Hello again! After a brief, but very appreciated, appearance by Dr. Eliastam, I am back to the blog!! Not much has changed since his entry but I thought I would just pop in and give everyone a sneak peek of what to look forward to in the next month and a half, and to explain what I have been doing for the last four days in Tel Aviv without my dad and brother.

I have been staying at Basil and Noga's (Dad's BFFs from the golden age) and they have been absolutely amazing to me. The first night they took me to a classical music concert (and yes, dad, i liked it!) and since then we have been to a movie (Grand Torino; very good), out to dinner (an asian fusion restaurant called Giraffe; excellent!!), and not to mention they have treated me to some really really good home cooked meals. I think the latter would be my favorite, it's something i have missed the most while travelling. Noga also helped me as a personal guide around the city and accepted the role as my Jewish mother to the fullest for these past days. It has been a wonderful treat to be able to spend some down time here after the last whirlwind of Latvia and Israel and before starting another dizzying agenda of countries. Speaking of countries....

On to my upcoming travels!! So early early EARLY tomorrow morning (2am to be precise) I will be boarding a plane to Riga (now, you should be saying in your head...BUT YOU JUST CAME FROM THERE??) where I will spend a lovely 3 hours before flying to Amsterdam. Nina Wheeler (my best friend from home) will be waiting patiently for me at our hostel, having arrived that morning herself. We will be in Amsterdam for two days or so, before moving on to Brugge (Belgium), Berlin (Germany), Munich (Germany), Zurich (Switzerland), Geneva (Switzlerand) and then Paris! This will all take about two weeks. Nina flies home from Paris on May 29, the same day my mom is supposed to arrive in the romantic city to sweep me off my feet. We are not totally sure of our plans yet, but we have 3-4 days together. Driving from Paris to Nice may be on the table. From Nice I am going to enter western Italy, and spend about two weeks travelling from there, seeing some friends along the way, and ending in Rome. From Rome I will fly to Edinburgh (Scotland), I am spending two days there before I fly to Dublin (Ireland) and then after two more days in the land of Guinness I fly HOME on June 23!!!!

So, now you know when to plan my surprise homecoming party...

oh, i almost forgot. Going to see a movie in Israel was a very weird experience. First of all, right before the movie starts a giant doorbell went off (well, that's what it sounded like). I thought it was a fire alarm!! It turns out it just warns people that the film is starting...odd. THEN half way through the movie..IT CUT OUT!! I turned to Basil, panic stricken, and asked what was wrong and he calmly replied "nothing". ISRAEL HAS AN INTERMISSION IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE! I haven't heard of that since Gone with the Wind! So we sat in the cinema for ten minutes before the door bell went off again and the movie resumed. Other than that it was quite a normal experience.