Ellie on the scene...Mt Vesuvius!

Hope you enjoy this post!

Ellie on the scene...Pompeii!

Ellie's doing a better job at keeping up with what we've been doing both in her journal and in her videos than we are...too much running around.  We'll be settling down in Siena in a couple of days and THEN we should be able to get you all caught up on what we've been doing.  In the meantime, here's an update from Ellie on Pompeii...

Ellie on the scene...GELATO! and the Trevi Fountain

Ellie's doing a great job of keeping her classmates in Yardley informed about what she's been doing.

Thought you all might like to see these too...Enjoy!

Roma v Lazio

So, I know some of you probably couldn't care less about ancient Roman ruins...and some of you would probably rather have your toenails pulled then spend a half of a day wandering through a museum of Renaissance art... so for those of you: here's something that you would LOVE to experience.  NOW, you'll be thinking to yourself, NOW they've arrived.  (warning: those ruin and art lovers might not care too much...)

We'd been looking for a soccer game to go to -- what a great way to experience the local culture, right?  By the way, they call it calcio in Rome (it's futbol everywhere else).  So, when we arrived in Rome, we tried to check the schedule to see if we'd be able to find one.  We were in luck (and believe me, it took plenty of luck to try to decipher the schedule) and found out that on Wednesday night there was a Roma v Lazio soccer game.

There are some sports rivalries that are so traditionally ferocious, so ingrained in the culture, so "fanatical", that support for rival teams would make a budding relationship untenable - no marriage could bridge that divide and survive.  Think Yankees - Mets on steroids.  The Roma - Lazio rivalry is one of those.  Roma is Rome's city team, while Lazio is the regional team.  Both play their home games in the Olympic Stadium in Rome, and a couple of times each year, they play each other.  As Rick Steves says in his book - "When Romans are introduced, they ask each other, "Laziale o romanista?"   It's even more important than Yankees - Mets maybe because there is no football, basketball and hockey to temper the emotions and they only play each other once or twice a year.

We debated whether to go -- would the rivalry get out of hand (I'm sure you've heard soccer hooligan stories)?  Would there be tickets available (and reasonably priced)?  Could the kids handle it (aside from the perils of the crowd, the game didn't start until 8:45PM)?  Would the weather be ok (nothing worse than watching a sporting event in the cold and rain)?  After asking around, we discovered that we could buy the tickets at the bar around the corner from our apartment.  As a security measure you need to show your passport or some sort of identification to buy the tickets... and not just the adults, the kids too (never had to do that for an Eagles game).  We paid 15 Euros for each ticket in the end zone of the Lazio section -- it turns out there were plenty of seats available, especially the expensive ones.

The security was insane.  They checked our ID (yes, we had to bring the passports to the game also) and did body/bag searches twice on the walk toward the stadium.  At the stadium, the ticket machine flashed up your name as you entered so the guards could check, once again, to make sure you were who you were supposed to be.

Here's the guy who checked each of our passports at the entrance to the stadium.  Behind him was another line of policemen doing body and bag searches.

The crowds were immense and as we got closer to the stadium, the noise was incredible.  There were cheers and chants and screaming...it was nuts.

In the end, Roma won the game 2 to 1.   We enjoyed the loud rowdiness of the crowd - there were some other kids right near us too that had flags, and sang all the cheers and jeers (There must have been 10 or 15 different songs/cheers they screamed during the game.  I'm sure there were plenty of bad words in the chants but we didn't understand any of them so it didn't matter.)  We really didn't ever feel that we were in danger in any way from fans, although a guy did get thrown out not far from us for causing trouble.

Before and after the game, the show of force by the local Rome police department was incredible. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of policemen in combat gear with riot shields lining the exits and the roads leading out of the area.  Fans of one team were strategically kept separate from fans from the other team with exits and paths blocked by rows of officers forcing people to walk directly out of the stadium and WAY around outside to ensure the crowds were disbursed before any trouble could occur.  We ended up having to walk at least a mile out of our way because our seats were on the north side of the stadium but we needed to get to the south to get a bus back into town.  We almost missed the last buses of the night at midnight because traffic was so disrupted and the detour around so long....but it was worth it.

Teams line up before the game

At four sections in the crowd, there were cops lined up and down the stadium to make sure fans from one team didn't "accidentally" mix with fans from the other side.  As you can see, the seats near these guys are completely empty...those are the expensive seats.  The end zones were packed but most of the rest of the stadium wasn't.

