Busy Weekend

My weekends start on Thursday night. This week there was a program called Carlsberg and Carlbach. It's pretty self explanatory. We hung out, sang some Carlbach songs and drank some Carlsberg beer. We learned something interesting. Carlsberg was the first beer to be brewed in Israel and it was also the first beer to receive Kosher certification. And also its sister beer, Tuborg, was created by a Jewish immigrant to Denmark who had no money. Pretty cool stuff.
I spent Friday afternoon preparing for Saturday afternoon's bbq and waiting for my friend from Pitt to show up. I made a big pan of chicken kebabs that I finished right before Meredith arrived. After she got here, we had some coffee and hung around for a bit and then we went to Shabbat services in the dorm's synagogue. We tried to light candles in my room, however we were afraid of the candles falling over and burning the place down. I already set the fire alarm off once, and I really don't want to do it again. I was the only American guy at the service. The rest of the people were Israeli soldiers, most of them secular, and most of them had no idea what was going on in the service. The religious situation here in Israel is deeply divided between the Orthodox and the secular and there is generally no middle ground, which most people believe is hurting Judaism and Israel more than helping them.

After services there was dinner on campus for students. Dinner was schnitzel and vegetables. It was tasty. There was no desert. Which was weird. So my friends and I went back and ate a cake that I bought earlier in the day because I knew I would be having a guest. The cake was really good. After cake, we decided to watch the movie "Snatch". I'd never seen it before, but it is not one of my favorite movies. It has lots of my favorite movie things in it, including:
Ska Music
Reggae Music
Crime
England
Irish People
English People
Jews
Violence
Humor
Dennis Farina (The guy that replaced Jerry Orbach on "Law and Order")

The next day was the potluck bbq for the International School. I brought a big pan of kebabs that were absolutely delicious. We at them with hummus, pita, and cabbage salad. They turned out great. I seasoned them with garlic, pepper, and hot paprika. After the kebabs, my friends and I made turkish coffee on the grills, which also turned out great.


Meredith left around 7 Saturday night. We waited outside for a bus and played with some of the stray cats that were hanging around the station. One of them was black and had no tail. He looked like he was expecting food or something from us. Seriously, I hate cats. He kept climbing up on me. I told him that if he ripped my jeans he would learn the hard way that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
After Meredith left, my friends and I went out to a pub. It was fun. We went with some other people from the international school and then we took a long walk down Mt. Carmel to get some late night waffles and crepes. We stopped in a park to look at a fountain. It was lit up and looked really cool. We took a cab back to the university. The cab was a brand new Mercedes, which was reflected in the price of the cab ride. I never would have thought that a Mercedes would be used as a cab, especially in Israel, but apparently the cars are part of a reparations settlement with Germany.

Anyways, this weekend was great, but now I need to get some work done.