Shopping in Hadar before Shabbat

This morning my friends and I went to the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa to go shopping in the large, open air market. It was an experience. The food there is delicious looking because it's all fresh and mostly organic. It's also dirt cheap. I paid $1.00 for an eggplant. I'm going to fry it in some oil and make sandwiches with it later this week. I also got 4 huge grapefruits for $1.50 and some really sweet red peppers for a $.75. I also got a bag of 5 fresh pitas that were absolutely delicious. I took them home hand made a schnitzel sandwich for lunch. It was delicious. Just to clear up, if anyone is interested, eating your vegetables is the thing to do in Israel. So don't worry, I am getting nutrition.

I brought my camera to take some pictures, but unfortunately the place was absolutely packed and bustling before the 2pm deadline when Israel pretty much shuts down.

There were a lot of Black Hatters there, which is a common site in Israel. They had their van parked their with the "Moshiach Now" flag or whatever they call it. It's purple and gold and has a crown on it. In fact, if I recall correctly, it looks exactly like the L.A. Kings' logo from back in the day. Who knew that the ultra-Orthodox were Kings fans, let alone hockey fans. The list of things that the ultra-Orthodox and I disagree on continues to grow. GO SHARKS!!!!!!

(For non-hockey fans, the Sharks and Kings are rivals. And the Sharks are better. It's a scientific fact.)

Tonight I am going to be having Shabbat dinner with apparently one of the wealthiest families in Haifa. I don't know much about them other than that they're loaded and originally from England. My friends and I are meeting them at their synagogue tonight, which is close to the University, and then going to their house. It should be fun. We bought a bottle of wine to bring over because we're super classy. Except we don't know if it's good. The brand is Gato Negra from Argentina. Anybody heard of it? I would hate to bring bad wine, and unfortunately Israel has some notoriously bad wine. Hopefully this isn't one of them.