Final score - Roma 2, Lazio 1

Teachers

Well, I was hoping to be able to catch up and finish talking about our adventures in Israel before moving on to the other countries, but now I realize that isn't going to happen.  Maybe, if we get creative, we can include some flashbacks, where appropriate.

We have discovered (or, rather, rediscovered again) the value of a good teacher.  When you find someone who is really good at what they do, really enjoys sharing what they know and is really good at communicating it, it is a can't miss combination.  Our most recent example of this was an absolutely fantastic experience we had yesterday.  Of course everyone has heard about the great food in Italy, so we decided to see if there were any cooking classes around.  Dara, working her magic on the internet, found one just down the street from our apartment.  Five hours in a real restaurant kitchen cooking and eating a 4 course meal.  We were all very excited! 

We walked into the restaurant at 10:00 and were warmly greeted by Erica, a nice American woman.  "Hey, wait a second," we all thought.  "This isn't what we bargained for."  She seemed to read our thoughts (or had gotten these thoughts often enough from other customers) that she quickly reassured us that the chef was Italian, back in the kitchen getting everything ready.  Over the next few minutes, the rest of the students arrived -- a family of 4 from Chicago (the kids were in their 20's), a young couple on their honeymoon from Wales, a lady from Chicago and Erica's mother -- 12 in all.

After a brief introduction from Erica, we met Andrea (Ahn-dray-ah), the chef, and got to work.  It was great!  We all took turns doing different jobs as Andrea explained about traditional Roman foods and recipes, the different foods we'd be using, preparation tips and more.  As the sign of a great teacher, he made sure that not only was everyone able to do it, but everyone felt that it was something that they would be able to do again on their own (whether that is the case or not remains to be seen...).

Due to cooking times involved, we started making the desert first -- individual chocolate lava cakes.  While Ari and I weighed and melted the chocolate and the butter, Dara and Ellie cracked and separated the eggs and we were off.  The kitchen was tiny -- I'd say it was designed for 3 people.  How they run a whole restaurant out of it, I'll never know.  Even in the tight quarters, we were all able to work -- the rest of the people in the class were very nice and were great with the kids.  Of course, Ellie and Ari weren't shy about rolling up their sleeves and getting their aprons dirty (they gave us all the standard issue black aprons, naturally).

I'd say the toughest course to make was the appetizer -- fried/steamed whole artichokes.  Given a choice, artichokes certainly is not something that any of us would have chosen to make and eat.  The hard part was cleaning the artichokes -- peeling off the out leaves, stripping the stems then carving them just right with the tip of the knife.  After we had them just right, we stuffed the Roman mint and garlic into the tops, browned the tops in olive oil and set them on the stove to steam.  Rather than keeping you in suspense, I'll tell you know that they were delicious.  I guess I have only tasted artichokes that are in salads and never really liked them.  But these were great -- stem and all.

The messiest course to make was the saltimbocco (translated literally: jumps in your mouth).  Andrea explained to us the differences between different types of meat (veal, old veal and steak) and prosciutto.  He had just the right type of meat (old veal, meaning the cow was between 12 and 16 month old), prosciutto and cheese (edam) thinly sliced and ready for us.  We cut them into bite-sized pieces, stacked them just right, folded them just right, added a leaf of fresh sage and held it all together with a toothpick.

The course that was the most fun to make was the pasta.  If you've never made fresh pasta before, it seemed incredibly easy and it was the most fun you can have in a kitchen without a fuzzy-pumper barber shop.

We prepared all the food first, and since most things only took a few minutes to cook (the exception being the artichokes) sat down for lunch and just went back into the kitchen to finalize each course just before eating it.  During the whole time, Andrea kept up with an informative and entertaining discourse about the different foods and preparations.  Either Andrea was a great teacher, or it was surprisingly easy.  Now Ellie keeps asking us when we can cook again.

Next, I'll be writing about some other great teachers we've found along the way so far.

Delicious local foods to be used in our lesson.  Le Fate, the restaurant where we cooked, is a zero-kilometer restaurant, meaning that they use exclusively local products bought directly from the producers.  You can find Le Fate in tripadvisor and at www.lefaterestaurant.it

Here's Ellie cracking the eggs to be used for our pasta.  Note the beautiful, bright orange color of the yokes.  Andrea taught us that this was because the chickens that laid the eggs are fed a higher quality feed of wheat, instead of the typical corn and/or grass.

