BlackOut dinner

Skipping ahead for now – after the play (which i hope to write up soon) many of us went straight into the BlackOut dinner – after we ordered our food (or asked for the ‘surprise dinner’ as many of us at our table did). Then we are taken in to a completely dark room – this is more than just lights off as it takes some special planning and engineering to make this happen.

In addition, all of the waitstaff in the restaurant are blind – so we were being thrust into their world, albeit on a more temporary basis.

We had to walk hands-on-shoulders to be taken to our table where we were individually say down and were told where to find our silverware and drinking glass.

Here’s a view of our table:

We ordered our drinks in the dark and some of us kept hold of our glasses all night for fear of knocking them over (not avoided at one table) or having them inadvertently shared with our table mates.

Here’s a picture of the collection of drinks.

They brought our food and for those of us who ordered the ‘surprise’ it was now fun to determine what it was we were eating. Some of us gave up on the forks and just ate with their hands, even when sharing food off of each other’s plates.

Here is a few pictures of our food:

At our table, we had a chance to talk to our waitress, who wasn’t blind but visually impaired with permanent blurry vision. We discussed the differences in Tel Aviv and her path through school and if course the novel news that my wife was a Rabbi 🙂

Without any clocks or the ability to look at our watches, we had no idea how long we were there, which ended up being a full 2 hours. When we were ready to go (or were falling asleep since this was midnight by this time) we were led out as we came in and were able to compare notes as we waited for everyone outside. This was definitely a ‘first’ for everyone that participated!