Shabbat with Amy

This Shabbat, I went with my friend Amy to Ma'ale Adumim. Her sister, Jill lives in Israel and she and her fiance, Ilan just bought a car so they said that they would be able to give us a ride since they were also going there for Shabbat.  We had to wait for a little bit for her sister to come so we decided to go shopping on Yaffo St.  I just looked around, but Amy got a really nice blue summer dress.  Then, Jill picked us up and drove us to the family that we were staying at.  I was in Ma'ale Adumim once during Succot so I remembered my way around a little bit.  http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/10/succot-in-maale-adumim.html
The family we were staying at had two kids, Matan and Eliana, and they just moved to Israel four years ago.  After we got settled in, we watched Anastasia with the kids and then we went off to our room to hang out.  Both Amy and I fell asleep until Shabbat began.  We woke up just in time for dinner.  They made really good food.  I especially like the carrot kugel and the chocolate-chip cake.  We talked with the family for a little bit after the meal about where they work and things that we've been doing this year and our plans for next year and then we decided to go to bed because we were exhausted.
We woke up the next morning at about 8:30, ate some more cake, and then went to shul.  The shul that we went to is known as the happy shul because they love singing.  It was one of the longer davenings that I've been to in Israel but it was really nice too.  As we were walking down the road, I noticed how green everything was outside.  I was really happy because when I came in the beginning of the year, everything was all brown and desert-like.  For lunch, we went to their friends' house.  We started off with salad, moved onto the main course, and of course there was a cake for dessert because it was one of their friend's, Annie's, birthday.  She actually used to live in Brooklyn and she went to Flatbush.  We talked for quite a while about all sorts of random things like flying in airplanes.  By the time it was 3:00, Amy and I were kinda bored so we decided to go back to our hosts' house.  We read for a little bit and then we took a nap.  We woke up right before Shabbat was over and we watched the kids play chess together.
Amy's sister and fiance were able to drive us back to Jerusalem too. First Ilan dropped Jill off at her class and then started to take us back home.  We kinda got lost in Jerusalem and ended up getting stuck multiple times at dead end streets, but in the end he agreed to use the GPS to get us back to where we needed to be.  It was a very relaxing Shabbat and I'm really glad to have met that family.  Shalom V'lehitraot!