Here, Ari and Ellie are breaking up the basil.  Andrea taught us not to cut the basil with a knife since it will oxidize and turn brown. 

Here's Noelle filling the tin-foil cups with the chocolate lava cake batter.  There's even a reason why Andrea uses these cups, instead of china ramekins, to cook the desserts:  he mentioned that the "real" dishes would get too hot and the batter would keep cooking too long, leaving you with no lava in your lava cakes...and that would be very sad.

Here, Rachel, Joel, Ellie and Ari work on peeling and chopping the tomatoes for our sauce.

Ellie's perfect bite-sized saltimbocca - once cooked, you just pop them in your mouth.  Yum!

Here, Rachel and Adam, the newlyweds from Wales, stir the delicious tomato sauce that also had some sauteed red onion, a little eggplant, and a little olive oil in it.

These beautiful purple artichokes are just in season.  In fact, we were the first class to get to use them this year. 

There was a very specific way to clean and carve the artichokes in preparation for cooking.  Using only the very tip of your knife, you work your way around the artichoke cutting one leaf deep as you spiral around.  After carving the artichoke, you must rub the stem and top with a half of a lemon to make sure it doesn't turn brown.  Then, put it in a bowl of lemon water.

Ari and Ellie ended up being pros at carving artichokes...of course!

Andrea made sure Ellie carved her artichoke correctly... and joked around with her too.  At one point, he schemed with Ellie when he felt one of our other classmate's, Ashley's, aprons was too clean.  He distracted Ashley while Ellie walked over and "accidentally" tripped and threw flour onto her apron.  Very cute.

After sauteing the artichokes, they were put in a pot, stem up, to cook for a while...the pot was filled with a layer of olive oil, and then water to make sure they didn't burn.

Ari is whisking the eggs in a "bowl" of flour.  The trick is to use your wrist to whisk and to make sure air is put into the batter.  You slowly add the flour from the "bowl" as you go.

Here's Mark kneading the dough...it wasn't really very hard.  In fact, the dough was a beautiful bright color (because of the eggs) and very soft.  Andrea pointed out that no matter how much we kneaded the dough, it couldn't be ruined (unlike cookie dough that includes butter)...only adding too much flour would ruin the pasta dough.

Beautiful pasta...

Ellie and Ari putting their dough through the pasta machine

Here are Andrea and Erica plating the desserts...they were definitely soft and delicious inside.  The key - use only the best quality chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa (75+%)

Presentation is everything.  As Andrea drilled into our heads - we first eat with our eyes, and then with our mouths...the food MUST look good.

School every day...

Many people, both from home and that we meet on the road, have asked how the whole school thing works for the kids while we're traveling, so I figured I'd do a quick entry.  As we learn to navigate new countries, cultures, transportation systems, and languages, we're definitely of the attitude that every day is a school day.  But, we are also doing "real" schoolwork along the way, especially to make sure that Ari doesn't fall behind, since he'll have finals at the end of the school year back home in Pennsylvania.

We had to essentially "unregister" the kids from their regular schools and register them, instead, as "homeschoolers" to avoid getting into trouble for truancy.  So the kids' teachers have absolutely no responsibility towards our kids while we're gone and we are free to create our own school curriculum to follow while we're away.  We need to prove, at the end, that the kids have been learning regularly all the required subjects for their ages (i.e., reading, writing, 'rithmetic, etc.)  When we return, there's an evaluation process where we hand in their portfolio (which has a pretty loose definition and interpretation based on PA state homeschooling law) to an approved evaluator (whom we've already selected and scheduled an evaluation with upon our return), who checks for certain things (like a reading log, proof of days of school attended, etc.) and then writes an evaluation that says that the kids did, or did not, show proof of "sustained progress" in their required subjects...

We were extremely lucky that all of the kids' teachers were supportive of our journey and went above and beyond anything we could have imagined to help us prepare.  We owe them a huge thanks. All of them prepared packets or gave us written summaries of upcoming chapters and units to be covered so we could keep up, and all of Ari's text books and homework assignments are available online so he can easily log in to read and do homework assignments from wherever we are.

So, that's the technical part...now for the implementation:
It was definitely hard to do any "real" schoolwork during our 10-day whirlwind tour of Israel where we barely had time to breathe, let alone do math problems.  But the days were so full of history, geography, art, architecture, culture, language (Hebrew), and more, that we'd definitely consider them educational days.

