Day 11: It's a Small Jewish World

Coincidental meetings are common enough in Jewish circles that experiencing one, while it may get a surprised look and a laugh, is to be expected now and again.

So I was surprised, but not stunned, that Friday night dinner at the rabbi included two members of my synagogue from Jerusalem, friends from only a block away from where I lived. I wrote it off as coincidence. It's to be expected that a religious Jew passing through Ireland will have dinner at the rabbi's house, and it's merely coincidental that, if they are Israeli, I happened to know them.

But I was stunned when the same things happened the next day, with a different person at a different host's house. This time a very good friend of my (ex)step-daughter, and someone who had been in my house in Jerusalem on several occasions.

Like last shabbat, both meals by the warm and welcoming Jewish community members of Dublin were delicious.

Game Night

I headed out to central Dublin to meet some BGGers for a game night. It wasn't the brightest idea, as it meant a long trek in the cold while I'm sick. However, the people I met were lovely, and so was the evening.

Eoin on the right

Just don't expect me to remember their names, as I couldn't pronounce them. I gave Eoin (pronounced Owin) a copy of It's Alive as a gift; but then I decided to take a taxi back instead of a bus, and I was shy some cash, so he gave me some, so it ended up being kind of a sale.

They had never heard of my game, so we played that first. I'm not a fan of playing it five players, but the basic game worked out pretty well. The advantage of the basic game for five players is that both the high and low cards are worth something; since it's a while between each of your turns, this matters more. They played fairly slowly, but we still finished in 45 minutes. I think they all enjoyed it.

We then played Carcassonne, or one of its many variants. All I really need to know is what scores when, and how much, and if it scores incomplete at the end. I got some of this information - I didn't catch the half score for incomplete cities and roads, for instance - but it didn't matter because I couldn't draw the tiles I needed. Ever. I had three cities waiting to be capped, two from near the beginning of the game, and they never got capped because I couldn't draw a capping tile.

While frustrating, the game is still fun to play as you can mess up other players or just make pretty pictures.

Tomorrow: the airport.