. I think it involves just more eating, I'm not sure though exactly what to expect, but I'd say that's a safe guess. Then on Thursday and FRiday, Eli and I plan to go down to Eilat to snorkel. The weather is getting much hotter now. If Nitzan (Eli's cousin) and his pal come with us then they'll bring their jetskis and we'll be doing some of that as well. yay!!! Nitzan by the way, is Eli's cousin who is in a wheel chair. His best friend- who seriously goes with him everywhere- is Ido, who is permanently on crutches. The 2 of them are very funny together. Sometimes completely inappropriate. For example- we're all at a cafe and the waiter comes to serve us and mentions how he's so exhausted because he's been on his feet all day and he's complaining about how busy and tired he is. Nitzan will say "you've been on your feet all day? I haven't been on my feet for 10 years! Do you hear me complain?" And he and Ido will crack up laughing whilst the waiter turns bright red. They enjoy this sort of dark humour. The 2 of them have decided they've worked out a plan how they're going to save lots of money. They're going to India together. And they're going to rent out their places whilst they're gone. They've calculated that they actually save money by holidaying in India rather than living in Israel. Haha! What a brilliant plan!
When we were driving to the North in Nitzan's car, (and boy what an awesome car it is!) we wanted to stop off at a shop to buy a drink, and someone in front of us pulled into the disabled parking spot. This happens a lot in Israel and it drives Nitzan crazy (understandably) so he invarialy ends up parking on the sidewalk and puts a letter in the window to explain why he's parked there. So this time, he got out of the car rally fast and was going over to them in his wheel chair when they saw him and reversed out of there quick smart.

In other news, a couple of weeks ago I went along to a wedding which Eli was playing at. It was in Zichron Yaakov, which was about 1.5hrs bus drive from my work. It was a very nice and most unusual wedding. The bride was Israeli. Her mother and grandmother were Yemen, and her father was Portugese. She was marrying a Mexican guy who had converted to Judaism for her (reform)- and all his devout Chistian Mexican family were there as well as some of his friends from the States- where he had been living for the last 8 years or so. So under the Chuppa, it was one big balagan, with 2 rabbis and everything being translated from english to hebrew to portugese... then again for the speeches, everything was being translated into 3 languages. The father of the groom wore a big sombreo, and the mother wore sunglasses, and fro the opposite spectrum, the Yemen grandmother of the bride was wearing some traditional Yemen sack-looking garb. Then there was traditional Yemen dancing which was very entertaining- reminded me of something I saw in Ubud in Indonesia- where the dancers go into a trance. He was just sooo happy dancing!
Of course, need I say it? The food was superb. You know, I really love going to weddings to watch Eli play. I really feel like it's a night out for me. Always great entertainment, I cry at all the weddings, I eat great food, I dance...I speak to random people, it's brilliant! Lucky for me at this wedding I had lots of Aericans to chat to.
Yeffy is the band leader and singer. We went to visit him as well on Pesach. He lives in a moshav- like a village where everyone knows everyone. It's the complete opposite of city life there. Everything's so quiet and peaceful and full of nature.. people chew on grass and share cats.... that sort of thing. He's the one I spoke about previously who had 5 generations around the table. Well it happened again. I'm always so overwhelmed when we visit! It's so nice! Whilst we were there, one of the little kids got her head stuck in the stair railings. It was a big mission to get her out. Yeffy saved the day. He is extremely charming and nice and sweet that man, and he sings well and dances well too. (Ask Jord! :-) )He loves to tease Eli and dance with me, then pass me back to him as if- "now it's your turn, show us what you can do" :-) Eli in fact said to me after that wedding, 'maybe we should start ballroom dancing or salsa dancing classes'. Can you believe it? It was actually his suggestion, not mine! I can't believe it! So we're looking into it. now.. one of my students at WS runs a salsa dancing school... I need to speak with him.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, speaking about nature- on election day- which was March 28- Eli and I took his mum, Eti, on a road trip up north to the Golan Heights, to a historical place called Gamla. It was fascinating! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamla
Along the way we picked up a hitchhiking soldier who was in the same unit as Eli used to be in the army. It's just the done thing here. At Gamla, we went on a trek and hiked for a few hours.
It's eagle season and we saw lots of eagles. In fact, through one kind man's binoculars, we even got to see some scavenging on a dead cow! We also saw Israel's tallest waterfall. Yay. Then we continued on our merry way to Tierius to eat fish from the Kineret. It was very nice. All in all it was a lovely day.

In conclusion, Eli and I have discovered a cheap pool place right next to our house- finally! Israel has a drastic shortage of pool/snooker bars. So we've picked up a new hobby, alongide basketball and jogging and playing with kittens and going to our corner bar to watch the basketball finals on the tv- it's the first time in my life I've ever lived without a tv. Even when I was backpacking with Lena around the world for 8 months, we kept catching TV in hostels here and there... but here I feel I never watch anything! Just 2 German channels. And that keeps me occupied.

Once again, happy holidays to everyone, and I hope you are all well- I will catch up with the personal emails very soon, I'm sorry about the delayed response! Take care y'all xxxxxxx