Dahlia And Itay's Wedding

Last night I attended my first Israeli wedding. The bride, Dahlia Weinberg was the President of IllinIPAC when I was a freshman at the U of I. I still remember vividly sitting in the Hillel library with Eli, yelling our opinions to anyone who would listen. I don't think the group had ever seen a couple of freshman like us. Fast forward 4 years and Dahlia is now married! So weird. I'd met her husband once before, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem last June. He's a real nice guy, and he looked significantly more nervous before the ceremony than Dahlia did.

I had a definite Israeli moment on my way out of Haifa. I missed my intended train because the bus from campus left 10 minutes late. When I eventually got to the station, I asked the mouth breather behind the ticket counter when the next train to Netanya would leave. "15 minutes." And when will it arrive in Netanya? "15 minutes." Needless to say she didn't know what she was talking about. I bought my ticket anyway and made my way onto the platform where there are train schedules posted on big signs. The signs aren't the clearest things to read, and I knew I would need to transfer to another train, so I flagged a woman down and asked if she could confirm to me how I was going to get to Netanya. We got to talking and lo and behold, it turned out that we were both headed to the wedding! I really think this sort of thing only happens here. She got off in Binyamina to meet her husband, while I transferred to the next train and wound my way to Netanya, where I met up with Reut.

For those of my readers who don't know Reut, I met her 4 years ago in Champaign when she was working as the Israeli שליחה to Hillel. She's 34 years old but she acts like she is 19 sometimes, and she is definitely a free spirit. My date for the evening. We spent most of the night chatting about people back home, but we moved out onto the dance floor for the last 45 or so minutes. It's a shame the wedding was on a Monday night; there were caterers walking around with bottles of liquor, just offering shots to anyone who wanted one. I maintained my discipline, drank one glass of wine and called it a night. After all, I did have class this morning. A hearty mazal tov to the new husband and wife!