Shabbat Shalom!

I have been looking forward to this week's Shabbat ever since last week. Moving to Israel, settling in, and adjusting has been exhausting. In Israel, on Shabbat, everything shuts down. Almost no stores are open, very few people drive, and the public transportation doesn't run.

Last night we went to services at a nearby shul, and I must say, I was not only really disappointed, I was really upset. So far everything religious in Israel that I have experienced has been divided by gender, but has otherwise been almost equal. This shul was not. The men got an entire service, and the woman sat in a separate room in another part of the building with their kids. It sucked. I am definitely not going back.

However, the good part of the evening was going to dinner with our host families! I definitely requested a progressive family, and my host family definitely isn't, but they are still nice, even if there are some clashes. They spent some time talking about how we all should make aliyah and move to settlements because that would cause the the Moshiach to arrive. And they were shomer negiah and just had really separate and static gender roles. But they have a gorgeous baby girl, and the food was amazing (it wasn't a big deal at all that I am a vegetarian), and it was just nice to spend some time with people who were not American 17-20 year olds.

I slept until almost noon today, and haven't left the house since (neither have any of my three roommates.) It's been pretty much just what I needed. We still have to do some more cleaning (we did laundry, but have to take out the trash and reorganize our room.) We're having another apartment over for dinner tonight and we're having pasta with white and red sauce and salad.