Wedding...

Hey all,

Last week a lot of things has happend and I will try to recall them all in the stories below. On Monday me, Adi and Maya went to the Interior Ministry again to hand in even more papers and we are hopefully now done with handing them papers. Next time we get there we are apparently going to be interviewed separately so that they can get more information to base their decisions on. On Wednesday Adi, Maya and Tzipora(grandma) had a pedicure each for the upcoming wedding, this took place at Tziporas apartment. Before going there me and Adi had printed some pictures that we now have decorated our room with.

On thursday the big day that has been planned for in the last couple of months came, the day of Danit and Shay wedding. During the day Adi, her mother and some other people went to the hair and makeup-dresser for most of the day while I prepared my suit , shoes and hair at home. The wedding was at a khibutz close to Haifa. As I haven't been to a wedding in many years I did not know what to expect and what happend during the night blew me away. When I asked Maya who was coming? she said everyone...and that was very true, the entire area was filled with friends, cousins, grandparents etc all in all some 450ish guests. As this was of course a Jewish wedding I had little to no idea of what was going to happen and compared to what I remember from the last wedding I was at many things were different. First thing at a jewish wedding in Israel, no-one brings gifts. But as soon as you enter the wedding/party-area there is a table with papers, envelopes, pens and safe-box. You write down something nice and then place the note together with a check or regular cash into the envelope and then you put it in the safe-box. So instead of giving gifts the guests gives money to the soon-to-be-married couple. The religious ceremony in itself was of ourse also different, but one thing was similar the bride and the groom drove/walked together to the Chupa( a "house" with an alter). When it was all about to start Shay and Danit came driving down a road in there oldskool WV Beetle and the music playing was something that I thought I'd never hear at a wedding, but what was playing was nothing less then Europes - Final Countdown. The religious ceremony went on some wine was drunk, rings were exchanged, a glass was broken and after that everybody came up to congratulate the newlyweds. After the ceremony dinner, dessert, drinking and dancing took over the night and everybody really enjoyed themselves. When we came back home we were completely spent and some people even woke up with some muscle fever on friday=)

Later on friday me and Adi went to the final CISV Haifa Meeting of this term. We meet some people played some games and just talked about different things. After the meeting was done we went to a sushi-bar together with Gil and Dor to have dinner, it was really nice. On saturday me and Adi went home to Iris to help her prepare the invitations for the Open Day for the CISV-village here in Israel this summer. We prepared some 300 envelopes with an invitation and a map so hopefully if you live in Israel one will arrive to you soon. Later in the day me and Adi took a sherut(minibus-taxi) to Tel Aviv, we couldn't take the train or the regular bus as it was shabbat. We went to Tel Aviv to meet with Vinh from Denmark who was here on a seminar for work. Vinh is a good CISV-friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while so it was nice meeting him. We all meet to have dinner in a restaurant in Tel Aviv and had a really good night. At the dinner also Raz, Nir and friend of theres were present together with Yael who staffed the seminar-camp in Israel with me last year. Me and Adi slept at Razs place and sense it was sunday Adi had to go to her base in the morning. I meet up with Adi for lunch and then I started a little trip for myself. The goal was to get from the Azraeli-mall to the beach and after asking some nice people about what bus to take I was successful and ended up at the beach resting for some hours before me and Adi took the train to Netanya. In Netanya we meet up with Maya and some other people who were doing a benefit-show to raise money for the CISV-village this summer. It was a successful evening and we did not get home until midnight and we fell asleep fast.

Today I have finaly finalsed all the papers for the University I believe and I will hand them in tomorrow and then I will hopefully get more information on what the next step is. On another note so far the World Cup has been a little of a disappointment but it looks like its picking up so hopefully todays games will be better.
Til you read again,
Carl