Independence celebrations and visiting Rome

Right after coming back from my vacation in N. America I was confronted with the issue of whether or not to go to Rome for the celebrations of Israel's 60th Independence Day. Why was there a dilemma? Because things were a bit unorganized over there and I was afraid it would be a monumental waste of time. But I decided to go - it's my job after all and I wanted to use the opportunity to spend some time to be a tourist in Rome.

The first event was a performance of the Israeli Opera at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. They performed an Israeli opera based on a libretto by A.B. Yehoshua - A Journey to the End of the Millennium (http://www.israel-opera.co.il/Eng/?CategoryID=290&ArticleID=402). The performance was professional as where the costumes and the staging was outstanding. However, the theme was way too serious for a happy occasion such as Israel's Independence Day (the story has to do with the conflict between the Ashkenazi and the Sepharadi communities in the middle ages about whether or not men should be allowed to have more than one wife. the Ashkenazi communities being influenced by the Christians against this notion whereas the Sepharadi communities being influenced by the moslims and allowing this). Things get messy in the opera and one of the main characters ends up drowning in a swamp (I don't remember why exactly...). The other big problem is that bringing a modern Israeli opera to Italy is like trying to sell snow to Eskimos (I know this is not a politically correct term so excuse me). You really have to come with something outstanding to live up to Italian opera standards and this opera didn't. The music was, how to put it? a bit boring. We lived through it but a considerable number of other invitees left during the intermission.

What was more interesting in this performance was to do some people watching. Italians really go all out when they go to the opera, dressing up. I took the opportunity to wear one of my evening dresses. The last time I wore this dress was a long time ago in Hungary.... (the other lady in the picture is my colleague from Rome - Gila - holding a similar position to mine over there):

The next day we had the "usual" Independence Day reception. I didn't know most of the people but did have a chance to get to know better my colleagues in Rome. Berlusconi came (as did the president of Italy the day before to the opera - but he left at the intermission...). He was greeted with loud applause, because he's considered a big friend of Israel.

The next day was a beautiful day. Blue skies and not too hot. I went to visit a wonderful exhibition of Renoir's works at the Complesso del Vittoriano (http://www.romaviva.com/Fori-Imperiali/piazza_vittoriano.jpg)- You can see some of the pictures I saw there at this link: http://www.artsblog.it/galleria/complesso-del-vittoriano-roma-renoir/ I love the impressionists.

Then i went up to the top of the monument (which is a rather controversial one) to see what the city looks like from the only point from which the monument cannot be seen....

It's a bit hard to see but at the end of the trees in the far right side of the picture - one can see the Colosseum in all it's glory. Notice also the trees - Milan lacks trees in a serious way and it was a pleasure to see the trees in Rome.

In this picture one can see the Old Synagogue and the remains of the Theatre of Marcellus (this might be an opportunity to say that I like using the google blogger but their image upload and the quality of the pictures is not the best, especially when trying to upload landscape pictures... they come out so much nicer on flickr).






I went on to walk from Fonatana di Trevi all the way to St. Peter's Basilica. It was a lovely walk. The only disappointment was that I couldn't get into St. Peter's. They've got security checks there - you have to stand on a line for at least one hour to get in. I haven't been there in almost 20 years and I really wanted to see it again but was not about to stand on that long line in the sun. There are many more tourists these days going around and it has become very difficult to visit well known monuments here and also, as I mentioned in my previous post in NY and elsewhere. One has to reserve a place weeks or even weeks in advance (I wanted to visit the Villa Borghese and couldn't do that either for the same reason...) and even then - to stand on long lines to go in, which is a pity.

The other thought I had while in beautiful Rome was that it's amazing how unimpressive Milan is as a city, especially, compared with other cities and towns in Italy and considering that it's a worldwide design and fashion center. Some of this might be attributed to the fact that it was devastated during the Second World War but one wonders why more care and thought wasn't put into the restoration of this city to make it prettier. The Milanese say that Milan needs to be discovered and that much of what is beautiful in it - can only be seen inside palaces and villas. But I can't help but wonder why this should be so.... I suppose that this is because it's an industrial center where people are less concerned with the outside beauty of things but in Italy I find this a bit strange and it's a pity Milan isn't prettier.

Well, I've got to go out in the rain now to do my shopping. Working hard these days, but all in all, I'm quite happy. Hoping to have my brother come and visit me. Take care, and like always - would love to get your letters. Shabat Shalom.

Vacation in the US and Canada

I will start by saying that yesterday I had an encounter with the first mosquito of the warm season over here. I won. However, I'm bracing myself for an onslaught of mosquitoes. I was told it's a real problem over here. I'm not entirely clear why (I suppose mostly because most people, including me, don't have screens...). The mosquito problem isn't dealt with - i.e. water is not treated in the Milan area. I'll keep you informed. My family have already informed me that if there is a big problem they're not coming till it gets cooler again :-(.

I just came back on Tue. from a long and good vacation in the States and Canada. This was mostly a relaxation vacation, no agendas, no "have to do"s, etc. just enjoy being with family and friends and see what's new in North America.

I started in Boca Raton, Florida, where I spent some time with my aunt (Caroline), uncle (Simon), cousins and family. I was treated to a manicure by Caroline, the results of which can be seen in the following pictures:






I should add that I've never had a manicure before, that I've tried to duplicate this at home and didn't succeed (i.e. putting on nail polish) - it came out all uneven, but I'm going to practice and see where it gets me.

