My Liminal Year

Too much to type on an iPhone

2011-08-26T01:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy week, and I have not been by a computer much. In fact, I am not by a computer now. I am on a bus from Galway to Dublin on kevin's iPhone (thanks Kevin). I just wanted to post a little summary of the last week for anyone reading.
In Kilkenny we had the best brewery tour I have ever been on (smithwicks). Our guide, Ronan, was passionate and intelligent and he Poured a pint with more care than some mother nursing their babies. We also saw a great castle and met Clare hyland, a guide there. After Kilkenny we spent a few days in cork walking around, doing daytrips to blarney and midleton, where I kissed the blarney stone and went on the Jameson tour (including a tasting of 3 whiskeys). After cork came Killarney where we did a lot of walking and hiking, and where we climbed the highest mountain in Ireland. We then made our way to Galway via the cliffs of Moher (magnificent). Galway is an a
Amazing town with great music and pubs and very friendly people. We went on some more crazy hikes; yesterday was one of the more intense experiences I've ever had. We met great people and had great Craic and now we are on our way to Dublin for the last leg of the trip..

Fiery Politics, Brilliant Trad, and One Less Camera... Oh yeah, and Guinness!

2011-08-18T00:12:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday the group finally all got together. One of the fellows' flight was delayed a full day, so instead of arriving on Tuesday he arrived on Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning also saw a departure. I woke up early and went to walk around Dublin on my own; I like to walk through a city by myself before having it colored by a tour guide. I stopped in St. Stephen's Green to check the map and take a break, I saw St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Literary Grottoes, and most of the rest of the city as well, including some nice residential areas. At 11 we all met up by City Hall to start our free walking tour. Our guide, Dave, was very energetic ("when he talks it looks like he is doing capoiera" - it really did). He was also very political. Very very political. And he was not afraid to show it. As he started the tour by Dublin Castle, I went to take out my camera to snap a photo and... it was gone. I figured it must have fallen out of my bag when I stopped at St. Stephen's Green. i ran back, but it was not there. Oh well.
We continued on the tour with Dave, learning lots about Irish history and politics and about the city itself. We had a liquid lunch, a nice microbrewed Irish Red, which was quite good. Afterwards we walked through parts of the city not covered by the tour and ended at the Guinness Storehouse, where we met the girls from the previous day. the tour there was self-guided, well-organized, and interesting enough, though it felt more like walking through a museum than a brewery tour. The Guinness at the 360 bar at the top was excellent though, and the full circle view of Dublin was magnificent (the weather has been amazing so far).
When we arrived in Kilkenny, a small quaint town, was off the hook (at 10:00pm) with young people all dressed out and going out to the pubs and clubs, and as we shlepped down our hostel with our huge bags we got many an invite to join the party. Two of us, after dropping off our bags, decided to take up the invitation, and we went out looking for some happenings. What we found was better than we could have expected. Instead of going into one of the big loud clubs along the main drag, we peeked our head into a small, quaint looking pub, and lo and behold, there was a group of musicians playing a trad session. We sat, had a few pints (Smithwicks, and more on it later), and basked in the music. And then, as if it couldn't get any better, one of the players started a sean nos! Look it up. It is something I was dying to hear here, and I was successful.
Oh, and i forgot to mention that our roommates at the hostels were, in a small town in Ireland, Israeli. Amazing.
We went to bed at 1:30, preparing for a day full of castles and breweries and more pubs and music (cheoil).

Flight & Days 1 and 2

2011-08-17T00:29:00.001-07:00

The first flight, from Newark to Charlotte, was pretty uneventful. We were delayed, but thanks to the pilot's "shortcuts", we got there only three minutes behind schedule ("your welcome", he tells us over the intercom as we land; the man had a sense of humor). With about 40 minutes until boarding the connecting flight I walked to the next terminal, and, as I walked into the gate from which the flight to Dublin will depart, lo and behold, there are two girls standing there that are quite obviously (very) orthodox jews!. Of course, I engaged them in conversation, and it turned out they were on the same flight to Dublin and would be traveling through Ireland and Scotland. We exchanged emails and phone numbers (European of course) and boarded the plane, though it was not the last I would see of them.
On the plane I sat next to a wonderful Irish couple, who, when they heard this was my first time in Ireland, wrote an entire page of recommendations for the best Craic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craic) in each of the cities I would be visiting. We chatted for a few hours throughout the flight, and they were, perhaps, the most pleasant flight companions I've ever had.
The sleeping situation was a bit less... pleasant, and I may have slept for half an hour, despite purposely not sleeping much the night before (in an attempt to make myself exhausted enough to sleep on the plane. Fail).
Security was uneventful, though I got my second dose of Irish friendliness when the passport control fellow started giving me recommendations for where to visit. Baggage claim was also quick and painless, and I spent it talking to those girls I mentioned before. I told them my plans (about how on Tuesday I would be going to the Fleadh Cheoil, a huge Irish music festival) and they seemed quite keen on going. We then took the bus into town together; they went to their hotel and I to mine. I dropped my stuff of, took a shower, and debated taking a nap before I quickly decided that I am here for two weeks and sleeping is at the bottom of my list. So, I went instead to Howth.
Howth was gorgeous. The first thing that went through my mind when I got there is that Howth is the Palisades of Dublin. Like the Palisades, Howth has beautiful hiking trails along a line of cliffs that are adjacent to some very nice neighborhoods and is easily accessible by public transportation from Dublin. Just that association alone made it a wonderful place in my mind, but the views out to sea, the islands, Salman Rushide's lighthouse (he stayed there for a bit during the fatwah) and Yeats' house (for a few years) made it even cooler. I hung out by the pier until one of my travel buddies, Yehoshua, made it in from the airport (his flight was delayed).
When he arrived we did the longest hiking loop there, a stunning six-mile circuit along the cliff edge. The weather was beautiful and clear up to 4, when we got some classic Irish...wetness? I am really not sure what to call it. It was like mist, but a little heavier, but it waslighter than drizzle. There was wetness falling from the sky, but if you put out your hand supine and spread out for 30 seconds it would barely be wet at all. We walked for another hour in this without putting on out raincoats and yet barely got wet. And yet it was wet. Somehow.
That night, between the hike and the lack of sleeping, I crashed. On the way back into town I fell asleep whenever we sat down, and finally, once I lay down at 930, I was out like a light.
The next morning we met the two girls on the bus to Cavan-town, where the Fleadh was being held. When we got there I think the first thing we noticed was that the more rural you go, the harder you need to work to understand peoples' accents. Some of these folks were practically unintelligible. However, music has no language barriers, and we spent all day going from recital to busker to trad session. It was a non-stop music fest and it was great. People weere playing the street, dancing in the street, every pub had impromptu sessions, the streets were packed with festival-goers...and it was a nice small Irish village as well, which was nice in itself. We heard a poetry reading outside the library where we stopped to eat lunch, we were attacked by bold bees in the parking lot where stopped to eat dinner, we met these two Americans there to compete, one of whom had a major gaffe (email me for details), we saw some pretty phenomenal musicians, including two harpists who had the fastest and most magical fingers I have ever seen. one of the girls and I kept making friends in the various pubs we went to... All in all by the time we got on the 10pm bus to go home we were pretty darn satisfied with our day. Ah! And I cannot forget! I had my first "real" Guinness in one of the pubs. The locals seemed a bit amused that I was taking the experience so seriously, but they also seemed a bit impressed and proud that I was taking it that seriously as well, and they wereglad I knew the proper Guinness-drinking rules (yes there are some rules). It was a brilliant first two days of the trip. I am now sitting in the hostel in Dublin, about to check out. Today we will meet Kevin, the other travel buddy, tour Dublin itself, go to the Guinness Brewery tour, and go to Kilkenny for the evening.
Slainte!

Traveling Again, Finally

2011-08-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you who do not know, and who may still be reading, I have been in medical school all of this past year and now, with two weeks to go until year 2, I am taking a trip to Ireland. It was all very exciting, buying the ticket and planning the trip (this time I will not be alone), but as I check in to my flight online, it feels as though all of the last year melted away. It as if no time has passed between when I got home from Europe last summer (around a year and two weeks ago) and now. I feel like I wasn't even in school, that nothing happened, that I am just continuing my trip. It is really very exciting. Stay tuned, I may get the opportunity to post a bit about our adventures while I am there.

A New Post - Nevermind

2010-07-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

I was going to post a whole lot today, about Antwerp and Brussels and Bruges and getting shabbos invites on the queue in the supermarket and long fasts and overnight buses and PhD dissertations and cog railways and 80 students from New Jersey and a huge fountain but it took too much time to plan my massive train trip through most of Switzerland for tomorrow, and it is late, and I am going to bed.

Den Haag

2010-06-28T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had originally thought I'd show up in The Hague, wander around the city for a bit, make my way to the beachside suburb of Scheveningen, tram down to the ParkPop festival, and call it a day, taking a tram to Antwerp next for a few days in Belgium. I dropped my stuff of in the hostel and, putting the citymap away in my back pocket, starting aimlessly ambling through the city. I saw lots of great buildings whose names and functions I had no idea, just soaking in the atmosphere of thi city, which was, frankly, nicer than Amsterdam. Amsterdam is big and touristy and 95% of the tourists are there to see/experience two things; those things are not the Van Gogh museum and the tulips. This gives Amsterdam an air of rushed expectation. The Hague was much more laid back, much more charming with a more authentic feel, and much more empty. I was really digging the city when, walking down some street I heard a kid's voice call out "Abba." Now, I don't know Dutch, but almost a week here has given me the ability to recognize the phonetics, and I knew that Abba is not Dutch. I turned round and saw a man walking with two young children, and he had a kippah on! I went right up to him and said to the effect of "nice to see another kippah here;" I assumed he was also a tourist as I didn't think there was a Jewish community here. I was quite wrong. He told me he lives here in The Hague, that the Jewish community was having a BBQ, and that if I wanted to come run a few errands first, he'd take me to the BBQ. I eagerly accepted and made friends with his two kids in the car on our way to the hardware stores (Iyrgalen, 6, and Ronit, 3). The BBQ was fun and, and to increase the funky cooincideces of the day, I met a young couple who, three months before, moved to the Country Club area of Teaneck, not an 8 minute walk from my parents' house, who are living for two years here in The Hague for work. Wild! We even got to talk about the Young Israel of Teaneck!
After the BBQ we all went to Scheveningen, to the beach, where I played with the kids and, finally, ate some amazing herring. The beach was, well, a beach. Nice sand, decent water, tons of people, nothing new. The herring was though. They sell entrie fish that are beheaded and lightly salted and covered in chopped onions. You hold them by the tail, tilt your head all the way back, drop the fish in, and bite of a nice chunk. The texture is soft but the flesh is quite firm, not like the nasty cream sauce-mayonaissey stuff in the states, and it is not overly salty like our matjes (and I had matjes here as well as the normal herring). Final opinion: awesome. I will never eat herring the same way again. Eat that old Hungarian gys from Rabbi Friedman's shtiebel! (And no kichel here!)
After the beach I went back to the hostel to shower (did I mention, by the way, that the hostel I am in here is amazing?) and then I took the tram to the ParkPop festival. I got there with just two hors to the end, but I got to see Alpha Blondie, Nena, and Danko Jones perform. The festival itself was huge, a nine hour music extravaganza spread out over three massive stages set up over a grand expanse of field, covered in hundreds of thousands of people, soda and beer cups, and food wrappers. I've never been to Woodstock, but this was the closest I'll ever ever get. The sheer size of the it and the amount of people in attendance was staggering, and at least 80% of the people there were stoned or some level of drunk. It was pretty intense. I have never heard of any of the performers either, but they played some pretty good music.
Today I wandered around a really nice 15th centruy town called Delft. It was sooo hot, and after a few hours of walking and seeing some really nic buildings, I lay down on the grass in one of the parks and passed out for half an hour. The heat drains you, especially when carrying around a bunch of stuff and walking a lot. After the nap I felt better, and I went back to The Hague to walk around a bit more, and to go back to Scheveningen to sit on the beach and read (it was empty today) and have a last herring. As I dangled the herring over my mouth, actually already in my mouth, a seagull divebombed and grabbed the fish right out of my hand, whacking me in the face in the process. It was pretty hilarious, and I started cracking up; the bystanders who saw what happened laughed as well, and I got a new herring at no extra charge. I went to the shul for mincha/maariv, and called it a day. Tomorrow I go to Antwerp.
Today I

Amsterdam

2010-06-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

I spent the first day in Amsterdam walking. I walked around in the morning on my own, I went on a guided walking tour in the afternoon, and I walked around more in the evening and night. I like Amsterdam, it is chraming. I wasn't shocked by anything, everything was as I expected. The architecture is nice, the canals are charming, the red light district is, well, what you would expect. The best thing I saw was a raft made of a flat wooden floor with six plastic oildrums bolted to the bottom and an outboard motor and couch on top. That was it. Two guys were just literally couch surfing down one of the canals.
The second day I rented a bike and biked in Amsterdam Noord (north) where I saw lots of fields and canals and cows and even some of the famous windmills. The bike ride was nice, and very easy (this country is so flat!), but it was then that I made the decision to come home early. I am still kicking myself for it, but I am sure it will all work out in the end. At night I took a walk and stumbled upon the International Thetre School's fesival/party and joined, where I found out about ParkPop, supposedly the biggest pop music festival in Europe, kind of like the European Woodstock, which takes place in Den Haag. Just that morning I got an email from Ephraim teling me about the amazing herring in Scheveningen, a beach suburb of Den Haag, and I decided to go after shabbos.
I had planned to go to the museums in Amsterdam on Friday, but after seeing how much they wanted to charge (14 euro for Van Gogh and 12.50 for the Rijksmueum, which was mostly closed undergoing renovations) I decided to skip the museums, and I walked around the last bits of the city that I had not seen yet, including Vondelpark, a realy nice park, and the outdoor Bloemenmarkt, the flower market, where the two most ubiquitous products were tulip bulbs and cannbis seeds.
After I was finished with the city I went to the family I was staying at for shabbos, the son of the family I ate with last week in London. Nice family, their kids have the reddest hair I have ever seen. If you look straight at their heads you get blinded, it was that intensely and brightly red. There was another North american there for shabbos, a Canadian med student who was an absolute pleasure to talk to. He did philosophy in undergrad and has a masters in theoretical physics and is now in med school and we had some brilliant conversation, easily the highlight of shabbos.
Shabbos endd extremely late (we didn't make havdallah until 12, the fast is going to be torture), and after showering and using the internet, I got to bed at around 2.
And woke up at 6 to catch the tain to Den Haag.
All shabbos and before people were telling me that Amsterdam is the only thing really worthwhile seeing in The Netherlands, that it is a boring country, that the rest of it is just plain old nothing. I never believe people when they say things like that, especially if they are city people. As a New Yorker, I am also biased against the surrounding areas, so I went to Den Haag anyway, especially as there was that huge music festival going on and great herring to try. I was only going to stay a day, but something happened that made me stay for longer.

Arriving in Amsterdam

2010-06-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

Easyjet is a pretty decent airlines. I've heard horror stories, but the plane was new, the seats were of reasnable size, and for the price of a 12 hours bus-ferry-train trip, I took a 45 minute flight (and I am including the baggage fee that Easyjet adds). Sure, from the time I left the city of London until the time I got to my hostel was actually four and a half hours, but the train ride that was twice the price of my journey takes the same amount of time. I sat next to two Dutch sisters on their way home from a London shopping spree and we ended up talking for the entire flight, the baggae collection, and then, when my credit cards failed to work in the ticket machine at the airport, Sven, a boyfriend of one of them who came to pick them up, bought me a ticket. Nice guy.
I got to the hostel eventually, showered, and went right to bed. No staying up late in amsterdam for night number one.

