Purim

Purim in the U.S., or at least in Portland, is very different than Purim here in Israel. Purim is a holiday that is celebrated annually and recognizes when Queen Esther caught Haman, the evil royal vizer to King Ahasuerus (Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus were married), plotting to kill the Jews. The King replaced Haman and that saved the Jews. As I've seen Purim celebrated over the years, I've seen the little "carnivals" in temples for the little kids, and there has always been some special food at temple and at places that sell Jewish food, but I've never seen Purim be a holiday that people get more into than Halloween or New Years. But here in Israel, people of all ages get very into costume for 2-3 days! People get way more into Purim then Halloween or New Years, or for that matter the two holidays combined! When we were walking down King George street today (King George street is one of the major downtown streets in Jerusalem), we saw this HUGE carnival with towns of "clown" type people on stilts, tight rope, juggling, dancers and many more types of people getting into and preforming at this carnival. It is hard to describe everything that we saw at this carnival and of other people just on the streets so I hope that the pictures help. Because this is Israel, every event, big or small, has lots and lots of security. There were even soldiers with big guns on top of buildings! Anyway, after we were done hanging out and looking at the acts at the carnival we went to lunch at this fabulous restaurant called Resto Bar. It was amazing! My mom, dad, and I all got the burger. Which was fantastic! One of the best parts was that you could order the burger with cheese because the restaurant wasn't kosher! That made me so happy!!!!! :) It is hard to find cheese burgers in Israel because a cheese burger isn't kosher and most restaurants are. There are many rules to having kosher food but one that makes cheese burgers not kosher is that you can't have meat and dairy together. Not only was the burger good because of being able to put cheese on it, but the actual burger was fabulous! We could tell that the meat had been freshly ground and was cooked just perfect! Also, the french fries that came with it weren't exactly french fries but they were still amazing! They were large slices of fried potato, were the outside was crispy but the inside was creamy. I would gladly go back to Resto Bar again! Today was a very fun and different type of day.