Since then, we've slowed our pace considerably and do find time at least every other day or so to do schoolwork in a more traditional way.   Luckily, both of our kids are relatively motivated so it hasn't been a problem.  The kids do read every night and Ellie writes in her journal each night.  While we were in Greece, Ari read and completed most of a detailed curriculum about the book, The King Must Die, about the hero Theseus who lived in Athens and Crete (both of which we spent time in over the past 2 weeks). I found the curriculum online - including essays, quizzes, and a special creative project where he designed a toy to market to children of ancient Athens, complete with marketing poster.  Ari is also working on his own blog.  Although he's a bit less than motivated about that right now...I'm hoping that will change.

Additionally, we're making a concerted effort to learn the languages of the countries we visit, although our attempt at Greek was less than stellar.  We learned about 8 words of Greek in our 2 weeks in that country, and that's not due to a lack of trying -man it was difficult!  No matter how many times we'd ask how to say something, and then repeat it over and over, we just couldn't get it.  We're already much farther along with our Italian.  We have some Pimsler lesson tapes that we try to listen to at night.  I'm sure anyone walking by outside our hotel room or apartment door has a good laugh as they hear all four of us repeat, "Scuzi signorina.  Lay capeeshay l'italiano? See, ee-oh capeesco l'italiano."  We also have a great online account with Rosetta Stone for Italian that really is fantastic.  Hopefully, we really will speak Italian before we leave return home...that's the goal.

Also - I haven't finished writing about it yet, but we also made a special stop in Crete for 3 days, going high up to an old, mountain village, specifically to study art and astronomy with a very special couple.  More on that soon...but suffice it to say, we're squeezing in lots of education along the way... for all of us.

Here's Ellie, sitting at our kitchen counter in our apartment in Athens, working in her math book.

 

 

 

And Ellie can even access her Smart Music program to help with her clarinet practice - just like at home

Our hotel in Heraklion, Crete had a great lobby area with free wifi where we spread out each morning to do some work.

Experiences of a lifetime...

So today, along with seeing maybe THE most beautiful statue every carved (Apollo and Daphne, by Bernini - literally so beautiful it almost made me cry), we also ate gellato with Prime Minister Berlusconi (well - he walked out of his car and into his office surrounded by security guards, policemen and the press about 10 feet in front of us while WE were eating our gellato), sang with Hare Krishnas while walking by the Pantheon, and talked with real-life communists (we asked the people in the communist party office for directions to a restaurant we were looking for).  Man, if that's not providing our children with a vast array of life experiences, I don't know what is!

Hare hare, krishna krishna (we still all have that song in our heads!)

OMG - literally and figuratively...

OK...so I have to write about this freakishly weird coincidence that happened to us today. 

We're in Chania, a town on Crete that seems to be a favorite place of almost every Greek person we've met so far.  And it IS quaint and cute from what we've seen today - narrow, cobblestone streets, lined with outdoor cafes selling cappuccino and trendy, arty stores selling crafty, Cretan wares for the tourists who throng here during the season.  The harbor is lined with colorfully painted hotels and restaurants while small, picturesque boats float in the water.  (But now it's INCREDIBLY slow - we are pretty much the only tourists in the whole town in seems...we have the entire hotel to ourselves right now.) 

I had read about the only synagogue on Crete being in Chania.  The incredibly long and rich (there is evidence of 2000 years of Jewish life on Crete)  and sometimes devastatingly sad history of the Jews of Crete made me want to find the synagogue.  This small Jewish community and the building were destroyed by the Nazis in 1944 (see the story here)  so I wanted to see how it was recently rebuilt and beautifully restored by a small but dedicated group.   We found the synagogue this afternoon and, inside, a small group of American men seemed to be having a quick tour of the synagogue and a little "Judiasm 101" class.  We joined the group and listened for a while, asking a man at the back of the group where they were from, etc.

Now, this is where it gets really weird...the group of men were with the American military, on their way to Djibouti in Africa for a one-year tour.  The man leading their "tour" of the synagogue was their chaplain, and a rabbi from our own Bucks County in PA.  Rabbi Cutler leads his own community in the Bucks County area and we have, actually, attended one of his services before and one of our very good friends is a regular musician for his community's services.   Very strange, small world.  We were all overcome by the coincidence...

