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| Scott in front of the Tel Aviv Crown Plaza Hotel |
Woke around 5:00 AM and had to go to the bathroom. It was still dark out so I went back to bed and fell back asleep until 7:45 AM. Motivated at 7:45 AM and toke a showered and shaved. Al showered after me. We got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. The food was slightly different then the day before but still a vast quantity and selection. We headed back to the room around 8:45 AM to brush up and then went downstairs to meet the Rabbi and others to head over to services. The Rabbi knew a conservative synagogue about 20 minutes from the hotel so the four of us walked over there. It was a small local synagogue with about 30 people in it when we got there around 9:30 AM. They knew we were not locals and were very nice to us when we entered the building. As time went on the synagogue slowly filled up handling about 100 people. We also realized there two identical brothers were getting Bar Mitzvah’d so that made the service extra special. Even so, I still found some time to close my eyes and dose off. The Rabbi there knew our Rabbi so we felt very comfortable. The service lasted until 12:30 PM and then we went behind the main building to a courtyard and had an Oneg where they had a couple of tables set up with drinks, crackers, and fruit. It was much smaller then what we were used to but very nice still the same. We hung out about 10 minutes and then started our 20 minute trek back to the hotel. It was hot out so we all worked up a good sweat by the time we got back. We headed up the elevator to our floor and all the kids were sitting there. Zach informed us that he and Hannah had both slept until 12 PM. They needed it since they had gone to bed late and still had not recovered from the time change. We got back to the room and changed into our bathing suits and headed down for lunch around 1:30 PM. We finished lunch and decided to meet in the lobby at 3:00 PM to hang on the beach. The beach was great. There were a lot of people hanging out playing paddle ball (official Israeli beach sport). The water was nice and warm and the waves were excellent. We all had a wonderful time and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We spent a few hours on the beach and then went back to the room and showered up for dinner. A few of us decided to have a little cocktail party in the room and had some vodka drinks mixed with OJ. We then went out for dinner and found a nice place to eat and watched the Germany/Uruguay third place soccer match. It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel and passed out.
Floor Nine
ReplyDeleteAfter we had cocktails, we went out to the beach as the sun was setting. They were playing Israeli music and people of varying ages (and attire) were out on the promenade doing Israeli dancing (think line dancing, but Israeli music instead of country). Most of our group joined us. We then went to the beach and did Havdalah on the beach.