PURIM just like halloween in madison but Jewish

On Thursday, March 20, at sunday Purim started in Israel. Purim is just like halloween in Madison. Twice in one year talk abou fun!

that first night everyone on my program pretty much went to Florentine Street, i dressed up like a farmer. florentine was packed with people wall to wall very similar to state street. everyone in costumes, drunk, and crazy. everyone in the program chilled in front of AMPM (24 hr grocery store), people watched, drank, and enjoyed the Purim festivities. upon leaving Florentine Aviv, Sasha, Sharon, Jessica, Shirly, Ruth, and i headed back to the Einstein dorms where we smoked some hookah and stayed up to watch the sunrise, at about 745 am Aviv and i called it a night and made the trek back to Brodestky.

the next night i dressed up as a hippie, we went to Artimis, a club in Tel Aviv. the bar tender loved me and gave me 3 free drinks, TOV MEOD! we danced til about 5 am, it was a blast. after we headed back to Einstein again, this time Ruth left the hookah in her room and her roommate Aviv was passed out. so she takes her key out to try and unlock the door and to her surprise the key breaks off in the lock! to make the situation even more ridiculous Aviva wouldn't wake up! we banged on the door, tried to saw the lock off with a knife, kicked, screamed, finally after 45 minutes with no response Ruth picked up a chair and punched about 5 holes in her door. hahahahhaa 10 minutes later aviva wakes up and is locked in, with the key stuck and everything! it was a mess, finally sasha (the genius) gets the door unlocked. once we got the door open we got the hookah and again chilled until the sunrose where upon i retunred to my dorm @ 8 am.

the next day we woke up and split to the beach for a sunny day in Tel Aviv. while at the beach Aviv and Funt mentioned how they were going to go to Jerusalem that night to celebrate the last night of Purim, while we were there we figured hey why not all go!

so that night @ about 10:30 the crew for the weekend, again, shirley, sasha, jessie, sharon, aviv, funt, and myself, headed toward the central bus station in tel aviv, we got a sharut, and an hour later we were in JRU! we headed toward Sasha's apartment and pre gamed for another amazing night out. i was again a hippi, the crew headed down to Ben Yehuda street for a similar experience as Florentine in Tel Aviv, Aviv and Sharon got lost, me and sasha got lost but in the end of the night we all ended up together. we felt like we were on ben yehuda for 30 minutes but it ended up being 4 hours! it was a great night all of us had a wonderful time, we got back to the apartment, lite the hookah, and took some aero beds upstaris. i couldnt make it to sunrise sharon and i passed out. but the others did. the next morning we woke up and headed for falafel after eating we all were dead, after that weekend how could we not be we were exhausted! we went back to the apartment and slept from 1 am til 7pm rounded the troops together and went back to Tel Aviv.

Purim here was definitely an experience. it was unbelievable, everyone dresses up from 80 year olds to month old babies. the whole country celebrates. they prepare for weeks ahead of time and are costume vendors all along the streets. it was a nation wide celebration and my most cherished weekend throughout this semester abroad.