The Most Royal Wedding

Like I said, I won't have pictures for a couple of posts.  Anyway, after school one day, I was invited to my friend Ariela's house to watch 'The Royal Wedding'.  I was really happy to and so we went to the store and bought some food and then went to her house and sat down on their couch and watched for about three hours.  I LOVED it.  It was very serious and all but amazing.  Kate was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.  I couldn't quite follow the royal family tree, but I didn't care that much, I just wanted to know who everyone was.  I expect a lot of people who read this watched as well.  Am I right?  It's something no one would want to miss.  That's it for now then, later!

I Can Shoot You But You Can't Shoot Me

Okay, I first want to say that some of the next posts aren't going to have pictures.  :(  Sorry, but I think it'll be cool for me to explain instead of pictures.  So let's get on with it.  I went on a walk with sort of a bird's-eye-view of the old city.  Its called the Ramparts Walk.  I'm really sorry we don't have pictures for this.  It was all outside and it was beautiful!  There were holes in the wall every once in a while and some of them were small and skinny and some weren't covered in with rock at the top but you could see through.  The small and skinny ones I called 'I can shoot you but you can't shoot me's' because the ramparts were used when the Jews were fighting against different enemies at different times.  You could look out one of the open holes and watch your enemy and if they were throwing a rock up to hit somebody you could duck out of sight and not get hit by whatever it was that they  had thrown or blasted up.  The small and skinny ones were used to aim something at the people below you and they could throw whatever it was through the hole but not get hit with anything from the bottom coming up.  It was cool and that's about it.  It was also a burning hot day but beautiful.  Well, see you later!

A Sudden Solo

So.......A couple weeks back, I was in a presentation with my choir at school for a special day called Yom Hashoah, the day of rememberance for the Holocaust.  The Holocaust for the Jewish people.  My choir was going to sing a song called 'Eli, Eli,' which means, 'Oh Lord my God'.  The words to the song go like this{in English}: 'Oh Lord, my God, I pray that these things never end:  The sand and the sea.  The rush of the water, the crash of the heavens, the prayer of the heart.  The sand and the sea, the rush of the water.  The crash of the heavens, the prayer of the heart.'  The day before the performance was a choir day.  Straight off, since my mom had told the teacher that I knew the words to 'Eli, Eli' in English, the choir teacher asked me to sing 'Eli, Eli' as a solo the next day.  IN ENGLISH!  I didn't want to at first, but I did anyway and I didn't say anything.  So the next day, I got up in front of the microphone and sang: 

It felt like I was back home, in freelance,singing untill my heart hurt.
(couldn't get a video of my solo working, don't have pictures, sorry)

My First Trip to the Desert

Hey!  So, on my trip to the Dead Sea and Masada, I stayed at another guest-house/hostel wich was pretty similar to the Kinneret guest-house, exept it was much, much larger.  Another thing that was different was that it was in the middle of the desert.  Before we arrived at the guest-house/hostel, we took a small hike. Before, though, we had sandwiches for lunch.  I also bought a hat in a near-by store.  It says Dead Sea on it about a million times.  Let me show you some pictures of us outside before we went on the hike.  Here:

After eating, putting on sun-screen and packing our bags with water, we set off.  We walked out into the sun of the early afternoon and it hit me.  The sun's rays poured down on me.  I sat down on a rock.  I couldn't go any farther even though I'd only taken about three steps.  That's how hot it gets in in the desert.  And hotter.  Even though Jonah and I were tired and already sweating within two minutes, we walked a bit.  It turned out to be kind of fun.  Grammy, Papa, and my dad went ahead of us and Jonah, Mommy and I stopped to sit every time there was a bench.  We saw some animals too.  There was a mini waterfall and we went and put our feet in.  If I had a bathing suit with me, I would have gotten right in and swam.  The cool water felt amazing around my ankles.  We also threw rocks into the water and got sprayed by the waterfall.

 This is an ibex, its a kind of animal.

