Slowing down

In the process of slowing down, I did something unheard of yesterday: I stopped working already at 8pm, went home and instead of marking essays I went to my neigbours to pay a visit. It was great - we sat on their balcony, ate babovka I brought, they smoked, I talked and it all felt marvelous. They told me they were getting married in September (Mazal tov) and also shared with me their worries about our new Chinese neibours. They claim that they already have a second dog within a very short period of time and that there is a strange smell coming from their flat. They say they keep a kind of chau-chau dog one breeds for meat in China and that they surely ate the first dog with which they moved in. Well - what do you think? Is this at all possible?

Just a thought

This weekend, after it had gotten warmer in the town, I redescovered how great it is to live in a flat with a roof terrace. To do your work siting in the sun watching birds flying around is priceless. To go out to drink a cup of tea at night and watch the starts is calming and beautiful.
Today I finally made friends with my terrace neighbors. Their names are Andela and Stepan. I hope this is a start of a good terrace to terrace friendship.
There are 6 more weeks of school to go. I am counting the days.

Quotes from the past couple of days

I have a couple of quotes from the past days:

"When the prophets of Baal did not succeed to light the fire on Carmel, does this mean Baal is a weak god or does it mean he does not exist at all?" Lukas (10 years old)
"I guess Baal exists but he just had a very weak signal reception on Carmel." Adam (10 years old)

"Is there somebody who keeps trejf?" Frantisek (16 years old)

"When the Jews came out to the desert and found the pool of bitter water, I am sure it was petrol." (Lukas (7 years old)

"I thought that the white stuff in your hair is lice eggs but now I see it is only dandruff" Rut (8 years old) - ok, I get it, I should do something about it....

"When G-d said "You shall have no other gods" I think he was mean. Did he want to take over the entire world?" Karel (8 years old)

"Have you read the draft of my work? Is it really bad?" Vera (16 years old)
"Well, honestly, the paper is quite bad." Me
"Really? That´s really weird ´cause I had my granny read it and she thought it was quite ok." Vera

Aviad in Prague and leaving my job

Aviad has just left back home after his 10-day visit in Prague. During his visit, I successfully aspired for the title of "the most terrible host ever." When he came I lost my voice and wasn´t able to speak to him for at least 2 days. For the rest of his stay I worked all the time, had no time to sight see with him, painfully left my Masorti job, during the process of which I kept updating him about all the difficulties and pains connected with it, I hardly cooked, I refused to go to shop to H and M with him (those who know him will see how painful this is) and I forced him, the poor Israeli, to observe Shabbat with me. On the top of it all when he was leaving Prague at the airport, the security people took away from him the Czech Tatar sauce he bought and carried with care and love to the Holy Land. But I hope he enjoyed the stay at least a little bit. I certainly did.

Last week, I decided to leave my Masorti job. I was exhausted and realized I cannot carry on having two jobs any longer. My leaving unfortunately causes many problems in the community because at the moment there is nobody to replace me and this poses some hard questions about the future about the whole kehilah. Well, not nice and very painful.

The striking Prague news apparently is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are staying for 2 months in the town to shoot a movie called "Wanted." Well - what more could one wish for, right?

Which countries have you visited?

I have just found this on my friend Nikki´s website. If you click on the link below, you´ll find a website that will generate a map of countries you´ve visited. Harmless fun :-) I guess I really have to go to Spain and Portugal. I have never been - what a shame!



create your personalized map of europe
or check out our Barcelona travel guide



create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide