3 Fall holidays down, 1 to go

So this past Wed-Thurs was Sukkot, a Jewish harvest festival that commemorates the 40 years of walking in the desert. One of my Israeli camp friends (Meir) invited me and another camp friend (Josh) to his sister's house for dinner Wednesday night. The eve of every holiday usually involves some sort of traditional meal. This one is eaten in the sukkah. Meir is the youngest of 5 and his whole side of the family and his sister's husband's side was there. The table extended pretty far out of the sukkah. There was so much delicious food and everyone made us feel so welcome. Meir joked that we had to keep our plates filled, but seriously, every time there was space made, someone else offered us more! After the meal, we sat around outside, digesting and watching the kids play. Later, Josh, Meir, one of his brothers (Yoni) and his girlfriend (Yael) and I went to south TA to some clubs. Yoni and Yael were meeting friends for a birthday and Meir took Josh and I to a place called Bordel. It was packed and they were playing a kind of heavy metal trance music. Meir tried to volunteer me for a drinking contest. Luckily, he was joking and I got out of it. Next, we went to -1, which is underground and designed to look like a parking garage. This is where Yoni and Yael were. This club was playing more fun songs. One was even from camp and we all did the dance. I told Meir that I thought all the Israelis at camp said they don't ever do these dances. He told me that they only do them when they are goofing around. I was under the impression that most Israelis didn't even know the dances...I have discovered their secret! After a bit, we went to a place called the Breakfast Club. Loss of house type music. Had a weird encounter at the bathrooms where no one really stands in line. Some girls asked if I wanted to go in with them. Thinking this was the only way I was going to get in, I took them up on the offer, until their guy friends started walking in too. Meir wasn't standing too far away, got a little protective and we left to go back to -1. We actually didn't go to bed too late (2:30 am), so we were able to hit the beach by noon on Thursday. We had our biggest group yet with 7 people: Ali, Allie, Josh, Raquefette, Evan, Adam and me. Spent some time in the water on the raft with Ali and a lot of time hanging out on the blankets getting coated in sand by the wind.
I'm going camping next week, so look for a blog about that later.