The Magic of Travel

2010-06-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was tired. I spent all night doing laundry and packing, and I got only three hours of sleep. I spent all day walking around the Tower of London, it was hot, and, despite a multitude of sitting breaks, I realized that my knee is a lot less recovered than I thought. I was hot, sweaty, getting bored of, or at least too used to, London, and between being tired, my knee hurting, and the feeling of boredom, the first thoughts of going home started to flit across my semi-consciousness. The hot and sweaty train ride to the airport and the shlepping 50 pounds of bag on my back with my knee didn't do much to help, and I have to admit tha my mood was dropping faster than the UK's welfare benefits.
Then I got to airport security.
Over a hundred people were queued up waiting to walk through the metal detectors, taking their phones out of their pockets and their belts off, all of s sharing the wonderful universal experience that is airtravel.
A smile started to creep across my face.
The "Strange Creatures" music from Doctor Who started playing in my head (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqm4vaWJhpw).
By the time I got through security I was grinning ear to ear, rejuvenated, reenergized, ready to go, excited to visit yet another new place, all thoughts of home vanishing from my mind, the pain (almost) leaving my knee, and was psyched, once again, to travel, reminding me why I love doing this. I have no idea how I am going to 'settle down' again.

Last Days in London

2010-06-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

I spent the last two days hanging out with a friend from Argentina who was over in London with her mom after acting as a delegate to Amsterdam from the Anne Frank house in Buenos Aires. It was nice to have some company. I showed them around the city on Monday (I guess I've been here a long time). At night I went out to eat in a great restaurant, this funky pizza parlor called Pizaza, with good thin crust pizza and decent milkshakes, and super company; Gaby Davis and her boyfriend Dovid took me, and taught me some great British slang, words that seem so benign in American yet mean completely different things in English English. I'll be useing them.
Today I spent all day with Lu and her mom in the Tower of London. The Yeoman tour was great, and everything else was neat, but I did not think it was worht the very expensive entrance fee. Ah well. I can say I saw the Tower and the Crown Jewels and the Armour of lots of English kings and a perrier firing and... ok, I guess there was a lot to do and see, it was just quite expensive.

Posh HipHop

2010-06-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

I went to town today, drawn by a music festival that was going on in town (actually,there were a few but I only made it to this one). All of the museums and schools near Exhibition Road (V&A, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, royal College, Royal Academy of Music, etc) hosted performances from all over. I did see a bit of the science museum, but the performances were really the highlight. I saw a string quintet in the science Museum (ok), a bit of As You Like It, a gypsy band, a Hungarian cello piece, a Brazilian piece for cello and guitar, capoiera, but the highlight was definitely this guy: http://www.myspace.com/mrbthegentlemanrhymer.
He calls himself Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer, and he did what he calls 'Chap-Hop,' affecting a very posh accent and demeanor and doing rap, and sometimes rock, style music, but about posh things like cricket and drinking tea and crack cocaine. K, that one isn't that posh. He was hilarious. He started every song with "Hit it sir! and ended with "I thank you" but in a very posh British accent. Amazing.

Boring, and then Better

2010-06-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

This past week was mostly boring, with one very nice day. After the Stomachache, on Tuesday, I stayed home to rest and rehabilitate my knee, doing absolutely nothing. So Tuesday was boring.
Wednesday was fun though. I went to Cambridge and was shown around by a real live student! (Thanks Gaby!) We walked around a bunch of colleges, getting into places ordinary tourists can't, and I got a very interesting explanation of some of the history and culture of Cambridge. Those people can party! For two weeks in June, after exams, the University has something called May Week (no idea)where the colleges throw massive black-tie balls, complete with circuses and champagne and oysters and silent disco and Jay-Z and unlimited food and alcohol and fun. I did not get to go to one :(
Very cool though. That night I went out with a young couple I got friendly with. They took me to a kosher pub, which was kind of neat. The place was a pub, and a restaurant, and all the food is kosher; though they don't serve pub food, it was still fun. The food was decent, the atmosphere was...different, and each table had a touch screen computer on which you order, play games, pub quizzes, and can read your horoscope.
Thursday and Friday were both boring days. I stayed at home, RICEd my knee, stretched, and was bored. Shabbos, however, was AMAZING. On Friday night I went to a really amazing family, had amazing food (lamb tagine, brisket, moroccan chicken, roasted veg, roasted potatoes, great salad with quinoa, really delicious) and some great conversation. The grandfather can trace his family entirely in England all the way back to the 17th century; he was in London during the Blitz and told stories about hiding in the bomb shelters and actually getting hit by an explosion. The grandmother and I talked about Victorian literature, we all talked about military history, and the three oldest kids and I (the eldest is exactly Yosef's age) had a very intense conversation about Doctor Who, while the adults rolled their eyes at us. Awesome! It is a shame that American kids don't grow up with Doctor Who, it has to be one the most well-done kids TV shows (that can also be enjoyed by adults) ever made. Watch it.
For lunch I went to one of the rabbis in the JLE, a South African fellow, who had 40 people for lunch. 40. It was massive. I met tons of new people, including a cohort of French girls, some of them med students, who sat across from me. We talked for most of the meal and between mincha and maariv as well. The rabbi put on this hilarious, I guess you could call it a show, where he sang, in quite an operatic voice, a yiddishe song about mashiach and then proceeded to put on hats from a number of different countries (USA, Scotland, South Africa, England, Russia, etc) and sing in each country's 'style.' You had to be there, but it was hilarious. The whole shabbos had great food, great people, great conversation, a great end to my time here in the UK. I leave to Amsterdam on Tuesday, my knee is sort of starting to improve-ish, and hopefully, next week will mirror this past shabbos more than it will this past week.

Most Expensive Stomachache

2010-06-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

I went to get some Indian Food for dinner last night. I thought it would be neat, meat Indian food, which, besides in Teaneck, you can't get in NY. It was expensive, but I haven't been spending much on food, so I figured it would be ok. From now on, when I say I love Indian food, I mean the vegetarian stuff a la Madras Mahal or Kalpna. The meaty stuff is as greasy as Chinese food. At least it wasn't as full of sugar and cornstarch as well. My tummy, used to crackers and tuna and the occasional hummus, is not handling it well. That, along with a worsening knee, is prompting me to take a day off today.

Good Times, but Winding Down

2010-06-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Well, by now I've walked most neighborhoods of London, been to most of the museums (though not all) and I'm starting to feel the first aches of boredom. I might have to go somewhere else soon.
Yesterday was fun though. I started off in the Marylebone Summer Fayre. As an aside, Marylebone is pronounced 'marly-bone.' Leicester is pronounced 'lester.' The English may have invented the English language but it seems they take too much license with spelling and pronunciation.
Anywho, the fayre was mostly torture, as it was mainly a food fair, with stalls representing cuisines from most of the world's countries, as well as bakers and cheesemakers and other local food craftsmen selling their wares. It smelled sooo good. What made up for all of it was a couple giving a dance demonstration; they were dancing the Salsa to "Never had a friend like me" from Aladdin. Legendary. After the fayre I walked to Hyde Park, where, on Sunday, in one corner of the park, anyone who wants can set up a little soapbox to pontificate on anything he/she may desire. I had to see it. It turned out to be a few arguments of varying civility between Muslim and Christian clerics, which was quite brilliant to listen to. Most of them, even though they were trained in seminary, were not brilliantly educated; one of them tried to bring an example from Greek mythology but confused Heracles with Antaeus, which undermined a significant point of his argument, though if anyone else caught it, they didn't speak up. What was very interesting though, is that the Islamic clerics would continually include Judaism and the Jews in their theology, specifically setting aside those two against the theology of Christianity, while the Christians took it for granted that the Jews are wrong in their beliefs. While, at the present political climate, many Jews perceive Muslims as enemies, it seem sin the religious arena, they are our closest friends.
After observing the religious wrangling I wandered about for a bit, up Baker St (221B isn't really there, a huge disappointment), into Regent's Park (very nice), into Selfridge's (similar to Macy's), and unexpectedly into the Wallace collection, one of my favorite museums so far. It is a small luseum, really a rather large private collection of all kinds of art, armour, and the like. The collection is magnificent and eclectic but not overwhelmingly huge. I got there 40 minutes before closing, but I have to go back. By the time I was done with the museum my knee was gone, so I had to return home.
Today I was going to go to the Tower of London, but the lines were huge AND, IT IS SO EXPENSIVE! 15 pounds for a student ticket! Yeesh. Instead I wandered around the Barbican and the Museum of London. I was starting to get a bit bored. The city was getting to be a bit repetitive, just, nice, relatively slow moving clean civilized touristy streets, park, museum, park, museum. I got into the Tube to go to the Imperial War Museum, free, and on high recommendation from a few people. I got out at Elephant & Castle (the Tube stop) and, BAM, a breath of fresh air! This part of the city was, well, gritty. At least more so than the center of town, all clean and pristine and proper and toursity. This place had some diversity, some realism. God, I miss New York. The museum was good, two great exhibits on the First World War and the Second World War 2, and a Holocaust museum. I was in the museum until 5, when I went home, ate some mediocre and overpriced Indian food, and ten just hung around.
I have to say though, before I sign off, that anyone who spreads the stereotype of the rude, impolite New Yorker has never been to London. If you are following, you know that I have re-injured my knee, and it has gotten to the point where it is difficult to walk normally, so, I got hold of a cane. Works wonders. Anywho, when I was walking around on my cane post-op in NYC, whenever I got on the Subway, without asking or even making eye contact, at least one person would offer me their seat if there wasn't one available, people in a rush would give me some room, and were generally pretty nice and considerate. Now, I am not so crippled that I cannot stand up in the subway or handle a bit of jostling, so I don't say this out of any personal affront or offense. No one here on any of the five Tube rides I took today, all of which were crowded, offered me a seat. People pushed and jostled and tried to get ahead and came barreling towards me with no concern and no regard and no consideration. Now, practically speaking, it was fine, like I said, I am more than fine enough to handle all of that. However, it was a noticeable behavior difference compared to New Yorkers, who really don't deserve a stereotype for rudeness. London seems to have us beat by a mile.

A Hiccup, An Obstacle, A Problem

2010-06-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

Shabbos was, as usual, amazing, lots of fun, met great people, the whole nine yards. Ate well, slept well, conversed well, even learned well (I went to a Gemara shiur in shul). What is not well is my knee. I have pushed it too hard I think. Over the last few weeks of biking, hiking, walking, and climbing, I have slowly pushed my already injured knee farther and farther, having to pop more and more motrin to keep going, knowing I was doing something stupid but not wanting to give up on my goal of climbing the three peaks or biking Skye etc. Now, I am paying the consequences. I have been RICEing my knee over the past few days, I have been stretching and doing the light exercises my therapists gave me, and it is only getting worse. Stairs are a killer and now just walking on flat ground is starting to get painful. Not. Good. I'll have to figure something out, but I do not want to come home. If I go home now I'll regret it forever, as I still have so much to see and money to see it with. Maybe if I find a walking stick... Or a place to rest for an extended amount of time while I do some rehab...

Back in London

2010-06-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

In London I was exhausted, again, but I went into the city, to see a matinee of Henry !V Part1 at the Globe (amazing, hilarious), to the Tate Modern, back to Golders Green to relax. Yesterday I went to Westminster Abbey, which, while expensive, was totally worth it. I have been to so many beautiful Cathedrals and I thought I'd be Cathedralled out, but this building was amazing. And the Poet's Corner was soo Cool! Chaucer's grave! Among many others! After I went to the British Museum. A word on the museum. Very impressive, very col to see so many important historic and cultural artifacts under one roof, but too much. I was there for three hours and I don't feel like I got a good idea of any single one of those cultures. You need to devote days to that museum to really get its full potential, but that is just too. Some of the artifacts on exhibit though, are very neat, both for their importance (the Rosetta Stone) and their inherent grandeur (the wall carving from Nimrud).
After I got bored with the museum I met a British friend who i met in Buenos Aires for a drink, and went to another Shakespeare performance, this time Macbeth, at the Globe. If you have never been to the Globe, I have to explain. The theater is round, and on the floor is room for a number of what they call groundlings, people who pay 5 pounds to stand up the entire show. this is what I did. However, the floor is right by the stage and between the stage and the doors for the actors, so there is quite a bit of audience interaction. This production of Macbeth happened to be the single most bloody and gruesome play I have ever seen, and there were quite a lot of screeching girls, and some screaming guys, when the witches crawled beneath people or bloody body parts shot out of no where. It was all quite fun, and I am definitely getting my summer Shakespeare fix. I almost don't miss Shakespeare in the Park.
today I just wrote and did laundry.
Have a great shabbos!

Coming back from Skye, Harry Potter

2010-06-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

The next day I woke up a bit later and had a ridiculously long day, taking a bus from Skye to Armadale, a ferry from Armadale to Mallaig, the Hogwarts Express from Mallaig to Fort William, a bus from Fort William to Glasgow, and an overnight bus from Glasgow to London. The train was nice-ish. The buses and ferry were ok. The overnight coach was miserable, with no room, and two half hour stops where the driver turned the lights on and made loud announcements. Why!!! It was an 8 hour drive! Why all the breaks! Why wake me up!?!
the best part was meeting two other travelers who took the same journey with me, all the way down to Glasgow from Skye.

Skye

2010-06-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

By the time I got to the Isle of Skye, one of the inner Hebrides, I was exhausted, so I went to the hostel, checked in, took a shower (yes, I sat on the bus for three hours smelling, well, rather gross), and prepped to go to bed. I just wanted to take a short walk to see the town...
And I passed by a pub where they were playing live Scottish/Celtic music! I love that stuff! So, I went into the pub, got a local ale from the only brewery on Skye, and had a great time for over an hour, met some Polish girls traveling, and then, finally, went to bed.
The next morning (I was still exhausted; I woke up at 6. It's the sun's fault!) I rented a bike and biked around the island for 60 miles or so. what a beautiful area. The pictures are on Facebook. It was the nicest bike ride I have ever done. I also ran out of water with about 15 miles left even though I took over half a gallon, and there was no where to fill it up, so I returned tired AND dehydrated. But it was totally worth it, and I even got to see the Outer Hebrides and got to do something I have wanted to do for years: I got to sit on the Hebrides, looking at the Henrides, listening to the Hebrides. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3MiETaBSnc.
I took a shower when I got back and drank lots of water and tea and juice to recover. I ate also, a lot, and took a short walk after. I saw that the pub was advertising more free Scottish music, so I went again, got the same beer, and finished it really quickly when I realized that band was only covering overplayed American rock songs (why do the British love "Sweet Home Alabama" so much?).
I went back to the hostel and watched Star Wars episode one, one of the worst movies ever made, with an Austrian.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot! At the hostel there were a bunch of danish biker dudes from Norway, and at the pub that night they were all a bit drunk and wearing viking helmets for national viking day. It is a great story, but I cannot do justice to it in text. Call me if you want to hear it.
After the Duel between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul, I went to bed.

2010-06-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

Ben Nevis was built up by nearly everyone I spoke to. The Rabbi in Edinburgh told me to be very careful, that a number of frum people from Glasgow had to be rescued, the leaflets and information packets all had bright bold red warnings, and the tourist information folks at the Information Center in fort Wiliiam all warned me about navigation and steep drops and snow and high winds and quick, blinding fogs and and and...
They almost scared me.
I must say that it was the EASIEST, SIMPLEST mountain I have ever climbed. It was barely a strenuous hike. I sweated, sure, but I did not breathe hard once, and I had only slept an hour the night before, and an hour on Thursday night. The trail was insanely easy to follow and there was nothing difficult at all about this hill. For that is what it really was. A hill. in fact, when I asked the fellow at the Parks office about the mountain and what he thinks, he said, I quote "it is a shit hill." It really is. I was extremely disappointed.
I was easily able to make it down and on a bus to go to Skye, which really cheered me up with some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever scene. Ever.

Catching Up Part 2 and Shabbos in Edinburgh

2010-06-11T01:39:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I tok a free walking tour of the city which pointed out, among other things, the school that Hogwarts was based on, and the graves of McGonnagall and thomas Riddle in a cemetary overlooked by the very cafe that JK wrote her books in. Harry Potter fans, be jealous! I ate, for the second time, at the only kosher place in town, a vegetarian Indian restaurant (didn't I mention it?) whith an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. Let me tell you, when you are surviving on rye crackers and tuna, a buffet hot meal is heaven. Thursday was a pretty quiet day though, as were all of the days in Edinburgh. I wandered around the city, met the fellow I would be staying by for shabbos (Ohad Kramar, great guy), napped in the park, and went out at night. Friday was more of the same, though in the afternoon I moved my stuff from the hostel to Ohad's flat.
The Jewish community in Edinburgh was great, really nice people, less mainstream than the rest of the Jews, who all pretty much live in London and Manchester. Shabbos was really great though, especially as I met a guy from Baltimore who knows my family. He even met my brother a few times! Weird Jewish-geography moment. We took a walk up Arthur's Seat again and through the Old Town. The weather was pretty amazing too, for the most part, until it went from sunny to pouring in a minute. shabbos was insanely long too; we couldn't daven maariv until 11:15! By the time I got back to Ohad's flat, it was 12:30, and I had to wake up at 4! And Ohad wasn't home yet, and I had to use the internet to prep for my trip to the Highlands. I waited up for him, he returned at 2:30 and made us both pancakes. I ended up sleeping an hour, waking up an hour later to catch a bus to Fort William, the town closest to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in all Great Britain.

