Kol Nidrei service

This evening I returned to Chabad la Metayel, here in the downtown district of BA, for the start of Yom Kippur. Despite the fact that they weren't giving out any free food tonight (since you have to fast on Yom Kippur), there was still an ample turnout of long-haired Israelis. They did a very nice Kol Nidrei service, which went for about 3 hours; it was a bit harder to follow than usual, since they don't have any machzorim with English translation — but I still managed to stay on the right page throughout. I'll be back tomorrow, for the rest of the prayer services.

It was a little bit of a challenge, keeping Yom Kippur when I got back to The Clan this evening, after the service. Every time a fellow roommate came into the dorm, they saw me quietly reading, and they asked: "aren't you coming up to the bar?" To which I replied: "sorry, not tonight"; and I had to repeatedly explain the reason behind this (virtually inexplicable, around here) act. I did actually consider staying somewhere else tonight — as The Clan is hardly the ideal place to read a book and to tuck in early, on a Friday night — but it turned out to be OK. I managed to wrangle my way out of the "Clan law" of "spending all night every night at the bar", and I even managed to get to sleep, despite the standard disco music thumping out loudly all night, upstairs from my room.