I don't have a lot of time to blog, because the city is keeping me busy. Well...I do have time, but I've been using it to either chill out,explore, or sleep. So here's a bite-sized look at my time in New York so far.
This past weekend was our Young Judea Year Course reunion weekend, held at my friend "Z"'s apartment in uptown Manhattan. Some of us lived in New York, and others came in for the weekend from New Jersey, Maine, and Illinois.
We made samosas, chicken with pink "Ah-So" sauce, Israeli salad, cooked veggies, basmati rice, fresh fruit, and pie.
The 14 of us gathered around the little floating Shabbat candles and sang the Shabbat blessings. I felt so happy and warm to have all of my friends together again, just doing our thing - talking, laughing, drinking, and relating to one another through our experiences and our Judaism.
The group. Hooray for friends and food!
I don't smoke, but my friends smoked nargilah (hookah) until around 11:00 when we left to see a cult film called "The Room" (more on that in a later post).
I put a drink umbrella into the filter and took a picture.
After storming out of returning from "The Room" showing, we headed back to the apartment, where a few of us cleaned up the apartment and washed the dishes before bedtime. Sleeping arrangements consisted of six people spooning on a futon, three on an air mattress, the host and his girlfriend in another room, and me and my friend "S" in the third room. Everyone went to sleep around 4am.
I woke up around 11:30, and most people were still asleep. A little after noon the boys cooked "shakshuka," an Israeli breakfast of tomatoes, tomato paste, eggs, and other veggies. They also brewed some strong Turkish coffee. The boys claim that the protein and the serious dose of vitamin C in shakshuka is the ultimate hangover cure.
I wouldn't know...but since I don't eat tomatoes, my friend "D" (pictured here) made me "moon over miami"/"rocky mountain toast"/"eggs in a basket"/toast with a cooked egg and cheese in the middle. Yum.
Breakfast ended up being at, like, 3 in the afternoon. In the evening we went to a fantastic comedy show at The Laugh Lounge in the East Village. My friend "S" and I took pictures of graffiti and gingerly pulled artful stickers off of hydrants, lampposts, and bike racks.
If I could crochet like this, I'd be done with the baby blanket I'm making in like, five days.
On Sunday, after some group drama and a little separation time, I and a couple of the Year Course boys went to the Manhattan Gay Pride Parade downtown. It was...well, fabulous!
Despite seeing some great drag, a color guard called the "Flaggots", Catholics that approve of homosexuality, and a man dressed as Jesus,this was my favorite part:
Congregation Simchat Torah, which had a huge, colorful float in the parade.
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