Hottest Ticket In Town

What a night!! 57 years of Independence!! Every year, there is a ceremony on har herzl, letting out yom hazikaron and bringing in yom haatzmaut. Its by invite only, all VIPs and people that know people. The rest of the country watches it on TV. People that are performing get tickets to the practice but not the main event. Somehow, though, my sister-in-law, who was performing, got us 2 tickets, and other people we know had another 2 for us, so father-in-law, brother-in-law Netanel, Abuela, and me. MyShan and mother-in-law had gone to the practice, so they didnt come. We sat at the top of the bleachers, left side. The Ramatkal (head of the army[his name is Bogey{I think first name}]) came. They parked his car (licence plate # Tzahal 1) under where I was sitting. I wanted to discuss disengagement with him, and a few other things that were bothering me, but he walked away to fast. Speaker of the Knesset Rivlin was also there. The whole thing was mad cool. David Daor sang (I never heard of him either). Rivlin spoke, during the practice he spoke just about Independence, Israel, all the dry stuff. During the real ceremony he switched his speech, and talked about how disengagement is destroying this country, and we should back off before we have a civil war. They had 12 people lighting candles, representing the 12 tribes. Except these werent all Jewish. The founder of Birthright lit one (hes also the head of everything else in Israel), he cant speak a word of Hebrew, You could tell they wrote his speech in transliteration. Hes Canadian, but still a good man. Azzam Azzam, lit a candle, the Israeli spy who was in jail in Egypt for 8 years. His brother was also killed in the army. A Bedouin lit one, a Druze, both who had relatives killed in the army (no, not by the army, they also serve and also get killed). Eli Cohens wife lit one, he was killed by Syria for spying. They had flag bearers in full dress uniform (I never knew we had that here[they even wore white gloves!]) march around, the Knesset Guard did marching, it was very cool to watch...Then the flag bearers stood in different formations making shapes, and all the girls that were in the dance part came out and joined them. They made some cool images, they made the # 57 (years of independence), a heart with a magen david inside, a flag if israel, a menora, a big magen david, ad some other designs. The girls were all dressed in either blue or white, and the shapes came out awesome. Then they did a lot of dancing and different stuff. Then they shot off a bunch of fireworks (with the song Yoya blasting), and it was over. I'm glad I went, it was quite an experience.