Right there, on the spot, Rabbi Cutler offered to lead an evening service for the entire group. It was what we call bashert in Yiddish (fate) that we found ourselves half-way across the world, in a tiny synagogue, on a random Thursday afternoon, so we could have a special, little service together.  Thank you, Rabbi Cutler.  It meant a lot to me. (Dara)

Athens

As Mark continues to work on updating you about our amazing Israel experience, I've volunteered to try to keep us relatively up-to-date and relate our Greek adventures. Mark has already written about our wonderful encounter with Dora and her family. We have met other great people in Greece as well...and seen some amazing sites.

For our stay in Athens, I found an apartment online through a relatively new website called airbnb.com. It's a network of people with apartments to rent all over the world. We'd much rather stay in apartments than hotels...so we figured we'd give it a shot.  Of course, you do hear of scams sometimes when you deal with sites like this (as my mom was quick to point out, asking “What if there's actually no apartment when you get there?” Oh well – then we'd just have to find a place on the fly if need be...) But, of course, there was an apartment and, luckily, it was wonderful. Lina, our Greek hostess, gave us explicit directions on how to get to the neighborhood in Athens from the airport (a train, then a metro, then a bus) where she met us as we stepped off the bus and walked us around the corner to the apartment. (As an aside - Thank goodness the Greek people are friendly and helpful – we never would have found our way around or figured out which buses to take if the drivers didn't patiently tell us which number bus to look for when we asked them if they went where we wanted to go. There is NO other language like Greek in the world – it is truly “Greek to us”.)

The apartment is in a quiet neighborhood outside the center of Athens but close enough to get home by bus after seeing the sites within 15 minutes or so. The 2 bedroom apartment, stocked with sheets, towels, a basket of snacks, a fridge filled with basic necessities (some eggs, butter, ham and cheese, beer, etc), a washer and dryer with soap, and free wifi – was beautiful, clean, and quiet...a nice haven after 10 days of hectic traveling in hotels in Israel. We couldn't have been happier...and Lina couldn't have been more gracious. (Here's her website for the apartment in case you'll be visiting – we are not compensated in any way by her or anyone else but, we'd be remiss if we didn't pass along the information – we recommend her apartment whole-heartedly – www.tastylicious.gr ) (Thank you for everything, Lina!)

As Mark mentioned in his entry about Dora, Athens is VERY different than when we last visited 20 years ago. We remembered a dirty, loud city with incessantly honking horns, hardware stores everywhere you turned, and no bakeries. (Thus our joke about Athens inventing its own form of economy – the Popodopoly. Since there was only one bakery to be found and it had a line out the door, we joked that Athenians decided they didn't want to open a bakery since people hate to wait on line and there's always a line at the bakery...when deciding what type of store to open, they'd open another hardware store since there was never a line there!)

Today, Athens is a completely different place – a large, sprawling city with parts like Greenwich Village, parts like Fifth Avenue, and all parts in between. The part where we met Dora was a nice shopping area with rows of outdoor cafes and all types of musicians busking. The part of town around the Acropolis, where we went our first day in Athens, is a mass of narrow, stone streets, filled with touristy shops and cafes like you might see in many other European towns. The difference is, that only in Athens do you have the magnificent Acropolis high above you as you stroll around. It is truly an incredible site – as you stroll through a thoroughly modern city, you have the most famous ancient ruin in the world, very visible, looming right above you.

We didn't actually go up to the Acropolis until our third day in Athens. First, we took a day trip to Delphi with another person we met through the internet – George the Famous Taxi Driver. (How did people plan trips before the internet???)  Again – George was friendly, helpful, and talkative, as he took us 2 ½ hours outside of Athens to an amazing ruin over 2500 years old – the temple built in honor of Apollo where he slew the Python and where the Oracle of Delphi prophesied the future for the rich and powerful during the Golden Age of Greece between 500 and 400 BCE. It's a beautiful site where you can truly picture what it might have looked like so long ago, when athletes trained for the Pythian Games (like the Olympics) in the gymnasium and ran races every 4 years in the stadium. And where common men and kings brought sacrifices to the gods to ask about whether they'd win a war, or win a lady's heart. (See Ellie's video about Delphi in an earlier post – the singing competition to which she refers is something akin to the first “American Idol”-type competition that we know about – where singers competed and dedicated their songs to Apollo himself.)