Catching Up

2010-06-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, access to a computer that won't log me off after 15 minutes.
I just returned to London by overnight coach, but more on that later. I haven't really been able to update much due to the lack of internet.
The morning after biking to, climbing, and biking back from Scafell Pike I was completely exhausted, but I had a bike to return and a train to catch, so I woke up nice and early. The fellow and the bike shop told me to have the bike back by 9 sharp (they usually don't allow ovenights) but, when I got to the shop at 9, no one was there. Nor by 9:30, 9:45, etc, so I locked the bike up to the front door, left the key in the lock and a note in the helmet, hoping that it would get back to them (it did). When I got to Edinburgh they were just seeing the edge of a rainstorm, so the weather was bleak, and I was exhausted, so my first impression of the city wasn't wonderful. I shlepped myself over to the hostel, checked in, and summoned up some more energy to go out and walk around. After a bit of a walk finding the shul and the kosher establishments, I returned to the hostel for a short but invigorating nap, allowing to climb to the top of Arthur's Seat (250m), the remnant's of an extinct volcano and the highest point around Edinburgh (pronounced, by the way, Edinburuh, not edinburg). The hill is accessible both by nice shallow paths along one face and steep rock scramble along the other. Of course, I took the steep rock scramble, which contributed to tiring me out, but the views at the top were amazing, especialy as the sun was setting behind the city.
The next day I just walked around the city some more, exploring some of the residential neighborhoods as well as the Royal Mile in Old Town, the parks, and the New Town. I liked the Old Town better; though it is way more touristy, with kilted bagpipiers on every block, it has more perosnality. There are dozens of small, narrow alleyways, called closes (because they used to end in enclosures for animals), old buildings, maze-like streets that lead from the upper level of the city to the lower, and a dark, almost sinister, but definitely mysterious air. Oh, and another claim to fame is that the city is the birthplace of Harry Potter. I stayed a few minutes from cafe where JK wrote, and I saw the school that inspired her books, and the gravestone of Thomas Riddle (he was a real guy).
The city also touts tons of tours, from ghost tours, underground dungeon tours, historical tours, and a literary pub tour. Can you guess which one I took?
That night I joined the literary pub tour, led by two professional actors. They took us through the streets of Edinburgh to all the sites of literary significance, all the while quoting Robert Burns and Scott, among others, with thick Scottish accents. Some of the Scottish cask ales aren't too shabby either.

Edinburgh and the Last Few Days

2010-06-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

Whew. I have been completely exhausted these last few days. Edinburgh nightlife just drains you. Nah, it's actually all the hiking that I ended up doing for the few days before. Between the Peak District and peat bogs on Sunday, Scafell Pike, Bowfell Pike, biking, and the Lake District on Monday, walking Edinburgh and Arthur's Seat on Tuesday and Wednesday, I had no energy. I spent a good amount of time walking around in a bit of a daze and taking naps in parks. Still, the weather has been great, I got a good feel for the city, and had quite a bit of fun. I went on a literary pub tour a few nights ago, led by two actors who quoted Robert Burns poetry in the original and passages from other great Scottish writers, and took us to some great pubs. Very funny guys, very good tour. The people here are also very nice, especially the people in the tourism industry (the fellow at the bus station spoke with me for half an hour trying to figure out my plans and in the end saved me over 100 pounds. As a New Yorker I felt like he was going to lose his patience, but he kept going. It has been like that almost everywhere except by the Lake District, where, I have to say, the people were a bit rude and impatient and really not very hospitable. Oh well.
I write in the past tense because after shabbos, I have a 5am bus up to Fort William, where I will attempt to conquer the third, and highest, of the three Peaks. I'll be spending shabbos here in Edinburgh with the community here. They say it is small, but very hospitable.
I have to add that Edinburgh may be one of my favorite cities I have seen so far. It is small, but it really has a great personality.

Edinburgh So Far

2010-06-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

It rained the entire morning non-stop today. Finally! I was beginning to think that 'rainy England' was a myth. I didn't have much time to experience the true English weather, as I had a train to Edinburgh at 10 in the morning. Bye bye Merrie Olde England, hello Bonnie Scotland!
When I first arrived in Edinburgh I wasn't crazy about it, but then I was still completely wiped out from yesterday's hike (I didn't sleep very well, but I am not sore!). I checked into my hostel, great place, quiet rooms but lots of facilities... And I walked around the city, I found the shul, the kosher restaurant and bakery (all three closed today), and bought a new backpack (my old one broke in four places and was held together by knots). I still wasn't having a great impression of the city, as I was still exhausted and the weather was still quite bleak. I went back to the hostel to take a nap and, Behold!, everything changed. After an hour I was refreshed, the sun was shining, and I was ready for Edinburgh part 2. I went over to see if I could catch a Literary Pub tour (the Scots are very proud of their native authors, including, be jealous all ye nerds, J K Rowling). The tour was cancelled due to lack of people, but I'll try again tomorrow. Instead I climbed Arthur's seat, the highest point around the city up a very steep and rocky side of the hill (260 meters). The climb up was intense, but it was worth it, especially as the view of the city, with sun setting behind it, was amazing (and I couldn'tget a good picture). I walked through the city back to the hostel, and here I am, showered, drinking tea, and eating Scottish shortbread (with an OU!). I really like Edinburgh.

To the top of Scafell Pike, Despite

2010-05-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

This morning I had my last breakfast with my wonderful hosts in Manchester. which, besides for oatmeal, included Marmite, spread on Cream crackers with some hard cheese... Amazing! I apologize for the times I made fun of Marmite.
On the train to Windermere I saw to Asian women having a rapid and intense conversation, in sign language. I don't think I have ever seen anything like it. It was very neat to see these women's hands moving so rapidly in real conversation.
I got to Windermere at 11 or so, and, as I usually do, I went straight to the tourist office and told them that I wanted to climb Scafell Pike, the highest peak in England. The woman behind the counter told me that, because of the limited public transportation today, it couldn't be done. I would need at least 7 hours to climb and the only bus would leave Windermere at 1:10 to arrive at 2:20; the last bus returns to Windermere at 6. Public transportation seemed to be a real obstacle, but I was set on climbing this mountain. I have a train tomorrow morning to Edinburgh, and the only reason I came here was to climb the mountain. Instead of taking public transportation, I went straight to the bike rental place. They told me that I had to return the bike by five, which also would have been impossible, so I got them to let me keep the bike overnight for a bit extra. I then started biking the 14 mile ride through Ambleside and Langdale, the the very end of the road in Langdale, by the Old Dungeon Ghyl hotel. I went into the hotel to refill my water bottle at the bar, and the bartender, a real Northerner with a thick accent and a few missing teeth, told me that he strongly recommends I do not do Scafell Pike as I would need 7 hours to do the climb, and it was already 2. Actually, the lady at the tour office and the bartender didn't just recommend that I stay away from the mountain, they insisted, and told me it would be impossible, but I read about the hike, I had a mapI knew the distances, and I figured they were being a bit over the top. I went anyway.
The hike wasn't too bad, very steepa dn rocky at times, and not as scenic as any of the other hikes I have done so far, but the temperature was decent and I powered ahead. I was surrounded by mountains (small ones mind you, all around 3000 ft), rivers, valleys, and sheep. Tons of sheep. Everywhere. It was kinda cool. The mountain also was not as busy as Snowdon. Anyway, after some fast and intense hiking, I got to the peak at 4 o'clock, in just 2 hours! Then I found out that I went in the wrong direction (the direction booklet contradicts the map and misses a couple of turns) and I was actually on Bowfell Pike, a few miles and across a valley from Scafell. I descended immediately and cut across country, down the valley, through some rivers, up the next range of mountains and along the ridged, up and own, until I finally got the top Scafell at 5:30, still with enough time to get back. By then though, I was pretty wiped out. There were a few young Mancunians at the top as well, and we chatted a bit about climbing while we ate (their eyes went wide as saucers when I told tham about Mt Washington and Piltriquitron, both more than twice as high as Scafell). I descended, getting back to the hotel by 8, and did the return bike ride, getting back to the hostel at 9:05. I kind of feel like going back to those naysayers and telling them, "told you so!" I won't, but this is not the first time that the British have bastly overexaggerated the difficulty of their mountains. Maybe it is because they are all so small and they need to make them sound grander than they are. I'm kind of surprised that the first person to climb Everest was British when all the British seem to be terrified of their tiny mountains. Ah well. The shower in the hostel was amazing, and then I met a few Brasilians and a Colombian, and we chatted for a while. Now, I have to go to bed.

Peak District

2010-05-30T14:55:00.001-07:00

I took a train to the Peak District National Park today to do a bit of hiking, and I have to say, it was quite a unique hiking experience. The name of the national park is a bit misleading; there are no real peaks in the park, it is more a collection of hills, none of which top 500 feet (I don't think). Hikers are allowed to roam almost anywhere they want to, and if you go off the beaten trails, which of course I did, the terrain gets interesting. The hilles are covered in this thick rough shrub that provides a thick and springy surface to walk on. The hills are alos covered, however, in peat bogs, which ae extremely cool. They are areas of rotting vegetation, and in consistency are like a cross between mud and quicksand. Amazingly cool stuff when they are out in the open and you can see them and avoid them, but sometimes this rough brush covers a particularly wet and nasty bog, and then you sink in way up past your ankle before you can even think of pulling out. My foot got soaked. The wind was also extremely powerful. At some points I was able to stand 50 degrees from the ground facing the wind, and the wind help me up. I got pushed around quite a bit, and if I were more thin-boned, I'd be flying high as a kite. All those factors together, even though the hike was not particularly steep or rigorous, have me completely exhausted. I met a real Northerner, Tom, who was hiking in the hills as well, and we joined up for a bit. Nice guy, older, getting close to retirement, missing a bunch of teeth and extremely difficult to understand because of his thick, old-school Northern accent. Great day, but draining. I hope I have more energy tomorrow, as I am going to the Lake District National Park (also a misnomer as there is only one lake in the Lake District) to climb Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England.

This past week

2010-05-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have had access to a proper computer, so I have a lot to catch up on. I'll separate days with paragraph breaks, so if you don't want to read about the entire week in one go you can do it with breaks.

I think I left off with Cardiff. It is a nice place, very smaill for a capital city, but there were some really neat things to do there, including the Cardiff Castle, the modern Millenium Centre, where there was a free percussion concert and the Welsh BAFTAs, and the Doctor Who exhibit in the Red Dragon Centre (The Red Dragon is the symbol of Wales and any country with a dragon as its national symbol must be awesome). The next day I went to Caerphilly, a small town an hour away from Cadiff, where there was a really amazing castle, definitely my favorite of the three I saw. It was the first castle built in the UK with a concentric wall design as was extremely well planned out well fortified. It was such an intimidating castle that it was only ever attacked twice. They also have some of the first ever fully working replicas of Medieval siege weaponry, along with a cool video about the building and testing of each of the four siege engines. There was still plenty of time after the castle, so I went to St Fagans, an open air museum reminiscent of Williamsburg, VA, where people live like they did hundreds of years ago. Most intereting was a replica of an old Celtic town, complete with replica huts, tools, and weapons, and a replica Celtic warrior who gave great lesons in Celtic history, tactics, strategy, and even martial arts.

The next day I went up north to Snowdonia National Park to climb Mount Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales (at a tiny 1085 metres), and the first of what I hope will be my climbing of the Three Peaks (the highest peaks in England, Scotland, and Wales). It ws especially cool as this mountain, in Arthurian myth, is said to be the burial mound of Rhita Gawr, a king who wore a cloak made from the beards of the kings he killed, and who was in turn slain by King Arthur. At the base of the mountain is the Lake where Arthur recieved Excalibur, where he returned Excalibur as he lay dying, and where he sailed off to Avalon. Very neat stuff. The climb, which they said should take 6 hours for a round trip, was very easy; it took me an hour and forty five minutes to get to the top. I took a detour to explore the lake on the way down, otherwise that would have taken an hour and a half at the most.

That night I stayed in Caernarvon, a block an a half away from Wales' most famous castl, which I went to see the next day, Wednesday. Unfortunately it was not as impressive as Caerphilly, and I think I am all castled out. In the early afternon I took a train to Manchester and went to the amazing family that was having me for shabbos; they let me stay by the the entire time I am in the north of England! Wednesday was a short day though, as we did not arrive in Manchester until the late afternoon and by te time I got to the Reuben's house (my hosts) it was already almost 7pm.

Early the next morning I took a train to York, which was a really fascinating city. They have one of Europe's largest and most amazing Cathedrals with the largest collection of intact 13th century stained glass (13th century!) in the world. There was a great free tour of the Cathedral, as well as a great free tour of the city itself. York is a walled town, so first I walked the perimeter along the wall, where I passed by Clifford's Tower,and infamous landmark in Jewish history, where hundreds of Jews took their life instead of converting to Christianity after barricading themselves in the tower in 1190. Interestingly, someone came up to me in the street, presumably after he saw my kippa,asked me if I saw the tower, and then, almost apologetically, told me the episode is York's most shameful moment, and how they gow special magen david shaped flowers there and hold special prayer services and everything. After the wall walk was the Cathedral tour, followed by the city tour. The city tour was led by this great old English lady (very English lady) who had more energy than a little kid, a thick accent, and that English grandma persona. It was really fun having her lead the tour, which she did with great skill and humour. Her greatest moment came when she took us to see sme yew trees, asked if there were any French in th tour, and when one volunteered, said "we beat you at Agincourt, and this is why." However, the best episode of the our was when we got to see the procession o the new Lord Mayor. Everyone wsa dresed upi in fancy-dress, very old fashioned robes, musicians played 14th centruy music on 14th century instruments, the Lord Butler (?) carieda massive sword out in front of him, some other official carried a huge gilt scepter, and the arristers all wore funny wigs, and everyone else wore hats that wouldn't look out of place in a Pirates of the Carribean movie! The British love their pomp and circumstance, and I know it is all supposed to be dignified, but to an American for whom crisp suits are culmination of proper dress, it all seemed quite droll in a ridiculous sort of way. The day ended with a tour of the York brewery, possibly the best brewery tour I have yet been on, where we were given different types of malts (the grain) to taste. Up here in Northern England they take their ale very seriously, insist on it being live, and a bit more bitter than elsewhere. The ale was very good.

On friday I spent the day in Manchester, just walking around most of the city and seeing a relly amazing museum, the MOSI (museum of Science and Industry) and two superb exhibits on scientific breakthroughs in Manchester, including rooms devoted to Dalton and Ruthrford, and an amazing exhibit of fabrics and textiles, which a complete working Victorian cotton factory, with machines that did everything from clean the cotton to making threads. It doesn't sound that amazing, but seeing, on a smaller scale, how all these machines worked, the noise that they made, and the insanely dangerous conditions children as young as five years old had to work under, made it a really fascinating and eye opening experience. The rest of the city was alright, nothing to write home about, though it had its nice bits.

Shabbos, on the other hand, was phenomenal. The Reuben completely opened up teir home to me. We went to an oldr couple for the Frdiay night meal. The both of the ae over 80, and it is the only home I have ever seen where everything was homemade. Everything. The challah. The gefilte fish. Even the wine! It was undelievable that, not only did this older couple host 9 people for dinner, they made everything at the table from scratch. They were, as are my hosts and many of the people I am meeting in Manchester, South African, and over shabbos I have heard more South African accents than Mancunian accents. The rest of the company though, was English. We ate lunch by my hosts, with another South African family coming for lunch, and we had Seudah Shlishit by the hosts daughter and son-in-law. It was yet another great shabbos here in England. It is so great being Jewish; wherever you go, the community justs opens up its arms. Speaking of, if you know of anyone in Scotland, I will be there for this coming shabbos.

