Shabbat at the Goldshmidts!

This past Shabbat was the first time that I was out of Jerusalem this year except when coming from the airport. Friday morning, my friend Dalia, who came with me, and I woke up at around 6:30.  We got ready to go, finished doing laundry from the night before, (Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you that we did laundry for the first time!) and left our dorm at around 8:00.  We walked to the bus stop near Mamilla Mall which is about 15 minutes away and caught a bus the the Central Bus Station.   I was a little nervous about what to do when I got there because it was my first time there but when we got there, I saw that it looked really similar to Penn Station so I felt better.  Anyway, we took the #400 bus to Givat Shmuel to meet my cousin, Avital.  It was about a ten minute walk from the bus stop to her apartment.  When we got to her apartment, the first thing we saw was her motorbike which I thought was so cool.  I know what you're all thinking, but no, we didn't get to ride it.
Once we dropped our stuff off, we took a bus to Tel Aviv.  We walked around for a while, checked out a bunch of little booths with pretty jewelry and other little things, and then we went to eat brunch.  After we ate, we walked down to the beach.  The beach was so pretty.  It was so clean, and the water looked absolutely gorgeous.  We walked around a little more, went to the mall in the center of town and by then Dalia and I, were exhausted so we went back to Avital's apartment.
 At around 5:00 Avital's dad came to pick us up to take us to Karnei Shomron where we would be staying for Shabbat.  When you first walk up the path to their house, the first thing you see on your right is  about ten huge cages with about 50 parrots in them. On the left are a bunch of chairs with a couple of little tables.  This is where we mostly hung out when we weren't eating or sleeping.  So, turns out, the rest of the family doesn't really speak English, so it was challenging, but we managed to have conversations in Hebrew.  Their family has seven people in it.  Chaya and Nachum are the parents, and their kids are Avital, Asaf, Avner, Mati, and Uri.  Oh, and of course there's Savta.  Dinner was really good... but then came the desserts.  Avital makes the most amazing desserts ever and they also eat a whole bunch of other stuff. They are always eating seeds.  Mostly sunflower and watermelon seeds, but by the end of the meal, everyone has a huge pile of shells next to their plate.  They also have a huge bag of gummy stuff which they are always eating from.  That night Dalia and I slept about 10 hours which was really nice.
The next morning we went to shul and came back at around 10:30 which was too early for lunch, so instead they brought out the cakes, seeds, and gummies.  We at lunch at around 1:00 and afterwards everyone went to take a nap.  I only slept for about three hours because I wanted to be able to fall asleep at night too.  When we woke up, we played cards for a little bit and then Avital took us for a walk around the settlement.  It's really such a nice, quiet settlement with about 350 families and basically everyone knows everyone.
After shabbat, we had a light dinner and the went back to our dorms.  We had about a two hour bus ride back to the central bus station.  Once we got there, we met one of our  madrichot who taught us how to take the train.  Lucky for us, since the train is still such a new thing in Jerusalem, it's free. We got back at around midnight and I pretty much went right to sleep.  This is only the beginnings of my travels around Israel.  More adventures to come soon! Shalom V'lehitraot!