Our third day in Athens, we finally went up to the Acropolis itself and saw first-hand the Parthenon. (You can also see Ellie's video about our visit there.)  We also visited the brand new Acropolis museum – an impressive, very modern display of treasures found at the site and reconstructions of what may have been. Beautiful and incredible to imagine.

Yikes!  Quite an early morning flight! 

Greece, here we come!

THIS is what it's all about

I'm taking a quick detour from our chronological travelog to relate a very nice encounter. On our third day in Athens, after having trouped the kids through the Acropolis and Acropolis museum, we found a nice, non-touristy pedestrian area lined with cafes. (Athens is full of areas like this – it really is a nice city, much different than the popadopoly we encountered 20 years ago, but that is a story for another day). (As far as the “non-touristy” part – at this time of year, pretty much everything is non-touristy from what we've seen so far – and that's the way we like it. In four days in Athens, we only saw a group of tourists once, off one of the big cruise ships that dock in Piraeus and send groups into Athens for a quick visit to the old sites and the shops.) As we were sitting there finishing up our coffees and hot chocolates, a cute little girl ran up to our table and said something to Ellie in very fast Greek. At least we thought it was very fast Greek. For all we know it could have been regular Greek but we can't tell the difference. After Ellie looked at her with a quizzical look on her face, the girl looked around at the rest of us expectantly. The best response we could muster was “Angliki” (English) because, despite having been told how to say it at least 17 times, we can not remember how to say “I don't speak Greek.”

The girl held up her finger in the international symbol for “wait a minute,” and ran off. Sure enough, she was back in a minute with her doll and asked Ellie, “Do you want to play?” in cute, broken English. The little girl introduced herself (Dora) and her doll. Dara quickly scanned the crowd to see what could be behind this, and sure enough, at the cafe diagonally across the way, the little girl's mother waved to us with the international symbol for, “It's ok, my little girl is not an axe-murderer.” With a little encouragement from us, Ellie got up and they started to play with the doll.

After a few minutes, Dora's mother, Despina, came over, introduced herself and invited Ellie and Ari to come over to their table because they had ordered a piece of chocolate cake and they wanted to share it. So the kids reluctantly (yeah, right) went off to eat chocolate cake. After a few minutes, we paid our bill and went over to introduce ourselves.

Despina speaks English very well. Her husband, Ilias, understands English, but does not speak it very much. Between that and the four words of non-food Greek that we know, we were able to communicate very well (and we only know four because “please” and “thank you” are the same thing). Dora (short for Theodora) evidently is not shy at all and it was completely her idea to go ask Ellie to play. The girls were very cute together, despite the language barrier. Dora has been taking English lessons for about a year and does remarkably well considering it has not been very long. They did cartwheels, drew pictures and played tic tac toe and more. Every now and then, Dora would turn to Ellie and say, “Run.” And the two girls would take off up the street giggling as they ran. We (the adults and Ari) had a very nice conversation and exchanged e-mail addresses.

That night, when we returned to the apartment, Dara e-mailed them a couple pictures of the girls that we had taken. The next day, Despina e-mailed back and said she would like to invite us over to their house for dinner. We soon discovered, however, that that evening wouldn't work for their family and, unfortunately, we were leaving Athens early the next day. A few minutes later, we received a phone call and Despina offered instead to come pick us up and go to a local amusement park. This we were able to arrange and we ended up having a great evening. We took the metro down to the outskirts of the city where they met us. We walked around the amusement park – it was like Gillian's on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ, but nicer. There was an area for kiddie rides and an area with more adventurous rides. But it was nice to walk around and you could just pay for the rides you wanted to go on. So the kids went on a couple rides and we all ate hot dogs (They know how to do hot dogs there – a nice grilled bun lined with cabbage and fried onions and a big fat hot dog smothered with mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise.)

It was great to meet Despina, Ilias and Dora. Getting to know them and experiencing their hospitality and warmth was one of the real treats of the trip so far. THAT is what this trip is really all about.

Dora and Ellie drawing pictures at the cafe

Quick friends - Dara, Ilias, Ari, Mark, Despina, Dora and Ellie

The pedestrian walkway lined with cafes near Syntagma Square in Athens

Ellie and Ari ready to go on the puke-n-ride (as Mark and I like to call it!)  The park was clean and bright and a great escape from more ancient ruins for the kids.

Dora's FIRST EVER HOT DOG!! YUM!!

We brought along some I Love NY t-shirts to give to new friends we meet along the way.  Here's Ellie signing the shirt for Dora... We hope she'll remember us whenever she wears it!

