A relaxing Shabbat in Talpiot, followed by מוצ"ש (Motzei Shabbat) in Carlebach land!

After another enjoyable and meaningful Friday morning at preparing and serving food at Hazon Yeshaya, I came back, had lunch and prepared for Shabbat. I then traveled to Southern Jerusalem to spend shabbat with our family friends in Talpiot. Janet, the wife is Ashkenazic and hails from North Carolina, and Herzl, the husband is Sefardic and hails from Iraq. This background, a microcosm of the Israeli experience, helped make my Shabbat so interesting and meaningful. After ariving, I caught up and chatted a bit, read the מעריב Newspaper in Hebrew and relaxed. Soon afterwards, it was time to welcome in shabbat, and I went with Janet and Herzl's daughter and her friend to the Ashkenazi Shul, which is named for the writer Shai Agnon. The tefillot were very nice (despite the poor acoustics) and the nusach reminded me a lot of home. As an additional treat, I got to see my friend Dan Goldman, who worked with me at Ramah this summer!
We went back home for Shabbat dinner, which was spent with Janet's family, their friend Shabtai, and as an additional treat, two of my nativ friends, Koby and Daniel were invited. Besides for the great company, I greatly enjoyed the tasty home-cooked seudah. After dinner I talked/read/studied for a little bit and got to bed early, managing 10 hours!
Shabbat morning, I davened at Beit Boyer, a startup Ashkenazi minyan in Talpiot. It was a nice, normal davening with a short D'var Torah and tefillot were finished by 10:45. We went back home for an early lunch a bit after 11, and joining us was my Madrich Jesse, who is a close friend of Janet's family. After lunch I went to daven Mincha at a nearby sefardic shul. Although the tefillot were a bit different than usual it was pretty cool to see the Torah read from a sefardic scroll, and to hear the different nusach! I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and took advantage of a talmud class in the neighbourhood. We went home to a meat(!) seudah shlisheet, followed by Maariv and a sefardic Havdalah.
Following Shabbat, Janet drove me back home, where I met up with a group of friends to walk over to בניני האומה (the Jerusalem convention centre) for a huge concert in memory of R' Shlomo Carlebach's 12th Yahrtzeit. As soon as the concert started around 8:45 (1/2 hour after the 'prompt' starting time, in typicl Israeli fashion) with a Carlebachesque havdalah service, it was 3 hours of non-stop singing, dancing andkavanah in memory of Shlomo,. It was a really amazing experience to be a part of and a really great way to end off Shabbat. Here's some photos from the event: