On being a Damsel in Distress

[theyellowhobbit]

So once again I made it to alanscottevil's damsel list. He's a map guru, and loves to rescue people, and, well, I needed some good ol' rescuing this weekend.

My flight got in at 10:40am. After taking a light rail and a subway and walking for a pretty long time, I made it to Yaakov and Dede's at around 1. [alanscottevil gave me directions there.] They weren't coming home for quite a while, and I really wanted to be indoors, where I could use a bathroom and eat lunch. I mean, technically I could eat outside, but I didn't have a knife for the cream cheese I had bought in the local produce store.

So again I called alanscottevil, who had a call waiting. So I waited. And waited. And then he came back. Turns out Micah GS was on the other line, and as soon as his dad got home he could pick me up. Which ended up being like a minute later.

So his dad came and got me and brought me back. Micah has been going to tel-es safi for the past 2 summers, and he's going to be there again this year. So we talked archaeology for a good 3 hours. Yay for fellow archaeologists! He's actually going to grad school in Bible studies, but oh well.

Then we went to Yaakov and Dede's and I finally could shower. I helped make stuffed grape leaves and Barecas. And people started showing up, including arctic_alpine who I hadn't seen in a month!

Thursday night we ate dinner at the Lowensteins. They had meat. I was sitting with all the vegetarians. But I don't think they cared if I ate meat, I mean if they did they wouldn't have gone to a meat meal in the first place...

We stayed up all night learning, and services were at 5am. Most people went, but I ended up crashing.

Friday lunch was at Yaakov and Dede's. The barecas were part of that lunch, and they were good. They were also very unhealthy.

Then everyone crashed in the afternoon. There wasn't really anywhere for me to nap, so I decided to go outside. After a half hour of attempted napping on the grass [which is quite comfortable] I walked for a bit.

Then I came back, and people came over and people woke up and things were interesting again. It started pouring in the evening. We did a kabbalat shabbat service [since it's not a requirement that you abbreviate it when Shabbas is on a yom tov, it's just that most people have that custom...] which was really pretty. Then we went off to dinner, at relatives of Dede's.

Dinner was awesome. alanscottevil had brought this mushroom pasta thing that he had just invented. I probably ended up eating more than I should have...

Then there was a tisch at Sarah Chana's house, which was in the dark lit with candles. [It was totally pouring out when we walked from dinner to there. My sweater [Dede's sweater that I borrowed] wasn't waterproof. So I got soaked.] And we sang. And it was beautiful. And mostly in key. And we sang all these really cool songs, instead of the same songs and table-bangingness that always happens at Penn.

We got back at 3am, and I crashed, and woke up at 12. Lunch didn't end up starting until 2-ish.

Before havdallah arctic_alpine and I walked outside, that being the only time I left the apartment all day. It was nice out by then.

A few people hung around on Saturday night. I slept at Yaakov and Dede's, though mostly everyone else had left.

But I lucked out, and archgirl06 was able to give me a ride from Yaakov and Dede's to the airport! She's the awesomest person ever and thank you so much for rescuing me!

The flight was uneventful, though I had to wait forever to check in since there was this ginormous group of kids.

And now I'm home. With my shiny computer. And I'm afraid to look at the scale and see how much weight I've gained...


**Edit: I forgot to mention that the coffee milk was a success! It turns out that Yaakov is from New England and he loves the stuff and he got all excited when I showed it to him. If I get a chance I'll mail him another bottle, since he wanted to give it to his parents.