karmiel

Ulpan Akiva organized a trip to the dance festival in Karmiel yesterday. An impressive crowd was in attendance for the final performance, maybe upwards of 10,000 people. The Egyptian Ambassador spoke briefly in English before the performance began about how hard he was working towards peace. He may have been referring to the peace process in general, but I think he might be particularly involved with negotiations over Gilad Shalit.

Even though I did rikudei am (Israeli folk dancing) at Moshava for many years, I was surprised at how familiar the performance was. The performance I saw in Karmiel was the premier performance of the biggest rikudei am event. The costumes were more elaborate and the dancers were older, but it was basically the same as the performances put on by campers every week.

I went to a grocery store (Hetzi Hinam) today with Or. The busiest time of the week at the Giant in Columbia Heights is on Friday around 6 pm, and the most crowded area is in the front at the registers. The entire store today was as crowded as that, and Israelis drive grocery carts the same way they drive their cars.