We love you too, Dora!  Maybe you can come visit us in the USA one day! (You too, Despina and Ilias!)

The Greek name for cotton candy literally translates to "old lady hair"...get it?

A stop on the road for tzedakah

Evidently, there is a custom that when you hear that a friend is going to Israel you give him 2 dollars.  No this is not some weird derivative of the movie Better Off Dead (get it on Netflix if you haven't seen it/don't remember it).  It is based on the belief that if you are doing tzedakah (charity), you will be assured a safe trip.  So you get 2 dollars so you can give one to a charity in your destination and one to a charity upon your return. We learned of this custom from Carrie who also has her own tradition of including a tzedakah project in each of the Israel trips she's coordinated.

As many of you are aware, just a few weeks before we left, there was a big forest fire in Israel (maybe not big compared to the wild fires of the western US, but by far the biggest ever in Israel -- remember, this country used to be all desert not very long ago).  With Carrie's quick action and an impressive response from the Kol Emet community, we were able to procure a good supply of hoods and gloves for the firefighters of Israel and money for JNF, the Jewish National Fund -- the group that has planted hundred of millions of trees in Israel.  Carrie (I think with the assistance of her cousins and the JNF) was able to arrange for us to visit the main firehouse in Rishon Le'Zion, a small city outside of Tel Aviv, to donate these supplies.

After leaving the Ayalon Institute, we headed over to the firehouse.  Well, the whole fire crew was waiting for us with eager anticipation.  They had the fire trucks lined up in front of the firehouse and a generous spread of snacks and drinks laid on for us.  We spent a couple minutes munching and schmoozing with all the firemen (there were about 25 of them), then their captain gave a little talk about the fire -- every fire company in Israel sent people to help fight the forest fire -- then they were on to their demonstrations.  They had a smashed up car behind the station which they quickly tore into with their "jaws of life."  Then they simulated the containment of a hazardous materials spill, complete with their big yellow Bio-Hazard Protection Suits.  After that, they got the kids involved.  They lit a fire in a fire pit, had the kids put on the fireman's coat and helmet and put out the fire with a fire extinguisher.  As a finale, they had their rescue team repel 100 feet down from the top of the extended ladder their hook and ladder truck.  The fireman really pulled out all the stops to make us feel welcome and show their appreciation

It was a great chance to mix with the locals and learn a little more about life in today's Israel -- something that you don't usually get the chance to do on a regular tourist trip.  Moreover, it was clear that the firemen really appreciated the donation and the fact that we took time out of our touring to stop and visit them.  And those of us on the trip really enjoyed the stop.

Ellie, Meredith and Jenna fooling around on the bus

Bio-hazard demo

Yikes!  He was high up and rappelling down the rope from the top of the fire ladder.

Jordana trying on the gear...

...and putting out a fire!

Carrie and some of the firemen.  On the table is all the gear (gloves and masks) that we brought over from the US to donate to the station.

The entire tour group with the firemen of the Rishon Le'Zion fire company.

Ellie on the scene...at the Acropolis

Hi all -
Mark is still working on finishing up about our adventures in Israel but in the meantime - here's Ellie with her little recap about the Acropolis.  She said she really liked the new Acropolis museum too - it is very neat, containing beautiful statues and artifacts from 570 BC through the 5th century AD.  It also has great re-creations of what the Parthenon probably looked like in its hey-day...incredible to imagine.

Hope you enjoy! We'll be posting more about our adventures in Athens soon too!

Ellie on the scene...

Ellie's doing some videos for her class back home...here's the first installment:

So much to write about

It has been a while since we last posted a blog. That is because the we have been going full speed on the Kol Emet Israel tour. Carrie and Reuven (our guide) have had us up early every morning and out late every night. I guess they want to be sure we feel like we've gotten our money's worth. It has been a great tour. We are now in Athens, but we'll try to recap some of the Israel highlights before going into that.



There is so much to say about the Israel trip, it is going to be hard to make sure we cover it all. First off, let us say that Carrie did a great job organizing the trip. Behind the scenes, for months and months leading up to the trip, Carrie was busy making sure our itinerary hit all the best spots. And her hard work definitely paid off. I think we squeezed 3 weeks of touring into 10 days. It was exhausting and, incredibly, it only scratched the surface of this great land. It just gives us more reason why we need to go back. In addition, Carrie knows so many people that we were able to meet during our trip. It was great to meet Carrie's friends, they certainly are interesting and gave us insight into life in Israel that we'd not get elsewhere.