We celebrated two seders in Florida - us being in the "galut" (diaspora) and everything. I wasn't sure I would be able to sing all the songs again on the second day, but it ended up being a lot of fun (I must also mention that the first night I was still jet lagged and basically was half asleep during the singing after supper so maybe it didn't really feel like I was singing the songs twice....). I was told that because of me singing with the Florida group this year - the choir in the Jerusalem seder at my grandma's didn't do as well as usual.... The food was superb, especially the charoset (made by Ronny) and Frida's chicken soup (The mataza, however, didn't agree with my stomach). Pictures from the Seder and other pictures from the Florida part of my trip can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/dodsimon/Pesach?authkey=5DiZjW7l1D4 (taken by Simon).

For the lazy, here is one picture from the 1st Seder:

What else happened in Florida? We went to a nice nature reserve called Wacodahatchee Wetlands. Saw two big alligators eating what seemed to be a turtle (there was a big schrunch at some point which sounded like its shell cracking but there are those who say that alligators don't eat turtles, so I'm not sure). It was weird to imagine that a baby alligator we saw - barely 50 cm. and thin as a piece of string would turn into a monster of an animal the size of those busy eating the turtle... Lots of birds over there - all busy living their lives, laying eggs, nesting, eating fish, etc.

Met up with Judy and Seymour (good friends for those who don't know them) and went with Judy to see an interesting exhibition - Degas in Bronze at the Boca Raton Museum of Art - some beautiful bronze statues mostly of dancers by Degas (http://www.bocamuseum.org/index.php?submenu=exhibitionarchive&src=gendocs&link=ExhibitionArchive&category=Exhibitions).

When we went to have lunch at a food court in one of the malls I was amazed to see that the girl serving us in one of the stands could not speak in English - only Spanish. Even to answer a simple question about some dish. Also, when I was driving with Simon and Caroline and we asked for directions - some couldn't understand the question and one who could - couldn't answer in English. Everywhere the signs are also in Spanish, not only in Florida but also in NY.

In NY stayed with Jason and his family. We tried going to the Bronx Zoo - but there were a million people there, it being a free entry day and in the middle of Passover (which is celebrated in NY by the closing of all the schools...). So we went to the Aquarium instead. We saw among others pregnant male seahorses. Yup, it seems that with the seahorses, the males are those who carry the baby seahorses. between 50 and 1.500 (!) seahorse babies develop inside the males pouch. There were also a lot of types of jelly fish, I didn't realize there were so many. and of course other bigger animals - seals, walruses, sharks. I did some major people watching there too - since there were A LOT of orthodox Jews there with their large families. It was a bit spooky. Why? I don't know.

The next day we tried to go to Ellis Island (which was maybe the only thing I really had on my agenda for this trip - I've been wanting to go over there for a long time). However, there was a line of two hours (!) to get on the ferry going over there, so we changed plans and walked the streets of NY instead. Had some good Mexican food. NY is beautiful this time of the year. It's amazing how different these noisy, smoggy, cities look when there's some new green and some trees blossoming in pink, white and other colors. I hope to get another chance to go to Ellis Island. Maybe in the winter there will be less people willing to make the trip on the ferry (I wonder if I will, but who knows...).

and then off to Toronto, Canada, to visit Natasha and co. (co. including a big white dog named Venus...). Here I was confronted with the question of whether or not I should have chosen Toronto as the place to lay my hat in (instead of Milan). The pros being that they speak English in Canada, it's close to the US and the quality of life is superb. The big con being the bad weather and gloomy winter (it actually went down to 1 degree centigrade at night the day I left... at the end of April!!), and the distance from Israel (although in the end, being in Italy doesn't mean I go more frequently to Israel...).

I had a homeopathic facial there (compliments of Natasha), we went to the Pacific mall (which being the biggest Asian shopping center in N. America even has an entry in wikipedia on it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Mall). This place reminded me of shopping malls I've visited in the Far East, which was a rather bizarre experience. We had to ask specifically that our number be called in English (not Chinese) at the food court. Speaking of which I forgot to mention that it seems that Queens, NY has a big Korean community in it - all the signs are in Korean, most of the people in that area are Koreans, they talk in Korean, quite strange.

We went dancing one evening, in a nice place - but I've managed to forget the name of the place. Here is a picture of us (Natasha, Parvin and me) over there:

and we went to see a movie over there. Why is this worth mentioning in the blog? I haven't seen a movie in a movie house (or on TV) in 4 months! I'm movie deprived... During this trip I watched 4 movies (3 on the planes, 1 in the cinema) and 4 movies since coming back here on Tue. To those who haven't seen it - Noodle is a lovely Israeli movie. Why haven't I seen movies? They're practically all dubbed into Italian over here and it took time to get organized with a functioning DVD, a subscription to a Blockbuster, etc....

Did I shop? A bit - some shirts, a pair of (.... Italian) shoes, a bag, some books.

Final comment - Continental is a great airline. Highly recommended. It was very pleasant flying with them. Prompt, friendly, OK food, good deal.

Loved visiting N. America again - my family and friends. Thanks to everyone over there. I had a fantastic time. Hope to see you again soon, maybe over here as well? Take care and do write.