Holiday and Tides

Passover holiday ended this week, and it has been very enriching. The only bad was this week, the sunny and abundant heat has been replaced with damp and cold. I didn't do any extreme travelling, mainly just along the coast, to the city and a lot of chilling and hanging out with friends But probably the highlight of the Pesach here was to be able to completely follow it (completely to me). 

In America, I have never been very observant of it outside a not-very-religious-Seder. Here, the Seder I actually choose to participate in was a religious  Seder, complete with Karpas, mar-or, the questions, wine and everything. I almost questioned if I would feel too out of place, but it was a great experience and it confirmed my belief that the Chabad are very welcoming to all denominations and levels of observance. Now I am proud to say I  am familiar with the religious aspect of the Seder.  Here, even if you did not want to observe Pesach you are kind of forced too. The Chametz aisles are closed off and many restaurants are closed. Of course, you have Tif-Tam store if you just wanted to go out of the way to break the rules. 

Also, here there is not only the hard Matza (the only thing largely available in my area in USA), there are many K+  soft and fresh breads available, and you can even find pizza places that are Kosher L'Pesach. In Texas I deal without- and in my case suffer, because I am large bread eater, but here there are options, that while not as tasty at least imitate a normal piece of bread. April 2015 is full of memorial and holidays.

This Thursday I am going to Yad Vashem for Yom Hashoah (Holocaust memorial day). Next week will have Hazikaron (Veteran Day), and Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day). I think the Yom Hashoah will be very moving and possibly depressing, but I hope it ends on a inspiring note. Though the Palestinian Nakba day is on May 15, I will attend some sort of meeting in Jerusalem on the 27th. At my work in addition to my routine, we did have some delegation visits including a visit of American High School students to the Bedouin students in Rahat. My project tour continues in its design stage and time is flying so fast it is no longer so clear when will be the first launch date. I was also selected to be a participant in the Masa Leadership Summit. It was a full room and board week in Jerusalem to connect young people from around the world and provide "leadership seminars". I  alone made friends from Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, France and India, but even more countries were represented. The time here has been invaluable and as my end date comes quicker and quicker time truly fly's.

 The Spring is here and the flowers are blossoming in my apartments community garden.