In addition, Reuven was an incredible guide. His knowledge and story-telling flair helped each site come alive and allowed us to better understand all the history. While I originally thought maybe he was a little over the top, at times, in his delivery, I soon came realize that was not the case. Without a good guide, so much of the ancient history could be perceived as just a pile of rocks – old interesting rocks, to be sure, but without the meaning behind them. And, since Israel has such a tremendous mix of ancient and modern history, it is great to have a knowledgeable guide to help you piece it all together. Once you hear the stories associated with the sights and history and how these guys did this and those guys did that, you can much better visualize what was happened and why.



At the beginning of the trip, we were in Tel Aviv. In contrast with many of the other cities and sites in Israel, this city is only about 100 years old. So, naturally, in this area we concentrated more on recent history -- namely the creation of the modern state of Israel. We went to the Palmach museum (the Palmach was the strike force of the Jewish resistance before Israel was created) and Israel's Independence Hall. Living in today's world, it is hard to imagine how tough things were for the world's Jews in the years leading up to Israel's creation -- and I'm not just talking about the Holocaust (I'll get to that later when I talk about our visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem). Nowadays, we mostly see Jews as assimilated, integrated parts of society. Back then, they lived in ghettos, had limited work opportunities and were victims of often violent discrimination. So some of them picked up and moved to what was a desert wasteland.



So they moved out of the pan into the fire, so to speak. While in Tel Aviv, we got a feel for how difficult an undertaking it was to create the state of Israel. It was at the Ayalon institute that it really hit home how many different things needed to come together to make Israel possible. The Ayalon Institute is not a major tourist site – it wasn't even mentioned in our Fodor's – but it is just another example of a gem that Carrie knows. In the years before Israel's independence, the Jews living there had many trials and tribulations to deal with in daily life. In addition, they knew that a state would not be handed to them on a silver platter, so they had to start putting things together so they would be ready. The Ayalon institute is one of those jig-saw puzzle pieces.



Living among hostile neighbors, the Jews realized war would be inevitable, so weapons would be needed. Given the blockade of the British, they knew that they couldn't rely on buying weapons elsewhere and smuggling them in. So the Haganah (the Jewish resistance movement in Israel from before the time of the British Mandate up to independence) created a secret factory to make bullets and code-named it the Ayalon Institute. Right under the noses of the British and in complete secrecy, they built a small factory underground, then built a kibbutz around it, to disguise it. In addition, just before WWII, they had the foresight to buy bullet making machinery in Europe, dismantle it and smuggle it in.



The workers at the Ayalon Institute had to sneak into this hot, noisy underground factory through a secret entrance hidden by the kibbutz's half-ton washing machine (the noise of which also hid the noise of the factory) for four years every day. Not long after work in the factory began, the workers there realized that to keep up their cover stories of working in the fields, they would need a tan. At first they sprayed themselves with iodine, then later installed a tanning booth and exercise room in the factory (1940s style:  a UV light and some small weights). The production machinery used a lot of electricity so the Haganah had to have someone in the electric company to adjust their bills so the secret wouldn't be blown. Brass for the casings were smuggled in, with extra brass being ordered by a nearby factory.



Incredibly, all this – the very existence of this factory -- was kept absolutely secret until 1985! Stories of other factories to make guns and other secret ventures organized by the Haganah, the bravery of these early pioneers, the incredible odds Israel faced in the war against their Arab neighbors in the war before and after declaring independence, give light to the fact that the creation of the state of Israel could truly be considered a miracle.

 So, you as you can see, this was just in the first days and doesn't even include everything we saw and did.  I'll keep plugging away.  Now that we're in Athens, we're taking things a little more slowly, getting the kids caught up on school work and soaking in the urban life so we should have time to write.

Some pictures from Israel (from Dara):

At the Ayalon Institute - Under the washing machine (left) is a hidden entrance to the bullet factory below.

Down in the factory it was dark, loud, lonely (even though your friend is next to you, it's hard to talk when the machinery is banging away), and monotonous (a job might have been to lift a lever up, and then put it back down, over 10,000 times per day)

Some of our favorite Israeli foods!  The sign says "falafel v'humus" (falafel and hummus) in Hebrew too.

And shawarma (usually chicken in a pita with hummus, veggies, tahini sauce, and fries too) - yum!