Cardiff

2010-05-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

Cardiff is a funky place. The first experience I had was in the tourist office, with an unbelievably nice fellow who worked there. I cannot stress how nice he was. It was kind of not normal. He was jumping through hoops to help us at the slightest hints, calling people and looking things up and constantly smiling and saying please before and after every sentence and just nice in a very surreal way. Everyone else here, middle aged and above, was the same way, very very nice and itching to share their culture, history, and language. Weird language too, but awesome. Walking around the parks however, and observing the Youth, you get the feeling that you are in a kind of country hicktown. Droves of disenchanted youth sitting around in the parks drinking and smoking and drinking, talking and looking like they might be from some backwater place like Frederick.
Cardiff, the capital of Wales, is a very nice city, small, quaint and modern at the same time, with a wacky newage cultural center and an old castle that used to be a roman garrison. Overall a very fun city.

Shabbos in London

2010-05-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Shabbos here was as great as Shavuos. The community is extremely warm and open and welcoming, and a lot less 'segregated' by 'type', that is, the modern live in the same place as the chassidish and the yekkish and the yeshivish and everyone seems to get along splendidly. the meals were just smashing, both because of the food and theg great company. I've met so many people, so many different people from different levels of observance and even different countries (many South Africans and even a slovak!) and they are all really friendly and genuinely interesting people.
Tomorrow I'm off to Wales! And the weather continues to be amazing.

Shavuos in London

2010-05-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to visit London for about 22 years now, so when I finally arrived, 2 hours early, at four thirty in the morning on tuesday, it was a dream come true. I took a bus from Paris that drives into a train, which takes it through the chunnel, and then drives to London from Dover. I took the overnight bus so that I did not waste a day; theoretically, I would have slept on the bus and woke up, refreshed and ready to see London at 6:30 the next morning. However, between having to spend an hour going through customs at 3am and meeting all sorts of fun people (an israeli, and australian, a french expat among them) I got maybe half an hour of sleep. Arriving 2 hours early did not help much, and besides for depriving me of sleep, I had to walk around with all my stuff for two hours before I could go to Golders green, where I would be staying. The upside, however, was that I saw some of the most touristy areas of London empty, at sunrise, ehich was ana amazing experience, and one that would never have happened otherwise (no matter how early you wake up, the Tube only wakes up at 5:30).
At 6:30 I took the tube to golders Green, where I was met by Avi Friedmann (thanks Ephraim) who is having me at his house for my time here (he, along with everyone else I've met here, is amazingly hospitable). After dropping my stuff off I went into the city and walked around in a kind of exhausted daze, seeing a lot but not really processing that much, though I have to say I did kind of like the Tate Britain (all the museums here are free!!!) and I love the policemen's hats.
The first night of Yomtov I spent at the Van Messels,cousins of Sarah Weill (this seems to be turning into the Weill family tour; thanks Sarah!) who were amazing. hey daven at a very Yekish shul, which reminded me of the shul I went to in Belgranom but they say all the piyutim (torture).We started eating at around 11 or so, and I hadn't slept for almost two days, but still the food was amazing (and milchig!).
The next day I went to a shul that was pretty much a larger version of Rabbi Friedman's shul in Queens, complete with the Oomayn prunciation, same nigunim, streimels and white hose, and there was even someone who said "I'll kille m" at v'al kulam. Ah the memories. And, the Matjes herring was the best I ever had!
I ate lunch by the Barron's (thanks Safta), their two daughters, son-in-law, granddaughter, and his mother, a very nice family (the baby is amazingly cute and terrified of grass) and stupendous cooks. Stupendous. I ate by them that night as well. The next day I had lunch back at the Van Messel's, but I was not going to sit through that davening again, so I went to the JLE, the Ohr Samayach shul here. The rabbi came up to me and got me a place for shabbos lunch, and everyone was really very friendly. Lunch today was great, again with great food and great company, including mister Van Messel's brother and parents, and I hung out all day by their house, talking and playing games with the kids, which was rather fun. Now I am here, a bit tired, writing, in a very abridged version, about the last 48 hours, one of the best shavuots I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. England is turning out to be a great experience!

The biggest head, great weapons, and a concert

2010-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to the Invalides, to see Napoleon's tomb and the Musee de Armee.
I must say that I was blown away by Napolaon's tomb; I know that he is France's greatest general, possibly the greatest Frecnh military leader since Charlemagne who has not been preceded, or followed, by any great military leaders, but a tomb like that for one guy... It seemed a bit ridiculous, as if all of France's national pride has been invested in this one monument. His grave is...huge. It's just obscenely huge and ornate and, I have to imagine, wildly expensive. It was a beautiful building and very impressive, but the thought that this is a bit much for just one guy just hung out in the back of my mind the whole time.
The connected Musee de Armee, however, was amazing. Remember when I said that Buenos Aires had the greatest arms museum ever? Well, I take it back. This museum was amazing, with the armor and weapons of actual nobles, great and exhaustive exhibits of warfare in every time period, especially Medieval Europe, Renaissance Europe, Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the most amazing WW1 and WW2 exhibits ever. Some of the weaponry on display was amazingly cool, like a combination boar spear/ wheelock pistol. They also had a great exhibit on the Hundred Years War, especially on John Froissart's chronicles of the war (part of which I read for a Covington paper) which was so extensive I spent hours reading, not leaving enough time for the rest of the museum. Maybe I'll go back.
On the way back I saw a poster for a string ensemble concert that would be playing Mozart, Pachelbel, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The concert was awesome, of course, but what was maybe more awesome was that when I went to buy the ticket at the Eglise St Germain du Pres, located in Sartre and Beauvoir Square, there was a marching band on the corner playing the Looney Tunes theme!
Speaking of street corners, they have something amazing here in Paris.
No, not that! On many of the street corners in the city there are hundreds of these small buildings, really just a free standing room. These little edifices are free public toilets! Everywhere! But it gets better. After each person finishes, the door closes and the toilet is cleaned, and not just the seat; the door closes and the entire room is sprayed and cleaned between each use! A sensor in the floor detects the weight of a person so it knows when not to run the clean cycle. How cool! It totally beats the self-cleaning toilet seat in Zurich, though the first place for nicest public bathroom ever goes to Bryant Park. Seriously, if you have not been to the bathroom in Bryant Park you are missing out.
All is good for Shavuos, I am sufficiently set up, though it took most of the day by the computer to get that done. Thanks to all who helped! I'll be in Paris for another few days and then it's off to London!
Have a great shabbos!

Montparnasse and Luxembourg

2010-05-13T02:41:00.001-07:00

Wednesday was so far the only sunny day we've had, and I spent it walking around in the Parc du Luxembourg, and amazingly beautiful park right by the place I am staying. The parks and public buildings in Paris, for the most part, used to be private gardens and palaces of the insanely wealthy nobility, opened to the public after said nobility lost everything in the revolution, including their heads, so these public spaces are especially nice.
I wrote a bit about Wednesday's meeting in the market and the top of the Tour Montparnasse last week, so I will skip to Thursday. I was introduced to a friend of a friend who showed me around the Montmartre neighbor, the location of both the Moulin Rouge and the 'Amelie' cafe, a movie I have not seen but that everyone tells me is iconic. If you say so. It is also the location of the Cathedral Sacre Couer, the newest and second most iconic Cathedral in Paris. As always, the building was amazing, and the area was packed with tourists.

Cimitiere Pere Lachaise

2010-05-13T02:34:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I walked to the largest, and perhaps most famous cemetary in Paris to see the graves of some of the greatest cultural figures ever to have died in Paris, including Jim Morrison, Gertrude Stein, Frederick Chopin, Marcel Proust, Honore de Balzac, Eugene DeLacroix, and of course, Oscar Wilde. Judging by his grave, he has to be the most popular dead guy in the world.
The cemetary is huge, and they do not give out maps, but luckily I met an Israeli girl who had a map, and we hung out together at the cemetary. We even attended the funeral of a ballet dancer who, judging from the size and pomp of the send-off, must have been very popular.

Paris

2010-05-13T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've been really bad with blogging of late, but I will try to get back on it.
Last week on Sunday Gerard and Marisa, cousins of my grandfather, picked me up from the train station. I had taken a TGV (high-speed) train from Strasbourg to Paris, where I sat next to and had a long conversation with a very nice and friendly Parisien.
The LeClairs took me out to eat, insisting on paying, which was the start of what has been the most hospitable stay in a foreign city that I have ever experienced. After lunch we drove around Paris and saw all of the famous sites, a grand tour that I replicated by foot the next day, despite the consistently terrible weather. We went out to dinner as well, where I had a very good Chukkus plate, and then went to bed early (or tried to; jet lag was killing me).
On Monday I spent the day walking almost all of Paris, seeing, from the outside, almost everything there is to see, though I did go into the Pantheon where I saw the graves of Rousseau and Voltaire. I also got to join a tour after I was able to quote Guy de Moupassant (I quoted him but I don't think I can spell his nale correctly). The guide was really psyched that an American barbarian knew something about French literature; it was kind of funny. The French are very proud of their history, language, and culture, and they fight tooth and nail (or try to) to protect it.

Shabbos in Strasbourg

2010-05-05T09:08:00.000-07:00

Shabbos was amazing. I was in Strasbourg, a small city and the capital of Alsace in Estern France, right along the border with Germany. I was hosted by the Kahns, whose eldest son is a fiance of a friend (Thanks Sarah!) The family is amazing, but let's keep things in order. When I first arrived in the city after an uneventful 3 hour train ride from Zurich, I dropped my bags off at the Kahn's apartment and took a walk. The weather was terrible (and remained so for days) but I saw the EU Parliament and Human Rights building, and the very nice Parc de l'Orangerie, which has beautifully landscaped flozer gardens, a lake with swans and a waterfall, and pigeons that are actually scared of humans! It was a bit sad to see such a bird that is so tough and macho in NYC so scared and helpless, but what can I say; this is France.
When I returned to the house I got to meet the family. Besides Andre, the eldest son, who amazing and spet hours showing me the city, they have three younger kids. The eldest girl, 9, spent all of shabbos trying to teach me some French and learn English. The second sister, age 7, was very shy, and the youngest boykept talking even though I had no idea what he was saying. The parents were extremely hospitable and friendly, and if all European Jews are like them I won't have any problems during this trip. She was really open and welcoming and his sense of humor was worse than Uncle Larry's. I loved it. (Family joke).
Besides all the normal shabbos things, Andre and I took a long walk in the city, a very old city (founded in 12 bce, though looking very young, postively Medieval), and it's main highlight, a magnificent Cathedral that rivals Notre Dame in Paris.

Catch Up

2010-05-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it has only been five days since my last post, but I have a lot of catching up to do, but before I go back to shabbos in Strasbourg, I want to write about something interesting that happened today. To put it in context, I have to mention the rhetoric that is not so uncommon that says that the Palestinians want the Jews out of Israel because they are anti-Semites and don't like Jews, that they are "Amalek" and want to kill us. It may sound extreme, but I have heard it more than twice. To the story:
Today I went to the top of Tour Montparnasse, probably the best view of Paris, and when I exited I saw a street market. Of course, being obsessed with food I wandered around, salivating over the cheeses, meats, fish, and all of the other items that make up a gourmands dreams but a kosher-keeping Jew's nightmares. Of course, the fruits and vegetables are A-OK, so I decided to buy some. The vendor did not speak any English, but with pointing and knowing how to say 'demi-kilo' I was able to communicate what I wanted. He saw my kippah (yes, I am wearing a kippah; France is anti-Semitic, but it is not as bad as people make it out to be), gave me a huge smile, and said "Shalom!" I thought he may have been Israeli, wouldn't have been the first I met, so I said back "Atah medaber Ivrit" (you speak Hebrew)? He responded, "Mah shlomcha, Baruch Hashem!" Clearly, he did not speak Hebrew either. With some rudimentary French I asked him where he was from, and he said, Palestine, Gaza. He has been in Paris three years, and seems to be glad to be here.
That was the end of our interaction, but I wondered, if all of these people hate us so much, why would he go out of his way to engage me in a friendly manner? Sure, it was a crowded area, he can't express his hatred, but then t least give me my fruit brusquely and then be done with it. Of course, I never bought into that rhetoric of hatred, but it was nice to see some real proof.

Zurich and the Sauters

2010-04-29T12:51:00.001-07:00

The great thing about not having plan is that they cannot unexpectedly change. Instead of going straight to Paris from Zurich, which was my original idea, there were no Eurail Pass seats available before the weekend, so I am going straight to Strasbourg for shabbos (Thanks Sarah!), and then going to Paris from there on Sunday. This actually worked out really well, as it gave me sometime to relax (jetlag is killing me) and to see the city.
Zurich is really nice. It is the biggest city in Switzerland, but still pretty small, with a population in the hundreds of thousands. What it lacks in people though, it makes up for in amazing architecture. And a beautiful lakefront with parks and fountains and a ferris wheel. And a really charming old city with cobblestones and buildings that go as far back as the Roman Empire, though the Roman buildings are really just ruins. The city is really gorgeous, as is, I assume, most European cities. There is a river that cuts right through the city and empties into the Zurichsee (lake), and swans glide up and down the river and into the lake, where you can see the snow covered Alps in the distance. It's all a bit surreal. The weather is also beautiful; it is warm, around 85, not too humid, and not a cloud in the sky. There were tons of people out sunbathing on the lawns and by the water, and walking along the cobblestoned streets of the old city. So far a great start to the trip.
The Sauters, parents of close friends of the family, are also amazing people. Not only are they insanely hospitable and ridiculously accommodating, hey are also extremely intelligent and great conversationalist. Over dinner (and after) we talked about European and American history and politics, Jungian psychology, Einstein's life, Jewish history of the Inquisition, Spinoza, Jewish theology, theology in general, and the etiology of cancer. All in one sitting, with appropriate segues and everything. If al Europeans can converse like that, I may move here; also med school is a thousand Franks a year, as opposed to my 60,000 dollars a year. Jeez, they have it good!
Tomorrow morning I am off to Strasbourg for shabbos, and then on Sunday I am going to Paris, after which I will return to Switzerland. Until next time!

Arrived

2010-04-28T00:49:00.000-07:00

I landed in Zurich at 8:26 am local time. The city, from what Ihave seen so far, is beautiful. I was picked up from the airport by friends of the family, amazing people, and I am in their ridiculously amazing house right now. There are shelves of books lining all the walls, an apple tree, a cherry tree, tons of books, a garden, an amazing den with a big piano, and tons of books everywhere. Of course, being in Switzerland, it is also very clean and organized. And there are shelves of books.
I almost did not make the flight, first because I did not have a return ticket, though in the end my Railpass sufficed. Then, the flight to Phillly, where I was supposed to conncet to Zurich, was delayed, but we got there just in time for boarding.
Nothing much to say yet about Europe; haven't seen much ineresting yet, though the Swiss airport is quite something. Clean, organized, pretty advanced with all kinds of fancz projected screens and sounds (you can hear cows mooing on the inter-terminal rail), but with a baggage carousel that looks like it is from a regional airport in Argentina.
The Swiss keyboard is annoying as the Z and Y key are switched; it takes a while to type up a blogpost when zou need to paz attention to everzthing zou are doing on the kezboard. If I type normallz the word yebra comes out completely misspelled.

Off to Europe!

2010-04-27T06:36:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post. I guess that's mostly because nothing interesting has been going on recently. I've had a couple of adventures and good times here and there, like when I biked to Baltimore, or all of Pesach, which was really nice, or the two Shabbatot I spent in QC this semester, but overall it's been either work or just bumming around. Well, today that changes. In a few hours my Mom will be taking me to LaGuardia, where I will get on a plane for Zurich. No, I have no idea what I am doing in Europe, or how long I will be there. Actually, not knowing what to expect, and not really knowing where I will be or what I will do, not having done much research, makes this trip a bit intimidating. In theory, of course, this type of trip is supposed to be super flexible and free, and allow for more fun, which I am sure it will, but right now it's just a tad scary. For the next month or two I have no plans; my life in front of me a complete void on a continent I have never been to (except Hungary). In my mind, I know it will be fun, but I guess it is not knowing what it is that will be fun is the intimidating part. It's also what makes this trip more of an adventure and not a vacation, though the fact that there is nothing that I need a vacation from also helps. I think the fact that I am not able to do the Europe trip that I really wanted to do, by bike, is a bit of a bummer also, but I am not ruling out coming back a little earlier if my knee starts behaving and doing a biking trip in the States.
Well, I have to finish up packing. The next post will come from the other side of the Atlantic!

