Purim Festives

     Last night started Purim!!! We held a short service were we read Magillah Ester. I read a small part of it, too! Although I'm pretty sure I messed up a whole bunch... and there's a good chance no one was even paying attention, I'm proud I didn't completely back out. I nearly cried when I got up there though. I practiced for an hour (seeing as I got it during lunch) but I felt like I didn't know any of it! I was just SO happy to get it over with. During the service, there was a dance showing the king trying to pick out the girl he wanted to replace Queen Vashti. It was HYSTERICAL! The boys dressed in skirts and bikini tops with scarves and dresses were worn too. They were belly dancing and it was just indescribably funny! When the dance was over and the service finished up, we had a dance party. It was a nice attempt, but the music was pretty bad. I had fun looking at the costumes and the sparkling/shiny accessories of the people who did decide the music was dance-able to, though. I found a lot of the costumes funny and very cool. I was dressed as a pink Faeri... tutu, wings, and all! 

     Today, we got to wake up at 9! We also went to a Purim parade! It was soo much fun! We had to get into groups of four, but mine was six. We just scaled the entire section of the street we were on. There were colourful floats and little kids dancing in the streets. It was a really nice parade. We were only at the parade for an hour and a half, but we then voted to go to Tel Aviv 15 minutes away (or at least it felt like it.. I could have fallen asleep on the bus). Here we ran through the festival in the streets with booths and stalls set up to sell various things. I saw I guy setting up, and in a few minutes my entire group and I were front row for a cool street performer. He did a bunch of fire tricks and dancing with the fire. It was a cool performance. 

     We got back to the kibbutz, but we met with the madrachim at 7:30. They brought us into the woods and we had a nice camp fire. We sang songs (some Hebrew ones were thrown in) and made smores! This was really a nice close to our Purim. Today over all was a pretty awesome day.