First Seder

The flight was uneventful (which is, of course, always a good thing).  I must say, for $250 one way I sort of expected my flight to come with at least a beverage, but I was wrong, so it's a good thing I filled a nalgene.  Interestingly, even though we're in metric land and they weighed my baggage in kilos, the pilot still announced our cruising altitude in feet (36,000 of them).  Is that just an international convention in the airline industry? Anyway, the three hours flew by (pun intended) because I spent the whole time finishing my last essay.

Ben was waiting for me at baggage claim.  My suitcase was the third one out (they must know I'm important), but we had to wait until all the lesser mortals got their bags because we all shared a shuttle into the city.  When I stepped outside, it felt strangely appropriate for passover because the air was hot and thick, just like stepping out of the terminal at West Palm.  "Wow, this feels like Florida," Ben and I agreed.  In fact, Carins sort of reminds me of a miniature Miami, with palm trees and a large pedestrian-only section in the middle (midrachov, as they say in Tel Aviv).  After dropping our stuff off at the Corona Backpackers, we jumped into nicer clothes and rushed to the hotel where the Chabad seder is.

Well, we were even later than we expected.  The seder started at 5:30 (way too early, in my humble opinion), so they were cleaning up when we got there.  Still, we thought it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves to the rabbis, who are extremely nice people (not surprising).  We asked if we could at least say kiddush, and then...

People started piling food and soup and wine and matzo on our table!  Eat, drink, take your time, they told us (sometimes in Hebrew; there were a bunch of Israelis there, and Ben and I agreed that hearing the Hebrew felt really comforting.)  We actually ended up doing an entire seder for ourselves.  Despite the rabbis insisting we did not have to rush, we did the whole thing start-to-finish in about an hour.  To make a long story short (see what I did there?) it was a really unique experience.  I guess you could say this was my first time leading a seder.  Granted, a two-person seder in an hour is not ideal—the rabbis in Bnei Brak probably wouldn't have finished a paragraph in the span of our whole seder—but given the circumstances it worked out pretty well.

So tomorrow night we are going to where the Chabadniks are staying for their private seder, which they're trying to start at a much more reasonable 8:00.  I must say, when you combine the warm hospitality of a Chabadnik with the cheer of an Australian you end up with a pretty darn nice person.  Ben and I are really looking forward to tomorrow night.

Anyway, tomorrow morning is our first day of scuba lessons in the pool.  (I know, it's not exactly shul... insert grief here.)  Can't wait!  Stay tuned.