The Superbowl and the Emasculation of the American Male

2010-02-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. The 44th Superbowl was my first Superbowl ever. Actually, it was really my first football game ever. The Superbowl is probably one of the single most iconic American events of the year, right up there with the Fourth of July, so I guess I've been missing out on an essential part of our culture. I have to concede that, though I do not follow any sports, and I won't stat now, the game itself was pretty entertaining, and there were some massively good plays (and just plain massive players). However, I've always heard that the best part of the Superbowl are the commercials. Corporations vie for prime slots during the game, and second are measured out in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was sorely disappointed.
First of all, none of the commercials were clever, witty, or even remotely interesting; I'm not a big fan of commercials in the first place (perhaps one day I will rant about them) and these were no exception. There was not one redeeming quality to any of the commercials this year. I did, however, notice something quite interesting. At least three of the commercials (I think there was another one, maybe two) were based on the American male losing his 'gender role.' I won't get into what that role is right now, but I don't think I need to (I actually have a picture of a Dockers billboard commercial that illustrates what I am saying on Facebook). Car companies to wireless providers tried to sell there products by saying that men should fight back and demand certain 'manly' pleasures, strongly implying that the American male is swiftly becoming emasculated, and these benevolent corporations want to help. It was, frankly, weird. I have no idea where this idea came from, and I don't even know if it is true, if feminists will rejoice, if men really care, etc. It just stood out for me.
The funniest add, I think, followed the stages of a man's life, highlighting all the manly responsibilities he had and then, almost as if giving men permission, tells the audience that men deserve skin care. Buy Dove MANLY skin care products.
And a Post-Script: The Who were a great band. Their songs are iconic and they were revolutionary, but the performance tonight was actually sad to watch. They looked as though they were on their last legs (though the light show was cool). Why don't they get contemporary artists for these shows, or at least a band who aren't yet members of AARP.

I'm Back

2010-02-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the very long delay in updates; for any of you still reading, I went to California right after the last post and then to Puerto Rico a few days after that. I did not have a computer in either of those places, and I just got back yesterday. Both trips were awesome (though not quite on the level of 2.5 months in Argentina), but since I have a huge backlog of stories to write from all three trips, and, of course, everything that is going on now, I am going to randomly switch around what I write about. Things may not be in chronological order.
Meanwhile, I am now back in NY for the month of February, working to make some more money for the next phase of traveling. Speaking of, I am not yet sure where I will go. Obviously, finances play a huge role in my decision making process; if I had (much) more money I would spend 3 or 4 (or more) months in Europe. I'm looking for cheaper suggestions however, and I am definitely up for advice. Do any of my faithful readers have suggestions for a penurious pilgrim?

The Hotel Lobby of South America

2010-01-03T10:42:00.001-08:00

Puerto Madryn, a Welsh settlement, is the marine life capital of the country. Sea mammals flock from north and south to the milder temperatures of Peninsula Valdes to mate, kind of like how frum singles flock to hotel lobbies to date. Just like the hotel lobbies, besides for the love-scene, not much goes on in Puerto Madryn. When I arrived, I went straight to the tour offices to find a wildlife tour that could have me in and out of Peninsula Valdes that day in an attempt to avoid staying in Puerto Madryn overnight. Unfortunately, our bus arrived in the town at 8, just as all of the tours were leaving. I was a little disappointed at first, but I then made a decision that taught me a great travel lesson; when you are stuck somewhere with nothing really to do, rent a bike and explore. After finding a hostel and taking my first shower of the trip, that is exactly what I did. I rented a mountain bike and biked down the coast (Puerto Madryn is on the Atlantic), to a sea lion colony, where I stopped to have lunch and watch the wildlife. Sea lions behave very differently in their natural habitat than in zoos, and watching them that day I understood why they have lion in their name. The males each have harems that they protect with tenacity and ferocity; one impetuous young troublemaker continually tried to encroach on one of his elder's harem until, finally, the older sea lion had enough and drove the youngster into the ocean; he did not allow the fellow to come back to land for almost an hour. At one point a number of fights broke out amongst the males, fierce fights where each lion attempted to bite the other's head off. They must have been making too much noise though, because the leader of the pack, a massive old sea lion easily twice the size of most of his subjects lumbered out of a small cave and roared, which quieted the rowdy sea lions immediately. It was quite a sight and quite a lesson in discipline (though anyone who can roar like that can easily command obedience).
After lunch I left the sea lion colony and did some fun dirt biking in a cluster of steep but shot hills outside of town (it was me and a motorcyclist; he was going faster of course, but the hills were steep enough that I was able to pick up a surprising and sometimes frightening speed). After I returned the bike I walked around town exploring, got a haircut, and bought some food, before I returned to the hostel for another shower and dinner, followed by a fruitless search for some sort of nightlife with two French travelers before I went to bed (a little early; the wildlife tour would begin early in the morning).

To Puerto Madryn

2009-12-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

After the tour of the El Chocon and the highlight visit to the paleontological lab, I was dropped off in the Neuquen bus station with a few hours to spare but no where to take a shower, though I did use the bathroom to change into pajamas (overnight bus trips are so much more enjoyable if you aren't wearing jeans). While I was waiting for the bus I met a girl going home from visiting her parents (she was going to Rio Gallegos, on the same route as Puerto Madryn), and we started talking. When I told her I was traveling, she lit up and started telling me about every town in Patagonia and why I need to visit. She sat behind me on the bus and we spent the first half hour of the ride brainstorming travel ideas. She told me I had to go to San Martin de Los Andes and do the Ruta de Siete Lagos, I had to visit Villa la Angostura and see the Bosqe de Los Arraynes, I needed to make my way to El Bolson and taste some of the best microbrewery beer in the country, I had to stop off in Esquel to see the Viejo Expreso Patagonico, etc. At some point though, exhaustion caught up with the both of us (she said "mis neuronas tienen sueno"), I turned back around, and we both fell asleep; I slept all the way to Puerto Madryn (and almost missed the stop; my friend behind me woke me up just in time).

Dinosaurs! (There will be dinos this time, I promise.)

2009-12-19T20:15:00.001-08:00

In one of the few tour agencies left open, I sat with their representative and tried to find an available tour to one of the local dinosaur sites, but after many phone calls to numerous guides, we found out that whatever guides were not already occupied in giving tours were booked at some medical conference in the local conference center. They told me that is anything came up they would call me, so I left my phone number by the office and left to walk around the town, not very hopeful about my prospects of seeing dinosaurs. I strolled through the small park in the center of town, passing by its Islas Malvinas memorial, to the only museum (art), planning to spend a few hours there. It was Monday, so it was closed. I was, however, able to (finally) find a phone card, so I was able to recharge my cell. It was a good thing too, because, unexpectedly, my phone started ringing. The tour office found one guide who was free, and who was willing to take me on a private tour of El Chocon. The price was a bit steep (being on my own), but I was able to bring it down a bit, and I decided that, being on vacation, and having one opportunity in my life to see real fossils in a non-museum environment, money would be no object (and in all honesty it wasn't a break-the-bank sum). I sat down at the Islas Malvinas memorial and ate my lunch while I waited for the tour guide to come pick me up in her 4x4.
The guide was this rugged local lady who spoke a decent English, and all the way out to the first site (a 45 minute drive) we spoke Argentine politics (that is, she spoke and I asked questions; Argentines hate their government, which, it seem, could give certainly Israeli officials a lesson in corruption). When we got to the paleontological lab (that's right, I got to go to a lab!) we stepped out of the car and I immediately got a taste of the Patagonian wind. Anything that wasn't firmly attached to our bodies were blown off, and I had to chase after my kippah and put it in my pocket for the duration of the trip. The surrounding were gorgeous; the town, the museum, and the lab were right near a man-made lake (they dammed the river) of the deepest and richest blue I have ever seen, surrounded by red-rocked cliffs. Check out the pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2083221&id=43906579&l=41d09e5357
Anyway, back to the lab...
I got to go into a paleontological lab with my guide and two real live paleontologists, where there were shelves full of fossils, tagged and IDed, and a WHOLE ABELOSAURUS SKELETON that they just excavated. We must have spent an hour in their while the paleontologists explained everything in an excellent command of English. I was like a kid in a candy shop.
After the lab we went to the Museum, which was neat, and we drive down to the lake and dam, where Iguanodon footprints are usually visible through the water, but the wind was very strong a disturbed too much sediment to get a view. At that point, however, I couldn't care. I got to go into an active paleontological lab and handle real fossils. I could have died happy.
The guide drove me back to the bus station, where I picked up my stuff and got on the bus to Puerto Madryn.

Dinosaurs!

2009-12-17T18:58:00.001-08:00

I landed in Neuquen and the minute I got off the plane, I got a taste of the infamous Patagonian winds, winds that reach very high speeds and can come out of no where. I was able to feel the wind right off the plane because, instead of the usual makeshift tunnel one walks through to get from the plane to the terminal, we exited the plane right onto the tarmac and walked across the tarmac to the small airport the old-fashioned way. The airport was a bit outside of town, but before grabbing a cab into town, I took a cab to the bus station and booked a ticket to Puerto Madryn on an overnight bus; Neuquen is not a touristy town for a reason and I did not want to spend too much time there. After successfully procuring a ticket and finding a secure place to leave most of my stuff, I went out to catch a cab to get into the city. When I got outside, there was a bit of a line of people waiting for cabs, which were only coming every five minutes or so. It was already almost 10 and I did not want to waste any more of the one day I had in town, so I went to a young fellow near the front of the line and asked him if he wanted to split a cab. He did, and so I met a fellow (I cannot remember his name now) who studied historiography and is now studying explosives in mining and taught himself English. We took the cab to the University where we got off and split paths, he to the University for a mining conference, and me to the tourist office. There is not much to do in Neuquen; the only thing my guidebook mentioned about Neuquen was that it is the paleontological capital of Argentina. There are no fewer than three separate places for dino-tourism near Neuquen, two of which have museums and paleontological labs and are the locations, respectively, of the biggest sauropod and the one of the largest carnotaurs ever found, and the other which has the only active paleontological dig open to the public. I found all this out at the tourist office, where they gave me a list of the tourist agencies that visit these sites, along with their numbers and addresses. As I did not have a working cell yet, I had to walk from tour office to tour office, only to find out that I was too late and whatever tours would have left to these places were long gone. I also learned something else about Patagonia: the country is so huge and everything is so far apart, that one really either needs a car or needs to hire a professional guide that has a car to see anything; usually public transportation to interesting sites outside of a town is non-existent.

Travels Part 1 - Preliminaries

2009-12-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

As many of you many know, I have been absent from the blog these past two weeks because I have been traveling outside of Buenos Aires. I spent a few days in Iguazu, which I wrote about, and came back to Buenos Aires for one weekend before heading south. I will spend the next few blog posts writing about my time down south.
The weekend before I left was an exercise in Murphy's Law. I had scheduled a flight to Neuquen, a small and decidedly un-touristy town in Northern Patagonia, for the first leg of my trip, but because of its remote location and non-touristy nature, the flight was cheaper. Neuquen also happens to be a central bus hub, so getting to other places from Neuquen is easy. It also happens to be... Well, I am getting ahead of myself. Back to the pre-travel weekend. My flight was at 6 on Monday morning, which necessitated an early wake-up and some pre-planning (printing out boarding passes, calling a cab, and such). Unfortunately, my phone decided to run out of minutes on Sunday night, and a search of every locutorio and kiosk proved fruitless; no one had a refill card for my carrier. Then, the printer at the hostel broke, so I was not able to print out my boarding pass. I went to bed Sunday night (after the worst restaurant meal I have eaten in BsAs) with no way to order a cab and no way to print out my ticket. I decided to sleep and figure it all out in the morning.
The next morning I woke up very early (4:30), got my stuff together, and went (which I packed the night before)down to Avenida Luis Maria Campos, the nearest busy street, to flag a cab. Well, I learned that night that, as much as Buenos Aires is a rocking, stay-up-all-night city, it is not New York. There was not a single car on the road, let alone a cab. I stood there with my heavy travel pack and a prospect of missing my flight weighing me down, when, out of a parking space, a car without any lights on pulled out. It was a cab! I ran up to it and got him to take me to the airport. Check-in at the airport was a smooth as Argentine ice cream, and I got through security and to the gate an hour before take-off. Our plane would have made the inventor of sardine cans jealous; it seemed to be ergonomically designed to fit as many people into a tiny metal tube as possible, a far cry from the spacious coche cama buses that I took to Iguazu, with the 140 degree reclining seats and TVs and bathrooms (oh man, did I have to pee on that flight). It was only a three hour flight though, so before too long we were landing in the semi-arid and extremely windy town of Neuquen (pronounced Ne-ew-ken), which I found out, besides being a town with a tiny tourist industry and also a central bus hub in Patagonia, is also the Dinosaur capital of the country. However, my computer is acting up, so I will write more about the Dinos tomorrow.

I'm Back

2009-12-08T21:01:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Buenos Aires from my traveling stage, and it was quite a week. I will be posting updates and stories about my travels as the days progress, but right now I am going to go to sleep. Buenas Noches.

2009-12-01T17:37:00.001-08:00

This past weekend was very nice, even more than usual, as I really feel part of a few families here now. It is really nice to ear that people from and otherwise random place will miss you when you leave. Shabbos day was also a gorgeous day, the only one in an otherwise rainy weekend. Friday was terrible; it rained non-stop the entire day, and Sunday saw on and off unexpected downpours. I thought the weekend might have also seen some build-up of excitement for my then-impending trip down South, but I really felt nothing over the weekend. I think it is part of not having plans and playing things by ear; I am not really excited for tomorrow because I don´t even know what is happening in the next hour. The last few hours before the trip were not very comforting. My cell phone decided to run out of minutes at the worst possible time, and not a single kiosk or locutorio in my entire neighborhood had a recharge card of my carrier; I was digitally stranded. When I got back to the hostel from dinner at what was the worst kosher restaurant I have been to (I don´t want t talk about it), I found out that the printer in the hostel was broken and I could not print my e-ticket. I went to bed at 1, with my alarm set for 3 hours later, without any idea of what I would do in the morning, no way to call a cab, and no ticket.
In the morning, after a quick shower, I walked down to what is usually one of the busier streets; at 5 there was no one in the street. No one. I was ready to turn back and try, well, I am not quite sure what, when a car pulled out of a parking space. It was a cab! He was free! He took me to the airport with plenty of time to spare. At the airport the check-in desk just took my passport and got all of my information, and as soon as you can say Buen Viaje, I was in the air in a small cramped plane heading to Neuquen. I arrived in Neuquen (we got to walk across the tarmac!) and took a cab to the central bus station, where i bought a ticket for the Puerto Madryn that would leave in the evening. Meanwhile, I had the entire day to kill. I left the bus station only to find a bit of a line waiting for the occasional cab. I approached a younger looking local and asked if he wanted to share a cab, and so I made my first local friend, Carlos, the student of mining, explosives, and historiography.
My tour book said that Neuquen is one of the Dinosaur capitals of the south, and I decided I could not leave Neuquen without doing a Dino tour. Then I got to the tour offices, none of whom had tours on a Monday, especially as there was some big conference going on, taking up the time of most of the cities tourist workers. I walked from tour office to tour office with no luck. I will continue the story the next time I am by a computer, as I can barely keep my eyes open right now. Buenas Noches!

Broken Stuff and Borthday Presents

2009-11-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

My Iguazu trip made me realize something. Until know I did not have to put most of my stuff to use, but now that I made good use of my hiking shoes and my traveling pack, I realize that they are falling apart. It is quite sad. These hiking shoes saw me through amazing trips, including our trip to Mount Washington two and a half years ago, but two and a half years are a long time for hiking shoes that also get worn for walking, and they are starting to develop a certain holiness.
My pack is even older. I bought it during my year in Israel, and it saw me through all the trips that my hiking shoes have been through and then some, including yam l'yam, and the bottom is about to fall out. Of course, the wetness of Iguazu hasn't helped them much, and they are literally on their last ropes. When I get home I am going to have to buy myself a new sturdy large travel pack and good hiking shoes. How interesting that I return home not too far from my birthday! Hmmm... Now that I think about it, if I had a birthday wish-list (which of course I don't, but if I did) this trip has made me realize some of the things I would put on it, including said items, which I really need, decent winter biking gear, biking equipment for the cross-country ride, and, something that I really don't need but could come in handy traveling, and Amazon Kindle (all those books and so easy to carry!!!)

