Day 11

Shabbos was great; Rabbi Oirechman and his wife were extremely nice. The food was outstanding, and the students and other locals who came for dinner and lunch provided great company and we felt very welcome by everybody. Ok enough of the formal thanks you, and on to the breakup and the particulars...

We got to Tallahassee around 5:30 PM on Friday and looked for the closest motel to the Chabad house, we found the Suburban Hotel, rates were not great, but our choices were limited, so we made due w/ what we had available.

We got ready for shabbos, but we had an issue, with getting in to our hotel room, but I suggested leaving the window open, and reaching for the door handle, which was simple enough, and left our door locked so we did that.
Mincha was called for 7:30 PM so we started around 8:00 PM and we made the minyan, so they thanked us, and it was a great Davining, lots of singing, really nice. After Ma'ariv we sat down for Dinner, and there were about 35 people there for dinner, half were students form FSU the rest were local Jews who came for a Shabbat meal. There were allot of people, but there were four people who were very welcoming that was the Rabbi, Sam, Tal and Bret. So Thanks to them also. Tal spoke about being in Haifa when the first Katusha rockets hit, and how emotional it was, or was not. Then I spoke about out trip shortly, and then the main course was served.....

to start off, we spoke to the rabbi allot, he's amazing, just out there, and helping the fledgling Jewish life out there in middle of Florida’s Panhandle, and more specific the communities @ FSU and the surrounding Tallahassee Communities. it was nice to see him encourage any little change for the better in everybody, weather it be a mezuzah, kosher, praying thrice daily, whatever, it was just pure encouragement. The rabbi told us that he has been out in Tallahassee close to seven years, and it was a pretty nice Chabad house, on 1.5 acres of land.

Anyway just briefly about the three other people who were on that list

Tal - an Israeli, who came to FSU on a Swimming Scholarship and now Returned to get his masters in Civil Engineering

Bret - the President of Chabad @ FSU, didn’t really speak to him much, but the rabbi thanked him allot, and had much adulation for him.

Sam - an Engineer also working on his Masters @ FSU, great guy, seems to really want to get the whole Jewish thing down pat, one thing at a time.

Saturday morning Shachris was called for 10AM we got there somewhat on time, it was long but nice, like Friday night, not as many people, but we had a minyan, and that’s all that counts. Dan davend Musaf.
After davening we had lunch, and about 20 people stayed for this meal, the cholent was killer, just damn good, the rest of the food was really good also. After the meal davend Mincha while we still had a minyan. Afterwards we walked back to out hotel and went to sleep, and I finished my rolling stone magazine.
We went back to shul @ 8PM for dinner, Ma'ariv (no minyan) and Havdala. We thanked everybody for the unbelievable hospitality and we left, went back to the hotel packed up and departed for Clearwater, FL

We have another 175 miles to go as I am writing this, and here some other stats this trip has so far been 2,750 miles long, and the car's odometer is @ 99,950. we stopped for gas 14 times to fill up, 200 gallons of gas on this trip alone, the most expensive gas was on NYC $3.29 and the cheapest was in Kentucky $2.55.
Ok, going to watch some movie now,

ttyl