Rabbi Smirnoff

Rabbi Smirnoff reading the Megillah

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Purim is supposed to be a joyous, happy festival.  A day when Jews around the world celebrate the failed annihilation of their people with parties, streamers, and good company.  The Jewish religious law states that a good, observant, devout Jew should drink alcohol "until he can no longer tell the difference between Haman (the antagonist) and Mordechai (the protagonist)." 

If that´s the case, then the rabbi at the synagogue here in Bariloche is a very devout man indeed.  I have never seen such a religious man so tanked before in my life.  Zvika, Shai, and I went to the barbecue that the Chabad house was having over on the other side of Bariloche, and when we got there, we found a crowd of about fifty Israeli backpackers, about a thousand empty bottles of whisky, a roaring barbecue, and one very drunk rabbi.  It was a blast.  They cranked up the one CD the rabbi had as loud as it would go, and we danced and laughed to "Moshiach, Moshiach" for about three hours.  The pictures are a riot, and I´ll try to post them if I can in a few days.

...and the whisky's starting to hit him.

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So it was well-worth hanging around Bariloche for a few extra days to catch that spectacle.  Even made friends with Kat and Katie, two American girls from Macalester who hung out with us for a few days.  A good time, and so the days here in Bariloche went quickly.  Shai, Zvika, their Israeli friend, and a girl named Adi (if we can convince her to come), and I are going hiking for the next few days along the Nahuel Huapi Traverse.  Should take about three days or so.  Looking forward to it.

And finally, the big news is that I´m just about 100 days away from the end.  I can´t believe it, actually.  I was in Perth, Australia trying to get a handle on this year and how I was going to plan it all out when my first 100-day-mark passed.  I´ve been trying to think about where all that time went, and I really don´t have an explanation.  Perth seems like it was three weeks ago, not the better part of six months.  Somehow I bounced from there to Africa, managed to survive that, then hopped up to Morocco and Europe before landing in the Andes with two Israelis and Rabbi Smirnoff (as he consistently called himself yesterday).  What will I do with my final 100 days on this trip?  How much more will I grow?  If I´ve learned anything from the first 265, it´s that I really have no ability to predict what´s going to come next, which places I´m going to love or hate, or who I´ll meet along the way.