Makes Niagara Look Like a Leaky Faucet

2009-11-26T12:03:00.001-08:00

Iguazu was amazing. Utterly Unbelievable. Before I went, one of my Argentine friends told me that she is skeptical about Iguazu. "I mean," she said, "it's just a lot of falling water."
Well, I guess even something so boring as falling water, in the right place and in the right quantities, can be an amazing experience.
The bus ride up to Iguazu was an 18 hour ride, but I have heard much about the excellence of the Argentine inter-city bus system and the wonders that they perform; that they have extremely comfortable chairs that turn into beds, that they serve food, that they have great movies and a/c and bathrooms and they are comfortable and easy to sleep in and big and spacious and raise the dead and walk on water etc.
Well, unfortunately, almost none of those were true on the trip up. The a/c did not work, they forgot water (so thirsty...) the seats went almost-ish back, though the comfy, but they blasted (really loud) three of the worst movies ever made, movies I had never heard about before the bus trip, movies that I had hoped never to know of, movies that, by all standards of decency, should not exist. I completely forgot everything about one of the movies, perhaps because it was so traumatizing, one of the names of these movies escapes, but it was some horrible story (if you could call it that) about a bride who dies on her wedding day and comes back to haunt her ex's love life, and the other was, get this, "Confessions of a Shopaholic." What the hell kind of name for a movie is that? They give that title to the movie and they expect to sell tickets? It was pure pure torture, and the headphone jacks did not work, so the movie was blasted throughout the entire bus at an extremely high volume; my Ipod at max would not drown out those movies. I had to make the best of the situation and try to use the Spanish subtitles to learn a bit, but having my brains dribble out of my ears stopped me from picking up anything useful.
We arrived in Puerto Iguazu at around 8ish, and I wandered the town looking for a hostel with an opening; I finally found one but check wasn't until 10, so I left my stuff and went to the park. The sky was ominously gray.
As I passed by an information booth I overheard a middle-aged fellow asking (in English) how to get to the Garganta del Diablo (there are three trails that lead to different observation points; the Paseo Superior, the Paseo Inferior, both of which view the main section of the falls, and the Garganta, the Devil's Throat, an experience in and of itself). I told him that I was walking there myself, and that they could join me, and so he and his sister and I walked to the Garganta. 30 seconds into our introduction he said something along the lines of "well, us Jews need to stick together." Turns out he and his sister are Hungarian secular intellectual Jews. He lives in California, she in New York, and we hung out for the entire morning and into the afternoon, walking to the Garganta and the Paseo Inferior, and hanging by their hotel pool (the Sheraton; they bought me a juice). The conversation was quite interesting, and he especially reminded me of Sabba in conversation (v'hameivin yavin).
After we split I went to the boat ride, which takes you into (literally into) the falls. Niagara has the fluffy cutesy "Maid of the Mist," but Iguazu has the "Pro-WWF Wrestler of the Holy-freaking-moly I am inside the actual waterfall."
It started to pour while we stood on line, which was a bit of a downer, but I met a Texan video game designer on the line, and I saw one of the neater things of the trip so far. There was a girl in front of us and she had a tattoo right above her, well, her tushy (everyone but me, the idiot, was in a bathing suit). The tattoo, however, was the inscription of the One Ring in Elvish. Two very different worlds collide. After the boat ride, soaked, with no chance of drying off in the pouring rain, I went back to town. In the hostel I showered and dried off, and spent the rest of the evening in conversation with various Israelis, Americans, and a Dutch girl. I also ran into two Israelis that were staying at the hostel in Buenos Aires, and we decided to travel together the next morning.
The next morning we woke up bright and early and,lo and behold, praise be, the sky was (mostly) sunny and the day was gorgeous! We took the first bus into the Park and did the Selva Macuco, a lesser known 'off-road' trail that was all mud. The two Israelis were fun to hang out with, a classic pair of friends that remind me of another pair. The highlight of their interactions happened as one of them, Penny, and I were talking (for quite a while, in Hebrew) and finally, the other, Yigal, said, "Nu, kvar, mishtamesh b'eynayim shelcha, l'chapes l'eizeh kof o mashehu," which means "Come on man, use your eyes to look for a monkey or something!" Penny responds to this by saying, in thick Israeli accent:

the accent is important

remember to imagine this with the accent

"Legolas, what do your elf-eyes see?"
Amazing.
Anyway, we saw no wildlife on the way down the 3.5km trail, but at the end there was a pool with a smaller waterfall. I immediately took of my shirt and went in; Penny soon followed. I should have taken off my pants, but it was totally worth it. Standing beneath a waterfall was amazing, the highlight of the trip. On our way back from the pool, soaked, we saw a toucan (finally!). The rest of the day I spent doing the Paseo Superior, and I left the park exactly on time, right before the sky opened up once again. Back in Puerto Iguazu I walked to the Tres Fronteras (a point where you can see Brazil and Paraguay all at once, showered, and got on a bus to go home (it was supposed to arrive at 9, but got back at 12:30, yet another failure of the famed Argentine bus service). The trip was amazing, and even with the buses, given a choice to go back, I still would have done it. Do check out the pictures on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2082182&id=43906579&l=b9cc758a93

I´m off

2009-11-23T05:01:00.001-08:00

Well, the last few days have been a bit of a mixed bag, but I will have to tell you all about the futile wandering but eventually asado eating, the mix of discouraging and encouraging language advice, and the late'ish nights out with sometimes nothing and sometimes something to do, later. I am off to Iguazu Falls for a couple of days! The weather there is supposed to be terrible this week, but whatever, it is supposed to be amazing anyway. Chao!

Puerto Madero

2009-11-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

On Thursday I went to Puerto Madero, one of the ritzier neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, where I walked around, went to the Nature Reserve, and had some ice cream while sitting on the dock listening to a jazz-swing party at one of the yacht clubs. The neighborhood was a bit to planned and cold, no personality there, the Nature Reserve was, well, besides trees there wasn't much nature, but at least I got to see the coast! Buenos Aires is a port city but until yesterday I did not see the port. It was also a day that reminded me of my grandfathers. There were a bunch of sailboats in the dock, and my maternal grandfather had a sailboat. I also saw this:

There are three things I can think of how this pictures reminds me of my paternal grandfather, and if you can guess them, well, you know Sabba.
The ice cream, was, as usual, delicious.
After walking around for quite a bit I went to a conversation club in the Hillel, where Argentines come to converse in English with the help of native speakers, and I met a new American friend there from Erie Pennsylvania, Elana. After the club I went out to eat with her and Jason in Mama Jacinta, leaving just one more of the big meat restaurants that I have not eaten at yet.
Today Elana and I went to the zoo, which was a lot of fun; it is really nice having someone to travel with and, while traveling alone has its pluses, I think I am ready for a bit of a shift of gears. I also decided today that I will not be ale to make my way south, at least not El Calafate or Ushuaia (the big glacier or the end of the world), as it is way too expensive just to get there, but I will play my travels out by ear. To be honest, in retrospect, traveling in the beginning and staying in the city now would have been ideal, as things were cheaper in the earlier part of spring and now is when the city is coming even more alive and when my friend are doing more in the city, but I will still go around and see bits of the country. I will save the south for my next trip to Argentina. It is definitely a country I would come back to visit.

Exito!

2009-11-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was quite a busy and satisfying day, the day that I discovered, among other things, that as long as I don't talk to much, my accent allows me to pass as a native. I first realized this when in a mountaineering store. I decided to spend the entire day in the city on Wednesday, with the focus of the day as the Museo de Armas. I took the subway into the center of town and walked towards Retiro and Plaza San Martin. As I was walking down one street, I noticed that it was full of mountaineering/camping stores, and, needing gloves and a hat for a trek I may/may not do, I went into one of these stores to buy what I needed. I spoke for a bit with the man behind the counter, he took down a bunch of gloves, told the the benefits of each, we discussed the trek and the function I would need and finally I made the decision to buy a pair of waterproof skin-tight gloves and a Ben Wallick hat (he-meivin yavin). In Buenos Aires, when you pay with a credit card, you need to show ID, so I gave him my driver's license. He looked at me in surprise and said "sos Americano?!" (You're American?) It made me happy.
The second time was in the Plaza San Martin. Now, I went to the Plaza earlier in my trip, but this time it was like another world. The last time I went was on the tail end of winter, with leaves in the trees and now it is the height of spring, and the trees were full of green and purple. Check out the pictures on facebook. Anywya, I was in the Plaza, when a random Argentine came up and said "Shalom" and then told me he did not speak Hebrew. He assumed, because of my Kippah, that I was Israeli. We talked for a bit, he took some pictures of me, told me I had a perfect accent (!), and told me he was an AIDS awareness volunteer. I gave him a small donation. I then went to the Museo de Armas, the Arms Museum, which is the most impressive arms museum I have ever seen anywhere. It is huge, extremely extensive, and extremely well labeled and informative (in Spanish). I met a couple of Irish fellows there and we spoke a bit about Ireland and Celtic mythology. After the museum I went to the Palacio Paz to do a building tour, and when I went to sign up for the tour I asked the guide a few questions (in Spanish) and when I told her I wanted to the join the tour she said "but it is in Spanish." ! Don't get me wrong, my Spanish isn't that good. In fact, it is not even conversational (though I can communicate and converse a bit) but it seems I have picked up the accent. This may sound like a good thing, but it really isn't so great. Argentina has a very unique accent with unique grammar and slang that is, so I hear, barely intelligible to most Spanish speakers, and all the Spanish speakers in NYC do not speak Argentine Spanish. I need to leave the country soon so I don't get too entrenched in the local dialect.
After the Palace I walked around, saw some other things in passing, went to an all English bookstore and met a German who never read Harry Potter, and spontaneously decided to buy a ticket to a Celtic music concert, that led to the last post.

KANPAI!

2009-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that at the restaurant I ordered hot sake. Claudio only had the tiniest smidgen of a taste, so I had to finish the entire thing. It was quite a bit, and by the end I was a tad light-headed, though the ice-cream cleared m head quite quickly. It was also quite good. A tad shocking at first, but it was very good.

Laughing and Crying

2009-11-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

Today was quite an amazing day, but I will only write about the evening, as I am quite zonked, and it is still fresh in my mind. As I was walking home from the other things I was doing today, thing which you will find out soon enough, I passed by one of the many theaters in Buenos Aires. I decided that since I am leaving the city soon to travel, and I have not yet experienced theater here, I would go inside and see what was on the calendar. Well, it turned out that this evening there was a concert by the fellow named Carlos Nunez, a Celtic-music-playing-Spaniard. I have attached a video, I think. This is a video I found on youtube, not a video I took.

In short, the concert was amazing, perhaps one of the best I have ever been. I have always thought that Celtic music is one of the most evocative genres; they played some songs that had me bouncing in my seat with joy and some that actually brought tears to my eyes. I hadn't been this happy or sad in a while. He was a powerhouse on stage, non-stop, and constantly cracking jokes in Spanish that threatened the Millenium Falcon's record for the Kessel Run. Yes, I did. I know they were jokes not because I understood, but because everyone laughed. His violin/concertina player was from Ireland, and at least she spoke some English on stage. She was also unbefreakingleivable. I wonder if there are any violin-playing Celtic Jews out there (single of course). If you know of anyone who fits that description let me know (try that on for size shadchans!).
Anyway, there were a few real kickers in the concert, including when Carlos went down to the front rows and brought the first few rows on stage to dance! The stage was full of dancing audience members! Damn cheaper balcony seats!
Another kicker was when some random audience member got on stage and cut an Irish swath across the stage like I haven't seen since Lord of the Dance! His feet were moving as fast as Carlos Nunez' Spanish!
The real kicker, though, was when the guy sort-of-next-to-me (there was a pillar in between our seats) leans over and says "Wow, what are the chances of there being a guy with a kippah here!" (In Spanish of course). He is a 39 year old fellow, flute player, huge Tull fan, and a up-and-coming baal teshuva. We spoke after the show, he offered to drive me home, and instead drove me to sushi, where we had a delicious dinner (besides for the cream cheese in some of the sushi. I mean, what the hell is wrong with these people! How can they put cream cheese in sushi!? Have you ever heard of such a thing!). Afterward I treated him to some ice cream and then he drove me home, but we spent a good 3 hours hanging out and talking mostly in Spanish but partly in English and Hebrew as well, and we talked about everything from wind instruments to being single. He was a great guy; thanks Claudio!
Speaking of being single, one of the things Celtic music can make you feel, if you are in a position to feel it, is alone. Some of the slow haunting melodies make some who is alone feel even more so, and it can be quite sad. If 'they' want us young Jews to get married quickly, they should just send us to a Celtic music concert. I tried to take a few videos, but the sound on my camera doesn't seem to be working, which is a bummer. More about today tomorrow. Buenas Noches!

Moving Out

2009-11-16T18:42:00.000-08:00

Well, today I left the comfort of my host family to return the hostel. I left a private room and bathroom, breakfasts and hot home cooked dinners, and, most important, friendly people with whom I was able to practice a bit of Spanish for the shared dorms/bathrooms and prepare your own food of the hostel. Why? Well, as you may have already realized, I am getting a tad bored of la ciudad, and I want to get out, to travel a bit, to see the country. The hostel will help in two ways. One is the more obvious. There are travelers coming and going form the hostel all the time, and I have a chance of picking up a travel buddy or at least some advice from the people here, an advantage that does not exist with my host folks. Also, the lack of the previously mentioned comforts (I hope) will motivate me to leave. I have never been more lazy and just totally willing to sit around and do nothing. I haven't had a deadline, any work, any responsibilities, even the minimal ones that arise from school and part-time jobs, I haven't really exercised, I've been eating well, and I have never been this slothful in my life. It is sort of nice. I only wish I had more books here, perhaps my flute (after that concert I really want to practice) and I will be happy. I also think my body believes that it is winter, and it is trying to hibernate. It is dying for some nice comfort food (yesterday I spent some time looking at some amazing looking mac and cheese recipes). One of the reasons I want to go South, besides for it being one of the best places to see in the country, is because it is actually a bit chilly there.
I actually missed a great opportunity to travel with some frum Israeli folks; a couple of guys are going to the deep south tomorrow morning, but by the time I found out there were no tickets left. Oh well. I think I would rather travel alone anyway, but if I do run across anyone over the next day or two I will join with them. We shall see.
Tomorrow I plan. Chodesh tov!

Has Anyone Heard This Not-So-Flattering Moniker Before?

2009-11-16T06:31:00.000-08:00

I had to come all the way to Argentina to hear a kind-of-clever-but-not-so-nice nickname for a certain neighborhood in Brooklyn. At the Friday night meal I was talking to the 14 year old son of our host (he was quite impressed when I told him that my cousins were in the Yeshiva Boys Choir; he is a huge fan) and I asked him if he had ever been to NY. He said yes, and told me that he went to Schnorrer Park. At first I thought he got the name wrong, but when I understood what he was saying I cracked up. I'd never heard that used before to refer to Borough Park.
In other news, I just got off the phone with a friend that I met here from Alabama, and he told me he knows some frum guys traveling to El Calafate really soon. It wasn't part of the plan, but I think I am going to try and join them last minute, as this is an opportunity too good to pass on. If I am able to join (there are a few factors involved, not the least of which is getting hold of a ticket) I won't have internet for a bit, so I will be off blog (though maybe not; if I can find an internet cafe I will post), but if I do not manage to join up with them, I will post.

