Sukkot in Ramat Hasharon

In my last post I never actually told you what I did during my Sukkot break! So as I wait for my TV show to load on my computer, I’ll give you all the lowdown of last week’s events.

After a long afternoon of public transportation, I was excited to see my Uncle Danny and cousin Shelly waiting for me at the bus stop in Ramat Hasharon. We walked back to their house, had a bite to eat, and got settled in. Soon after I took a long walk around the town with Shelly, who just turned fifteen. I was so surprised to see how much she has grown! Well, she’s still on the short side, but she has certainly blossomed into a fabulous young lady.

On our walk, I discovered that we have the exact same taste in music, movies, and even subjects in school! We continued to stroll around town for about an hour; she showed me all of the cool restaurants, shops, and lastly her high school. The streets were pretty empty because Wednesday night was erev Sukkot (Sukkot eve), so most of the shops were closed.

I remembered the cute town from two years ago, when I spent a free weekend there during my Israel program Nesiya. Although it’s a small town, it has a more urban feel than I had remembered. I guess you could call it the perfect combination of suburbia and city life, since it’s only thirty minutes from Tel Aviv.

After our walk we came home to a delicious dinner. In fact, it was my first schnitzel experience in Israel on Year Course….and I wasn’t disappointed. Sharon, my Aunt, is a great cook. Every night we ate something new and delicious. The only food we ate consistently was chicken soup—a dish, I have learned, that gets better with each passing day.

Later that night we all jammed together on our respective instruments; Shelly on the piano, me on the guitar, and Danny on the drums. Shelly and I played our favorite songs and harmonized until we couldn’t sing any more—turns out we both share a talent for remembering every lyric to every song. The gene must run in the family.

Speaking of gene pools, the Levy family is the most artistic, musical, family I’ve ever encountered. Not only is each member of the family a talented musician, but they also are gifted at visual arts. I told them to stop hogging all of the friggen artistic talent in the universe and disperse it throughout the masses, please.

Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I though. So I did. Throughout the weekend, Danny would spontaneously pick up a guitar, Shelly and I would begin singing, and Sharon would start effortlessly harmonizing. It was really inspiring to see how central music is to their family.

I decided that weekend that one of my goals is to practice guitar and draw as much as I can. It’s an attainable goal, since we have a lot of free time in Arad. Also, it turns out one of my Israeli friend’s here has a guitar, so my roommate Maya and I have been playing a bit since arriving back in Arad.

To continue the musical theme of the day, we ended the night by watching Across the Universe, one of my favorite movies of all time. Of course, Shelly and I knew all of the words to every song since we are both devout Beatles fans.

The following day, Thursday, we packed up the SUV and headed to the beach, which is only ten minutes from their house. Although the beach was incredibly crowded (because it was a holiday) the whole experience was very relaxing. We swam in the water, which was perfect temperature, body surfed a bit, and let the waves take us.

Uncle Danny brought his guitar, so of course we played and sang for the entirety of the day. By sundown I was sandy, salty, and tired—but relaxed and happy nonetheless. When we felt our stomachs begin to grumble we finally packed up our stuff, headed home, and ate another delicious dinner.

On Friday Shelly and I decided to head into “the city”, Tel Aviv. Instinctually, I think of “the city” as Manhattan, as any true New Yorker would. I guess some aspects of Tel Aviv remind me of New York—the eccentric characters (referenced in last post), billboards, chain stores, and crowded streets. Despite this, the vibes of the two cities couldn’t be any more contrasting.

The first thing we did was walk around Dizengoff center, the enormous mall in central Tel Aviv. After walking around for about twenty minutes, I realized I might as well have been mindlessly shopping in any American mall, which wasn’t what I came to Tel Aviv to do. I wanted some real authentic Israeli shopping.

So, we left, ate some Shawarma, and headed towards Shenkin street. That was definitely the real deal. The vibe there is less Manhattan and more San Fran—lots of second hand stores, expensive boutiques, and funky random shops tucked in alleyways. You can tell there’s an artsy scene in that part of Tel Aviv. Shelly and I really enjoyed looking at people’s style…and wondering whether we could pull any of it off.

I actually bought a few cool things on a street right off of Shekin—it had a very European vibe to it. I got some leather sandals, an over-the-shoulder purse with elephants on it, and a turquoise necklace. According to Shelly I’m going for the “shanty banty” look, which I guess translates to “boho chic” in English.

Next we wandered through the Shook, the exact antithesis of the “Euro” street. The shook is basically like two blocks of overcrowded China town—lots of the same, cheap stuff in at every vendor. I learned that people go for the experience more than the actual products sold.

After a bit more exploring, Shelly and I got dessert, had some intense conversations (about psychology, philosophy, etc.) and finally headed home.

On Saturday we drove up north for an hour to do what I thought was going to be an easy hike. It actually wouldn’t have been too bad had I brought sneakers with me to Ramat Hasharon. But, I was a champ and did the hike up the rocky mountain wearing my reef flip-flops.

When we finally got to the bottom of the mountain we stopped near a carob tree and ate the odd, dirt colored, pea-shaped thing straight off the branch…and I was pleasantly surprised. They were so sweet and delicious—very gratifying after an intense hike. I even took some with me for the car ride home…

After we arrived in Ramat Hasharon I packed my belongings, said my goodbyes, and waited for the bus at the stop with my Uncle. The last part turned out to be rather futile as the bus never actually showed up. I panicked a bit, but everything worked out just fine, as it always does. Danny ended up driving me to the central bus station in Tel Aviv, I made my bus, and got back to Arad before midnight.

That pretty much sums up my Sukkot break! A lot has actually happened since then, but this post is already quite long...so I’ll save it for the next post : )