Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Eilat! What a trip to be here to ring in the new. This may be the only city in Israel that even vaguely acknowledges Dec 31st as anything special at all. Whether this is because of the large number of tourists or the generally nonobservant Jewish population, it’s hard to be certain. All I can say is that it was truly special.

Actually, Shabbat morning in Eilat is a different kind of experience in and of itself. There’s not much in the way of services happening. Instead it’s a lot of lounging by the pool, Boardwalk walking, some shopping, scuba diving: vacation, plain and simple. So I guess it works as a Shabbat experience: shavat va’yenafash the prayer says: pause and refresh. There’s a lot of refreshing goin’ on in Eilat…

The whole group did their own thing on Shabbat, including a special side trip to the mysterious city of Petra, in Jordan. I did not go with the Jordan gang, but the review of the day trip was a total thumb’s up from all of the tired but gratified participants. Just getting a passport with the Jordan stamp is a thrill in and of itself.

Almost the entire TBA clan gathered at 9pm at the Boston Fish Restaurant. Yes, believe it or not, we found the only restaurant in Israel with a map of Brookline in the Ladies Room… While it’s not Legal’s or Skipjacks, Boston Fish isn’t a bad place at all. They set up 38 chairs outside on the boardwalk with some outdoor heaters to take the chill off night breeze coming in off the Red Sea. We were all comfortable and happy to be together after a long day apart from each other.

The meal was wonderful, even if the service moved at a snail’s pace. There was a live band outside playing good jazz standards. As we approached the midnight hour we all grabbed our champagne and stood on the boardwalk as every big hotel started shooting fireworks. It’s true that they were no match for the Boston Garden display, but we were VERY close to the action and loved it!

Shortly after midnight the band was packing up to go. That’s when our very own Bill F (aka Billy Beduoin) stepped up to the keyboards and started playing! This drove the TBA gang wild and pretty soon the party was on! We danced and hollered until around 2.