A Musical Weekend

2009-11-15T13:58:00.001-08:00

This past weekend, has, so far, been one of the best in Buenos Aires. Friday I don't really remember what I did. I woke up very late, as I was not able to fall asleep the night before; I think I spent the day studying Spanish and walking around a bit. I went to Talpiot (the MO Tzioni shul) with Jason, a British friend. We met Tal, another British friend there, and after a Carlebach Kabalat Shabbat we went to the house of a ex-physician-turned-zipper-factory-owner. His married son, who went to a different shul, happened to bring home Tal, an Australian friend, and an Israeli tourist. The meal was, as usual, delicious and the people were very nice, and I discovered that my Spanish has improved a bit more than I thought it had. I sat next to the father of the house, but even though he spoke both English and Hebrew, I tried to speak only in Spanish, and I even successfully told over the Sol a Kakas Mar story entirely in Spanish (ask Sabba).
Shabbos day I returned to Talpiot, where I had arranged to meet an American from West Orange and UPenn who is here studying abroad. We met and went to a lawyer's house for lunch, where no one but the two of us spoke English. I felt a bit bad, because 85% of the time we were engaged in conversation amongst ourselves (though there was another guest, as well as the host's mother, to keep them company). After lunch we walked to the Recoleta Cemetary, and then I walked her home. This past weekend was easily the best conversation I've had in months, and I forgot how much I enjoy it.
On Saturday night the Ministry of Culture hosted a 'Night at the Museum' where all the museums in the city were open and free until 2am. I went with Jason to the newly opened Anne Frank museum. At first is was a bit rough, as everything was in Spanish, and some of the presenters spoke faster than anything I have ever heard before, but at the end of the tour we were shown a series of videos meant to provoke debate, with a question at the end of each about freedom of speech and how far it extends to whether or not video games cause violence. At first I thought that I was going to sit out from the discussion, as people were talking a bit fast, in Spanish, and though I can understand and communicate, my Spanish is not good enough for debate and discussion. The presenter, however, picked me out because of my kippah, and when I mentioned the language barrier she acted as a translator and I was able to contribute to the discussion, which was loads of fun. She actually had quite an impressive command of English and a knowledge of issues of political philosophy, especially for someone still in high school (I happen to be skyping with her right now).
After leaving the Anne Frank museum I met up with Maetal, her mom, and her sister, Maya, who at this point won't let me out of her sight and we went to the natural history museum, which was, um, ok. Not like the AMNH or the Smithsonian. There were a few dinosaurs, some really poorly done dioramas, but it was neat. Ish. To be honest the rest of the night was a bit of a disappointment; after the museum I was supposed to go out with a bunch of Argentines to get a taste of the nightlife, but after taking along bus ride to some nightlife area and milling about debating what to do we ended up going all the way back and sitting in one girl's apartment for a bit until we decided to go home at 4. A bit dull, but I got to borrow "The Secret Life of Oscar Wao," one redeeming factor.
Today I spent the day in Rosedal reading said book, and listening to a free wind quintet concert, which was excellent. I now really like the bassoon.
Tonight I am going to a jazz concert with Jason, and then we shall see.
Chao!

Foods I Miss

2009-11-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

I have written quite a bit about the ample opportunities to eat delicious food here in Argentina, about the wonderful meats, the obsession with sweets,the ice cream that cannot be beat, and all the other treats. There are, however, some foods that I love that cannot be found here, foods that, day to day, I find my self dreaming about. The big one is pie. Tis the season for autumn pies in the States and the autumn pies, apple pie, pumpkin pie, etc, are, in my opinion, the best pies out there. I read a few food blogs regularly and all of them are posting articles, pictures, and videos about making the perfect pie or pie crust, and every time I read/watch one I find my myself salivating. For some reason no one makes pies here, not even the bakeries. For a country obsessed with, and really good at sweets, it is a bit surprising. On a bit of an aside, I was discussing pumpkin pie with a British friend and we were a few minutes into the conversation when I remembered that when our cousins across the pond talk about pumpkin pie they mean a savory main course dish instead of the delightfully creamy-spicy-sweet-but-not-too-sweet miracle that graces every Thanksgiving table.
Chummus can be found here, and so far I have sampled a number of varieties, but none of them even come close to Sabra, let alone the chummus in places like Grill Point or Hapisga. I am going cold turkey and if I do not L'nagev soon I may start having convulsions.
Bagels! Where are the bagels?! They do not exist here, which is not such a surprise, as it is tough to find to find decent bagels outside of New York (or Teaneck, home of the best bagels ever, Teaneck Road Hot Bagels. Anyone who disputes this and thinks that Sammy's is better is just plain wrong). You know what, I meant to leave that statement in the parentheses as an aside, but I must clear up, once and for all, why TRHB easily outstrips Sammy's as best bagel. A bagel is all about contrast. The crust must be hard but thin, hard enough that when lightly toasted allows for a delightful crunch but thin enough that right after the crunch your teeth sink in to the softness of the crumb. The crumb (the term for the inside of bread) however, should not be too soft. A bagel requires some chewiness to it. Your teeth should meet just a little resistance when chewing the bagel; a bagel requires texture. The flavor of the bagel itself needs to be just very slightly sour, nowhere near the intensity of a sour dough, but just enough that you can tell that this is not your usual bread. A bagel should NEVER be undercooked, uniformly soft, doughy, bland, and, besides for the shape, indistinguishable from other breads. You don't even need to take a bite to know whether a bagel has the potential to be good; if in the clear plastic bins the bagels on the bottom of the pile are compressed and contorted by the mound of bagels on top, the bagel will probably be bad. If the bottom bagels do a good job of holding their tubular shape despite the force of gravity, they have the potential to be great bagels. Teaneck Road Hot Bagels hold their shape, they provide contrast, texture, and a distinctive flavor, while Sammy's bagels are soft, doughy, bland, gummy in the mouth, and, to top it all off, the bottom bagels get all squished. I know that only the uncut bagels at TRHB are kosher, whereas in Sammy's you can get and egg sandwich, but really, between the cost (and taste) of the egg sandwich, and the massively inferior bagels, it is far more worth it to buy your bagels at TRHB and make your eggs at home. Now, I am not saying you are not allowed to enjoy Sammy's. Everyone can enjoy what they want; there are people out there who think pancake mix or store bought pie crust is better than the real thing. There are, however, definitions for what makes a certain food; for example, everyone would say that an English muffin is not a bagel and according to those definitions, Sammy's is not a good bagel, though it may be an enjoyable doughy bagel-shaped thing for some.
Well, now I lost track of the foods I miss, though I am sure they will resurface soon enough. Kosher Indian food is conspicuously absent from Argentina, and another sweet that, shockingly, does not exist here is cupcakes. I have no idea why, but no one does cupcakes here. Thankfully before I left CB, Tova, and I splurged on Crumbs and had two each in one day.
I am looking forward to getting my fix on my various food-cravings when I get back.

Japanese Garden, Return to Rosedal, and the Future

2009-11-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

This week I spent most of my time lying on back, and it wasn't to have fun; for some bizarre reason my lower decided it wanted to be 80 years old and for a couple of days I couldn't move. I cannot wait to get old. Being stuck at home for a few days gave me ample opportunity to think about my future plans for this trip and my travels post Argentina; I still have February through August free, and I am also looking to get out of Buenos Aires and into the rest of Argentina.
I have decided that, hopefully starting next Sunday, I will leave the city and travel south to Ushuaia, El Calafate, Bariloche, Mendoza, maybe a bit of Chile, and perhaps more. I am going to try to be back in Buenos Aires for Chanuka (kosher food and shuls are very rare outside the city; I'll be living on fruit and attempting to find Chabad houses for Shabbos). After Chanuka I am going to go in the other direstion and see as much as I can of the northeast and northwest; Salta, Jujuy and Iguazu among others, maybe see another country as well. That is the extent of my plans, and I think that I am not going to plan any farther than that; I am going to take this trip as it comes (though there are a few things that are must-sees).
When I get back from Argentina I am going to have to replenish my funds for a bit (anyone know of a short-term decent paying job? Keep an eye out for me!) before I go anywhere else. The ideas, so far, are to spend some time in Israel working as a farmer, something I have always wanted to do, with extended stops in European cities on the way in and out of Israel. That would only be for a month and a half or so, so my summer would still be free, and it is during the summer that I want to do the highlight of my year off.
There is something I have been dreaming of doing for some time now, something that I really must do before I begin medical school, something that, if I do not manage to pull it off before the end of the year, I will be quite disappointed. I want to bike from the East Coast to the West Coast, across the entire USA. It is very doable. It would take around 8 weeks of not too intense biking and having rest/touring days. And it would allow me to spend every single shabbos in a different Jewish community. This is something i am pretty dead-set on doing. I have mentioned it a few people and, of course, they think I am nuts and tell me I cannot go, but they seem to concede a little on the condition that I go with someone else. As long as I do not do the ride alone, it is fine. Well, I don't know anyone who would do this ride. If I did, we would either be great friends or married, depending on the gender of said rider. That said, any readers want to ride across the USA with me this summer? If not, do you know anyone who might want to do the ride? And if you are a girl, don't take that last statement as a preemptive proposal, though I must say it wouldn't be far off.

An Age Old, Universal Rule Remains Unbroken

2009-11-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

Today I ventured outside to give my back and little exercise and fresh air, and to get lunch. I went to a small dairy place and ate a torta, a kind of like a frittata but less eggy and more vegetably. In fact, mine was almost entirely vegetables, with whatever egg inside just holding the vegetable patty together. Very healthy, and also pretty tasty, but with such an overload of vegetables I needed something sweet and fatty afterward to cut the heart-clearing goodness of some many plants. I was walking and saw an all-kosher chalav yisrael Heladeria or ice cream shop, and I decided to try it. Now, in Argentina, the main ice cream franchises have many kosher flavors, and all of them are divine; they transcend the natural order of ice cream to something far more superior than man or angel could create in the USA. I figured that the chalav yisrael ice cream here, while definitely would not be as good, might be able to surpass the universal truth in the USA that anything chalav yisrael (especially ice cream) is extremely inferior. Unfortunately my hopes fell to the ground like a soon-to-be crying kids ice cream falling from his cone on a hot day. The ice cream at this place may have been the worst ice cream I have ever eaten, barring, perhaps, the chalav yisrael brands in the States, which, thankfully, I haven't eaten many time. If you come to Buenos Aires, stick with the mainstream ice cream, and if you only eat chalav yisrael, either quit, or avoid the ice cream here altogether.

Sex, Drugs, and Miami Boys

2009-11-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

Jewish music has quite a tradition of using mainstream music, either deliberately putting Jewish lyrics to popular tunes, like Lenny Solomon and Shlock Rock, or sometimes even hijacking less popular non-Jewish tunes and using them as their own, like what MBD did with the German pop band Dschingis Khan and their eponymous Eurovision entry. This video (assuming I embedded it properly) is the first example I have ever seen of the reverse in culture sharing. It surprised me a bit that these rap singers would take music from Miami Boys, as I find that the only music less enjoyable than rap is the Miami Boys and like music, though I guess they are in good company. What is even weirder is the use of Miami Boys' Eshes Chayil for this song, which may have a little bit of the Eshes in it, but not much of the chayil, or any of the other adjectives used to describe the Jewish ideal of woman (or, as some hold, the Torah).

Out Again

2009-11-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

As the last commenter noted, maybe my back doesn't like me running barefoot. Maybe it doesn't like me bending over to tie my shoe. Or to pick something up. Or to stretch. Whatever it doesn't like, my back is not liking me, and isn't really letting me move anywhere. I am getting a little fed up with being cooped up from week to week, one time with some stomach problems and now with back pain. I mean, really, I'm 21! People who are 21 don't get back pain! Well, they do, but it is a lot less common. Then again, I've already done the knee problem thing, so I guess bring on old age early. Maybe next I won't be able to remember anything. Anyway, I've been cooped up yesterday and today, bored to tears (well, not really tears) and I am getting sick of being sick. I wouldn't mind that much if I was home with nothing to do, but knowing that I am in another country with a plenitude of opportunities, a myriad of things to do and see, and a plethora of places to go out to lunch or dinner, and not able to do any of them is a bit frustrating. Whatever. Such is life, you take what comes. Que sera sera as they say in Spanish; what will be will be, and I just have to sit (or rather, lie) this out. The longer I am cooped up in Buenos Aires though, the more I just want to leave the city and backpack the rest of the country.

Meat Round Two

2009-11-08T19:46:00.001-08:00

Hello all. I think that I was victim to a bit of a stomach virus last week as opposed to the original hypothesis of my tummy-ache being a result of the "Revenge of the Alimentary Canal," but I am back. I spent pretty much all of last week at home in bed, though Thursday night I felt well enough to go for another barefoot run and Friday I ventured out to the Flore Generico and the Museo de Bellas Artes. The barefoot run was a bit painful, yet again, as I am still not used to it, though I must say my muscles are already doing ok. This time I ran during the day and the street was boiling hot; the pain came not from being sore but from the resulting blisters. I know, I know, why do I afflict myself thus? Well, my knee has yet to hurt, and once my feet and muscles are used to it, it may be the best way for me to run.
The Museo de Bellas Artes was, well, suffice it to say that I liked it a lot more than the MALBA. Hang on, I didn't write about the MALBA yet? Wow, it has been a while. Let me take a step back. On Wednesday (I think it was) I also ventured outside and a met a British friend and a Colombian friend of his to go to the MALBA, one of the lager art museums here in BsAs (I do not remember what it stands for off-hand). Until February, almost the entire museum is hosting the Andy Warhol museum from Pittsburgh, and they have two floors full of Andy Warhol. It was neat to see, especially the New York iconography, but I cannot say I am really into Warhol. He did something no one else did, he chose to see certain things in a way no one else saw them, but he was only a first. I feel he is famous more for being a first, and perhaps for 'social commentary' than anything else. For many that makes a great artist but for me it only makes an imaginary didact. The museum also had some other Argentine pop-art, which also did not really impress. That night my host-folks had all of their kinderlach and einiklach (hijos y nietos) over for the birthday of their twin sons. What a feast! My host-mom cooked up a dairy storm with bollos (stuffed pastries), empanadas (stuffed pastries), and calzones, pronounced cahl-son-ehs (stuffed pasta, similar to large ravioli). All of it was homemade and all of it delicious, though none of it worked wonders on my then-tender stomach.
On Friday I ventured outside for a bit and saw the Museo de Bellas Artes, which now houses a wonderful European Masters exhibit, from pre-Renaissance to the 19th Century French masters, which includes some great Italian and Dutch Renaissance, and some really good Rodin sculptures.
The Flore Generico is a massive metal sculpture in the middle of one of the parks here that opens with the rising of the sun and closes when it sets.
Shabbos was nice; we ate by one of my host-mom's sons Friday night (and davened at their Sfardi shul, where Shir HaShirim took as long as the rest of the davening and the rabbi's speech as long as everything put together). Shabbos day I went to the Chabad youth center where I met two Brits and an Argentine, one of whom knows Nina (small world). We all (the four of us and many more Argentines) ate at the rabbi's house. The rest of Shabbos was normal, with a nap, mincha, etc. Saturday night was nothing exciting either.
Today I went to the Hillel to help with AKIM, an organization that organizes activities and assistance for mentally handicapped people. The Hillel hosted a day of activities for the organization, run by my hard-working and very involved apartment-mate which, as far as I could tell, was quite a hit. The highlight, for me, was a great magician, who showed some of the extranjero (foreign) volunteers some of his tricks pre-show. I was blown away, and I have rediscovered that I really like magic shows.
Tonight I met said apartment-mate's mother, sister, aunt, and aunt's significant other, which was a lot of fun; they took us all out for dinner, it was very nice of them to come out to a foriegn country and take an otherwise unknown fellow out to dinner. We went to Al Galope, where I had the infamous intestines, but this time avoided the offal and stuck the multiple meats that we got for the table. And hummus! Finally! The sister, Maya, was a real pleasure to talk to. She is 6, in second grade, and almost finished the entire Harry Potter series, and has read Roald Dahl. She reminds of someone else at her age :)
Funny story about the small intestines; when I came home I told my host-folks that I ate chinchuines, the Spanish for small intestines. The next day I felt terrible, and it is now a running joke in the family. If anyone's stomach hurts, they must have eaten chinchulines. They were even teasing me tonight in the restaurant, and Mario (my host-dad) went so far as to teach the word to Maya, which she yelled at me with all the glee of a six year old discovering a funny new word that gets grown-ups to laugh. It was really a nice dinner. I also got a peak at the bill, and, while I will not divulge how much they spent on dinner, I amazed to find out that 8 people ate salads and kibbehs and meats and drinks and wines till we were full and there were left over for less than 100 dollars. Crazy!!!!Here's to a week of feeling better and progressing a lot farther in Spanish!

