Wedding day

Thursday, April 21, 2016
Haifa, Israel
The wedding was planned for 7:30 PM and I was recruited to pick up some people from the bride's place and from her grandmother's as well. But before that I had some time, so we went to visit Madatech, a technical museum nearby. I remembered the building when we approached it: I've been here 9 years ago when I visited Israel first time. The building was actually the first campus of Technion and Einstein even planted one of the palm trees in the courtyard, so it's filled with history. The museum is really fun: most exhibits are interactive and courtyard has a bunch of large experiments where you pull ropes, pour water, reflect sunlight and climb things for science. We bought the tickets and learned that there was going to be an interactive exhibition about pipes. We checked it out and it was all in Hebrew, unfortunately, and also mostly for kids. I understood that pipes play an important part in everything: from industry to biology. The presentations were kinda weird, featuring dancing pipes hanging from the ceiling, creepy pipes inflating from the walls and singing pipes... The rest of the museum was more interesting, there was a number of rooms dedicated to different subjects: dentistry, optics, green energy, birds, chemistry, etc.

After the museum we headed back, I picked up my suit and drove to pick up my mother at Maria's (bride's) place . The address did not show up on the navigator for some reason, so I called Maria and got a nearby address that did. Then I drove to the place, found the right building with some difficulty and met my mother and Maria's father (who I haven't see in many years). We had some tea together and then I drove to the next destination: Maria's grandmother's place. There I met more familiar faces: Maria's grandparents, her brother Leonid, mother's friend. I also met some new people: Leonid's wife and cute 3-year old daughter. We had some time to catch up and change before the wedding, also to have some lunch.

When the time to go finally arrived we went outside, met Maria's uncle Alex with his family, packed into the cars and drove to the location, which was on the top of Mount Carmel. The venue was really nice, it had lots of space both inside and outside, tons of foods and tasteful decorations. Guests kept arriving and I met even more people, both old and new. This wedding brought together people from all over the world! The wedding ceremony was held in a chuppah according to the Jewish tradition . Rabbi said whatever needed to be said (in Hebrew, so I did not understand), gave the couple their ketubah (marriage contract), a glass was broken, the ring given and the couple was officially married. Then there was a storm of hugs and congratulations, a banquet, dancing, lots of revelry and celebration. Long story short, I drove my mother and bride's parents back at around 2 AM, then drove back to my dwelling, found an empty parking spot (I think I was supposed to pay for it though) and went to sleep.

Photos & Videos

Comments

Shawn
2016-04-23

Wow that looks like a fancy wedding! Hope you had a great time!

2025-02-15

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