Passover: International Seder

With practically 99% of the Spanish population being Catholic, I came to Valencia assuming my religious obligations would be taking the semester off.  However, when I was explaining Passover to my padres at lunch last Sunday, mainly to tell madre that I wouldn't be eating bread for the next eight days ("but what will you eat????!!"), they grew very curious about the holiday and padre rushed straight to his computer to look up a place in the city to buy matzoh.  To our great luck, "Kosher Tov" is located just a twenty minute walk away, and while every store in Valencia is closed on Sundays (Catholic....), this orthodox tienda keeps its door open until 10 pm.  Pops and I grabbed the dog and began our journey.  Kosher Tov is owned by an Orthodox Israeli man, fluent in Hebrew, Spanish, and English.  I opted to converse in the third.  We bought a box of matzoh as well as matzoh ball soup mix - padre INSISTED on paying, so nice!  The owner - Yossi - invited me to a seder the following night at a hotel that was free for students (ended up paying ten euro, but IT WAS WORTH IT - shout out daxflame/@mackenzieshivar).

 (Makeshift seder plate)

So at exactly 8 pm I rolled up to the hotel in my Monday best (black dress, black tights - despite the mild 65 degree evening; modesty is best around the orthodox).  After waiting for about fifteen minutes in the lobby (in a slight panic I texted Cat Gamp that my life wasn't real at that moment - sitting in the Holiday Inn of Valencia waiting for an orthodox seder to commence; Stevie Wonder playing in the speakers - ???), everybody headed upstairs to take their seats.  To my great luck, I met a fellow JAP studying abroad (Rachel from Boston; UMASS) and her visiting cousin - so we grabbed some seats together.

(Amigas nuevas!)

The room was comprised of about six round tables of eight people each, and ours had quite the diverse showing - three Americans, a Brazilian woman, an Israeli man, a Romanian man, and a Swiss couple from Zurich (wife originally American; director of admissions at Zurich International School - where I would have gone had we moved there instead of back to Atlanta after Hong Kong in '98 - small world!).  Everyone was really nice and it was so interesting to hear everybody's histories and their reasons for celebrating Passover in Valencia, Spain this year (ranged from study abroad to vacationing to work trip).

 (Fearless leaders.  Pretty disorienting to hear an Orthodox Jew lead a seder in Spanish.  One on the right spoke English with a British accent.  Interesting night of linguistics.)

Since I have essentially zero experience with orthodox Judaism, I forecasted my night based off of assumptions - we would sit down at 8, pray for approximately two years six hours, and then finally eat.  Thankfully, I overshot the prayer time by about four hours, and we were well into enjoying the meal by 10 pm.  As per usual, we all filled up on matzoh (comes up pretty early in the seder), and had to turn down the never ending plates of salmon, chicken, potatoes, and roasted vegetables that the hasidic men and women kept bringing to the table.

(Homemade matzoh hand-carried by aforementioned British-accent orthodox man from Israel!)

It was the first seder I've been to without knowing a soul and the only Passover I've ever celebrated without my family.  A truly unique life experience of which I'm so glad I took advantage.  Holidays, especially this one, have that indescribable way of transcending time and space, and I felt it this year more than ever.  Chag sameach to all.  Next year in Jerusalem?