Visiting Home Part 5

Friday is a day off in Israel as Shabbat starts at sundown and most places start closing around 3pm. We decided to join some ex-pat friends for trip to the market and a bike ride on the boarwalk between Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The market was just like I remembered it... very crowded on Fridays. We bought some fresh squeezed juice and a few souvenirs. Renting bikes was not hard at all and soon we were off. The weather was fabulous and we were hot in our jeans and sweatshirts :-( Seriously, I can never dress for weather! We locked up the bikes in Jaffa and toured the little city's shops and stopped by the house of Simon the Tanner (where Peter had his vision that the Gospel extends beyond the Jews) and posed next to a great fish remincisent of Jonah's decision to go to Tarshish instead of Ninevah. We finished ice cream cones before heading back to the bikes and riding along the boardwalk. I played chicken with a 5 year old and almost lost... I was a potential hazard to those around me on an unfamiliar too big for me bike. It was a really enjoyable day though and we made it back to Haifa in time to shower and join our friends for Shabbat dinner. We only did this once while we lived in Israel and it is one of my favorite memories, so I was so happy to join them again. After hugs, we all sat around the table while the Torah was read and then the bread was passed (salt had been sprinkled on it to remind them of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt) and the red wine was shared too. I loved the song that they sang too, although I'm not quite sure what they were saying. It's just a really neat experience and the food was fabulous! Liora works all afternoon to prepare this feast and then they eat the leftovers through Shabbat. Somehow time flew by way too fast and within a matter of minutes it was 10:15 and time to leave :-( Ken's co-worker had planned to get together for coffee that evening and there was no other time to make it work. I wish it could have been different but that's the way it worked out. So we had to say goodbye... and then it hit me that we might not see them again (this trip anyway) and I started to cry. I had run out of time.