When we got to the guest-house/hostel, after checking into our room, I was forced to take a freezing cold shower, which I usually hate, because I was so grummpy because of the heat.  I took a freezing, but amazingly comfortable, shower and after I felt great.  I think my grammy and I were the only ones that took showers the whole visit.  Except, after my shower, my mom told me not to dry my hair.  "Let it dry in the wind, and come, we want to show you something."  That's what she said.  I followed my mom to this small balcony over looking the desert.  We could barely see the Dead Sea from there.  It felt really good.  We all sat on lawn chairs placed outside and played 'I'm thinking of a person'.  Then it was time for dinner.  The hostel had 'Kibutz food', as my dad calls it.  A Kibutz is a place where people live.  My mom lived on a Kibutz when she was visiting Israel when she was younger.  Kibutz food is like pasta, salad, rolls and really the basic food, nothing fancy.  Here are some pictures of the little balcony and outside at dinner with cats!:

      As you probably know, the next day we went to the Dead Sea and hiked up Masada.  It was a fun-filled desert adventure! :)

A Hand for the Elderly

Hi, sorry about the really long last posts.  Most of it was because of the pictures.  This, I hope, won't be as long as the other ones were.  A long time ago, I went to a place called Yad LeKashish.  Its name means Lifeline for the Elderly in English.  The elderly make everything, from china and jewlery, to stuffed animals and dolls!  There is a workshop where they work on projects, and a store where other people sell them.  I went to the store and it was filled from top to bottom.  Let me show you.

The One of a Kind Passover Vacation

Besides going to the Dead Sea, Masada and Ein Gedi, I had a pretty fun filled Passover vacation.  For those of you who don't know what Passover is, it is a Jewish holiday that Jews celebrate because of the time the Jews worked as slaves for a man called Pharoh in Egypt and when they were allowed to leave, the bread they were going to take with them didn't rise as fast as they wanted it to, so they put the dough on their backs so it would rise in the sun, but they ended up having a flat cracker sort of thing called Matza, which is a food you eat during Passover.  Anyway, after we'd gotten back from the Dead Sea and Masada, we drove to a town called Ashquelon {ash-ke-lon} to have our first Passover seder.  A seder is a feast that you have to celebrate the holiday.  It was at my mom's cousin's cousin's parents house.  After, we drove to a small apartment building where we stayed for the night.  In the morning we had breakfast at the same place we'd had the seder.  Near noon that day, we drove behind someone who is also my mom's cousin's cousin and we traveled for about an hour and a 1/2 untill we got all the way to a desert called the Negev.  It is on the border of Egypt which is another country next to Israel.  My mom's cousin's cousin, Sara, has a husband, two children, two dogs and a cat.  All of them mostly speak Hebrew, {exept the dogs and cat, they don't speak at all} but they spoke pretty fluently in English too.  Their kids are four and two years old, so I was the oldest kid there.  We stayed over there too, in another apartment building.  The people who really live there but were on vacation somewhere else, have two dogs and two cats.  It was animal heaven for me, but the house smelled of cat litter.  EEWW!  The day after, we went and played on some sand dunes and took a hike in the desert.  Also, we took a trip to my mom's cousin's cousin's husband's tomato plant.  After that, we went home to Jerusalem and stayed back at our apartment for a while and THEN, got on a bus back down to the Negev to a place named Ain Ovdat and Lehavim.  We met some people that my mom had met while Israeli dancing in St. Louis, Missouri.  They now have three kids.  Two daughters and one son.  The oldest's name is Chen, then Gilad, and the youngest, Gal.  We stayed over at their house too, and Gal and I watched a movie called Tangled.  The next day, Gal's friend came over and we all went into the desert and took a long hike up a steep mountain.  It was kind of fun.  There were ladders that you had to climb, and steep, narrow steps to make your way up.  We took the bus home that night and when we got home, we all went straight to bed.  You can guess, that was a pretty fun vacation.  Take a look:  I got a ton of pictures to show you:

 Tomato plant

 The place that smells of cat litter.

 In the Negev with my mom's cousin's cousin's family eating matza covered with chocolate spread

 Tomato plant

 The place we stayed at in the desert that smelled of cat litter.

 Tomato plant

 Sand dunes

 Us in the Negev with my mom's cousin's cousin's family eating popcicles.

 Those are the pictures of us in the Negev with my mom's cousin's cousin's family.

 Here are the people in this picture from left to right:  Gal's friend, Jonah, Liana, Gal.

 Those are the pictures of us on the hike with my mom's friends from Israeli dance.

This is me and Gal reading Harry Potter in two different languages.  Cool, huh?

The Something That Saved My Life

Hey!  You're probably wondering why I named this what I did.  Well, lets find out!  One day, while my mom, Jonah, and I were out getting ice cream at a place called Aldo, my mom went across the street to check on a pool that was going to open soon.  Jonah and I went to meet her after we had finished our ice cream.  The pool had opened and after doing a lot of math and thinking, my mom decided to get a manooey, which is a membership in Hebrew.  We went swimming that day.  It was really fun!  There is a smaller out-door pool, and a huge in-door one.  We swam in the out-door one.  It was soooooooooooo fun!  Let me show you.

 It was really fun!  I liked it.  If the weather is all right, we might go today!  May 7th 2011!  That pool saved me from not going swimming this whole trip to Israel!

The Sky Town

It's me again, with more things to talk about!  I mentioned a place in Israel in the posts: Candles, Candles, and More Candles, The Kinneret: Visit and Guest-house, and now, in The Sky Town!  That place that I mentioned is called Safed, {tzfat}, just to re-fresh your memory.  It is what I call the town in the sky.  We left the Sea of Galilee guest-house, with my grandparents, and drove through the clouds and up a hill into Safed {tzfat}.  There, we visited the Artist Colony and met an artist, went to Safed Candles, which I explained about in Candles, Candles, and More Candles.  We also walked a ton and it was drizzling a bit so we had on our rain coats and some of us had umbrellas.  Picture time!

I'm now going to show you some pictures of us near the Artist Gallery.

The door behind us, the one with the random man in it, that is the entrance to an art gallery.  All the art in the gallery was created by artists that lived here, or still live here.  There were amazing pictures and sculptures.  One of the sculptures was called: The Hope.  It was of an Israeli woman holding up a baby.  A baby in Hebrew is called a tinoke.  Anyway, we walked everywhere and I can tell you, there are about a million stairs there.  Let me show you some more pictures:

We also visited a temple and I really liked it.  Its still used.  It was pretty cool.  Let me show it to you:

                                    I need to tell you, before I go, Safed was an amazing place!

The Kinneret: Visit and Guest-house

Like I promised!  The Kinneret!  I haven't blogged in a while and I apologize.  But don't worry, I will get you caught up soon!  Let's see now....how to explain, how to explain.....ah yes!  The Kinneret basically is one of the main water sources of Israel.  Its a lake, you see.  I was at a 'Kinneret Guest-house' for a two night trip with my parents and grandparents and, of course, Jonah!  On the first day at the guest-house, we saw the Kinneret from a point near the guest-house.  The Kinneret is also called the Sea of Galilee.  It is in the shape of something called King David's Harp.  David was a king of Israel but I'm not going onto that path, let's stay right where we are!  Anyway, the Sea of Galilee guest-house is a cozy place, practically hidden by leaves and branches and flowers.  It's a bed and breakfast sort of thing.  On the second day there, we drove up to Safed, {Tzfat} which you heard about in the post Candles, Candles and More Candles and also in the post Its a Rainbow!  I want to add one more thing about Safed:  While we drove to get there, I noticed that that town is so high up in the sky, we drove through clouds to get there! Later, when we had gotten back, we went on a sort of hike right next to the Kinneret, but it was rainy and the path was real muddy and we had mud coming up to the half point place on our sneakers!  It was a muddy, but fun experience!  I'll give you some pictures to look at to give you something to look at besides words!

Those are all the pictures I could find but I'm going to give you more in the next post about my trip to Safed!  Or maybe something else.