Karma Strikes

2009-11-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

Perhaps as vengeance for my consuming of another mammals small intestines, I am now having all the juice wrung out of my digestive system very slowly. At least that is what it feels like; whatever it is, is the one of the worst stomachaches ever. Argh! I would say "Oy, I will never eat another animal's digestive system again!" but I am not superstitious. Therefore, I say, "Oy, I cannot wait until this is over so that I can eat more intestines! Or anything. Or stand up straight."
I really hope it wasn't the intestines that disagree with me, that would be quite disappointing.

More Firsts

2009-11-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

On Sunday I went with the Goldfarbs to their country house in Tigre, a small vacation town a half an hour outside of the city. The house was amazing, gorgeous, with a huge indoor barbecue pit/shelf constructuion, an in-ground pool, and an entire golf course in their backyard. I went with Raquel and two fo her grandchildren; we were the first to arrive. I went bike-riding around the gated community, a Jewish country club called Koaj, with one of the Goldfarb grandchildren (Toby), my first time biking here in Argentina (and boy do I miss it) and by the time we got back everyone was there, the sladas were out and the meat was grilling. The asado was, of course, amazing, and I ate more meat in that one sitting than I have ever eaten in any given week; the meat was delicious. One of the main highlights, though, was the seltzer, which they served in spritz bottles. I have never had seltzer so bubbly and fresh-tasting. The spritz bottle beats any of the pre-bottled seltzers at home, and I am tempted to buy one when I get back. If anyone wants to know what they can get me for a birthday present, well, a spritz-bottle for seltzer would do the trick. It was wonderful.
The other highlight, also a first, was the mate. Mate, pronounced Mah-teh, is the Argentine national drink and drug. Everyone does it, passing around the gourd filled with the herb at parks and meals and just when hanging out, every taking turns sucking through the straw, or bombillo (the ll makes a sh sound). There is an art to mate, and people sit around in circles while person prepares the mate in a gourd and passes it to someone; when that person finishes the mate he gives it back to the preparer, who refills the gourd and passes it to the next person, and so on. It is quite bitter, though some cut it with sugar, and it provides quite a buzz thanks to a copious quantity of the active ingredient in the herb, mateine, which contains trimethylxanthine, a bitter xanthine alkaloid that is an odorless white crystalline powder in its natural form. It is also a psychoactive stimulant drug, and probably the reason mate is so popular. I cannot see myself becoming a regular user, as the withdrawal symptoms include pretty bad headaches, but maybe I shall buy my own gourd and mate to bring home with me.

Meat, meat, meat

2009-11-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

I have eaten more beef over these past few days than I have in any other month of my life. Shabbos, of course, was shabbos, and the usual meat was served, either in brisket or cholent form. On sunday I went to an asado with the Goldfarb family, where I ate chorizo and more ribs than I can remember, and yesterday, ah, yesterday, I went to what is considered one of the better meat restaurants here in Buenos Aires and ate, not only a steak, but a small intestine. Well, not an entire small intestine, but delicious chunks of a cow's small intestine. For years I have been dying to eat real 'kishke,' as it were, and finally I had the opportunity. This was not the starchy-orange stuffing in a gross paper wrapping that you see in American cholents. In fact, this wasn't stuffed at all. In fact, the English bit of the menu called it tripe (but cow's stomachs are not tubular and thin-ish). They were wonderful grilled sections of innards with a meaty flavor far more intense than muscle and with a delightful crispy on the outside but very soft, almost liver-ish, on the inside. I will have to go back to try the 'real' meat, which I was actually in the mood for, but, when I saw the offal on the menu, I had to resist. The offal was anything but, and everyone should give it a shot. On the other hand, the coconut flan I got for dessert was pretty terrible. And, in keeping with the great prices, two kebabs of small intestine, a steak, a large order of fries, shared, a liter of beer, shared, a bottle of seltzer, shared, and the flan put me back 70 pesos, or about 18.50 American. Including table service. Argentina can be the solution for many a guy's dating dilemmas. Going out to eat is so expensive in New York, especially if, as with most frum girls, the guy pays for the entire date (the other option is 'going Dutch' where each pays for his/her own, supposedly gaining popularity). Here, the greatest meal for two in the greatest restaurant won't put the fellow back more than 40 dollars, which, in a nice New York restaurant, won't even buy one person a steak. It's too bad the airfare is so expensive; Buenos Aires could become a great date-cation place.

My First Busy-ish 24 Hours in a While

2009-10-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

The last 24 hours haven't felt packed or busy but when I think back on the day I did quite a bit. Last night I went out to meet two girls from Buenos Aires who run a website for young Jewish travelers here. We were originally going to out for tea, but it is now in the hot and humid stage of the weather cycle, so we decided on ice cream instead. I am glad we did; as I have mentioned before, the ice creams here are amazing. I had coconut cream and lemon tart. Perfect combination for such a sultry day. As we sat down, one of them, Brenda, said something in Spanish, and said it was an expression that refers to eating for therapy. She was wondering what the expression is in English; I told her I have no idea. She told me to ask any Jewish girl, which I found a bit funny. If any of you know the expression that refers to the act of eating when depressed and down, let me know; I will thank you personally in the next post.
We spoke about a number of things, including the financial situation in Argentina, and the subway system, which, I think, deserves a bit of a rant. I need to preface the rant with the statement that, overall, I like the subte here. It is very cheap, it covers most of the city, and it is far faster than taking the terribly slow and terribly crowded buses. However, I have two problems. First of all, the subte closes by 11! After around 10:50, you have no chance of getting a subway ride! In a city where people don't even start partying until after 2am, I find this ridiculous. The subte also closes randomly and erratically for strikes (as they did this afternoon). The subte is also always extremely crowded. It may just be the line I take, but at noon the cars are packed and at rush hour you can forget it. Yesterday morning at around 7:50 I went to the subte to go to San Telmo. The platform was packed. The first subte came and it was more than packed. Imagine the E train during rush hour at the Queens Plaza stop and how many people are in that train. Double that number, and you'll have an idea of how many people were squeezed into the subway car. If one person got out, the crowd would push until one person managed to squeeze him or herself into the car. Five subways passed before I was able to get on, and even when I did get on I was barely standing in the door. Where are all these people coming from!
This morning I helped translate and edit a fundraising brochure for a Jewish Organization in Buenos Aires called AKIM that helps adults with disabilities reach autonomy. It was fun to put my only skill ever learned in college into practice! In the afternoon I went to the Fundacion Favaloro, a transplant clinic where I will doing an internship shadowing some doctors. On the subte, at the stop before mine, a young guy walked onto my car with a kippah on; he was first orthodox Jew I have seen on the subway. Then, he started speaking English! Of course I introduced myself, missing my stop but making a friend in the process. He had recently arrived, and, hopefully, I will be able to connect him the kosher hostel and the Jewish community here. It is a funny feeling, being here for only a month and yet showing someone else around; it happens as well when I am asked directions and I find myself giving them accurately (this has happened a number of times, though I must say I have yet to ask for directions myself). I got to join on some inpatient visits, and I also sat in on outpatient visits where I was introduced as a doctor from the USA, and where I sat as one fellow was told he had multiple carcinomas and would need a complete colectomy, while another was told that he has 15 lesions on his liver and has about two months to live. Not a very uplifting part of the day, though on the bright side there was one lady who, prior to her coming to the FF, had 56 separate operations on her digestive system. The Dr I am working for did a colon reconstruction and, seeing her, I could believe she had ever been sick a day in her life.
I left a bit early (the doctor sees patients until 8!) and went back to the apartment to get ready for my first run in months. This run, however, would be a run like I have never had before. As many of you know, my knee has been misbehaving over the last two and a half years, and I haven't been able to run much; I didn't even bring my running shoes with me. There has recently been a lot of talk about barefoot running however, and this evening I gave it a shot. It hurts like heck. That is, my feet hurt and my calves hurt, though everyone says that they will until you get used to it. My knee, however, felt fine (though maybe the pain in my feet wasn't letting me feel the pain in my knee). Judgment Day on that is tomorrow; if all is well I may find myself attracting stares (all pointed downwards) more often. Today was Gnocchi Day in Argentina, as is the 29th of every month, and we had homemade gnocchi for dinner. Divine.
This shabbos will be my first in Recoleta; I'll be going to the only MO shul in the city, run by a Bnei Akiva shaliach, and on Sunday I will go to Tigre with the Goldfarbs.
Buenas Noches and have a great Shabbos!

The Weather, the Cops, and a Knife

2009-10-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

I have been noticing a pattern with the spring weather here; it has repeated itself a few times and it is comfortingly regular. At first I thought that the weather was a bit erratic, but I know realize that it is bizarrely regular. To start at the beginning of the cycle, you have beautiful days. Gorgeous blue skies with very few clouds if any, cool but not cold temperatures, pleasant breezes, and almost no humidity. As the days go by, the weather turns warmer, the skies cloudier, and the atmosphere stickier. When it begins to feel too hot, too humid, too gross to go outside, all of a sudden, almost from no where, the skies will fill with thick blankets of gray and, out of the what-used-to-be-blue, rain falls in a steady stream from the faucets of heaven, with great intensity, for hours straight. However, only an hour into the rainstorm, anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside will feel a drastic change in temperature. Where it once was hot, it is now quite chilly, where the atmosphere was humid, now the only humidity is soaking his clothes. It is a bit strange but also a bit nice to have such predictability in the weather. I hear, however,t aht once the summer starts the cool and rainy stages will be skipped and it will be hot and muggy and gross day-in-day-out. When that happens I am fleeing to the South.
In other news, after my final Spanish class today, I returned quickly to the apartment where I picked up my book of short stories, a pear I had bought earlier, and my pocketknife. Well, the pocketknife is a Leatherman, and a bit scarier looking than a Swiss Army knife; the blade is probably twice as big and quite sharp, but it is the most benign knife in my possession, and I do like to cut up my pears while I eat them. I walked to a nearby park to sit outside, read, and eat chunks of pear, I found a nice spot on the grass, and commenced my snack and a very good story by Anatole France. As I sat there cutting up my apples with my slightly intimidating knife, all of a sudden, I felt a presence over me and a shadow blocked out the sun. It was a cop! A police, staring me down while I sat on the grass cutting up my pear with a Leatherman in public! "Buenas tardes," he said. "Buenas tardes," I responded, waiting for him to confiscate my knife or haul my butt to jail or whatever they do around here. He says, "no es permite a sentar a la cesped." "Que," I asked, surprised?
He repeated himself. I was not allowed to sit on the grass, I must go read and cut up my pear on a bench. I like this country.

I moved!

2009-10-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I moved in with a older Argentine couple. Finally.
The hostel was getting to be too much; too much nice, too much activity, too much lack of sleep, too much lack of privacy, and too much lack of speaking Spanish. Now in this apartment I have my own room and bathroom, breakfast and dinner with the family, peace, quiet, and, last night, my first uninterrupted night of sleep in a week and a half.
I also took my Spanish test today which was quite easy. It is funny, though, that one can do so well in a language in a classroom setting but fail to be able to converse. This is one of the reasons I have decided to leave the class and instead learn Spanish through trial and error, by immersion and attempting to communicate. Hopefully this Thursday I will start and internship with a transplant surgeon. I went to one of his research conferences today, and, though I barely understood a word, he wore his Mt Sinai white coat (he used to work there) which made me feel right at home.

My First Steak

2009-10-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night, after the Futbol game, I went to my first restaurante de carne in Buenos Aires. There were five of us; four Israeli from the hostel and me. We hailed down a ffew cabs until we found one who would let us squeeze five into the car, and we were off to Asian (pronounced Ah'-see-ahn) in Palermo. The actual place is very nice, clean, with a simple decor, very comfy chairs, a neat light that slowly changes colors along the tops of the walls, and good music playing in the background. The waitress spoke perfect English as well. However, all that was not important; we (or at least I) came for the food.
As we sat down we received complementary shot-glasses filled with a very yummy pine-apple-orange-something drink to refresh us as we read the all-English menu. They have gizzards! I almost ordered them, I really was this close, but I in the end my desire to have an Argentine steak was too strong. Four of us ordered the rib-eye steak and one very brave soul ordered the rib steak. After we ordered they brought a basket of bread and - this was quite shocking - everytime we finished the bread basket they brought another one! Unlimited bread! That never happens in New York!
The rib-eye was a near-perfect piece of meat, glazed with pineapple among other things (it is an asian-fusion place) but it was not too sweet; perfectly cooked, a very nice size (say, as big as two fists), and with a side of delicious chunks of fried potatoes instead of the ubiquitous french fry, it was one of the best steak dinners I have ever eaten, easily on par with Prime Grill in New York. The rib steak blew my mind. It was at least (I am underestimating here I think) a foot and a half long, 8 inches wide at its widest, and a good inch and a half thick. With a huge bone running through it covered in crispy fat, it was a piece of meat Fred Flintstone would have been proud of. I've never seen its like in a New York restaurant. The fellow who ordered it wasn't able to finish, so I had the privilege of eating his bone. Yum!
The best part was that my steak cost 54 pesos, or about 14 dollars! The massive steak was 94 pesos, or around 25 dollars! I found out after that Asian is one of the most expensive restaurants in Buenos Aires! I cannot wait to eat more.

Futbol!!!!!

2009-10-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

Futbol is a sport unlike any other. The fans are more intense than in any other sport, to the degree that they have separate seating for the different fans, and different antrance and exit times for them, so as not to start trouble. This game was definitely the most intense sporting event I have ever been to, though I haven't been to that many. The stadium was huge; it's maximum capacity is 65,000, and it was pretty much filled. We got there a good hour and a half early, and the stadium was already mostly full, with people watching the River-Boca little league game as a sort of pre-show, and the fans were pretty rowdy for the little league. I couldn't wait to see what the real game would be like.
When River Plate came out, not only was there an immense amount of cheering and singing, but red and white smoke came pouring out of smoke bombs that people had, as well out of pipes bordering the field. Boca, of course, elicited no such cheering and smoking. The cheering, really the singing, is what impressed me the most about the game. The River fans don't just have a few generic cheers, they sang at least 6 different unique and elaborate songs, and all 55,000 thousand fans sang and jumped simultaneously. It wasn't choreographed or directed, but it was amazingly impressive. During half time we saw the fans tearing up thousands of sheets of paper, newspapers, anything they could get their hands on, and when the second half of the game started, it poured homemade confetti and streamers. You couldn't see through the thickness of the blizzard; it was a true Nor'easter of paper.
The game itself was nothing amazing, in fact, it moved a bit slow, and most of the time, while the ball was in the middle of the field, it was quite boring. It was only when the ball moved close to one of the goals that there was any real excitement (though those moments were really exciting). The game of futbol seems, to me, an unexperienced eye, to be a large number of people kicking a ball back and forth across a field, but unable to actually ever get anywhere due to the number of people (9) on the field. They just run back and forth, waiting for someone to act violently, thereby giving the other side a free kick, and an actual chance at a goal. This was, by the way, how the first goal was scored. The atmosphere was the best part, and it got so intense that, even after the Boca fans left the stadium, they held us for a good half an hour as the Boca fans were trying to force themselves back to the entrance to start trouble. We were literally under siege in the stadium! All this, too, with the safest possible score; the game was a tie, 1:1, so no one had any real reason to get too riled up. The fans were definitely the best part; I have never seen anything like that,and probably never will. I went with a group from Hillel, two of whom were Brits, and they said that, though English players are much better, and that the games themselves are a lot more fun, they had never seen fans and atmosphere like this. It was quite an experience.
Tomorrow I move out of the hostel! Finally!
Buenas Noches, I am off to eat at my first meat restaurant in BsAs!

A Hungarian Shabbos

2009-10-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

This past shabbos I felt more at home than usual, for a few unexpected reasons. A Hungarian fellow, Reuven Weiser, invited me to his house for Friday night dinner. Well, he was born in Argentina, but his parents are from Hungary, and he identifies strongly with his roots. My paternal grandfather, as many of you know, is also Hungarian. Interestingly enough, like my grandfather, his wife is Sefaradi. It may be coincidence, or it may actually be mutual minhagim, but Reuven Weiser did a few things that reminded me of home. The first was kiddush; he said kiddush with the same tune that we do, though lots of people use said tune, and it was not that remarkable. The second was his bracha of 'al netilas yadayim.' He said it out loud and ended it the exact same way Sabba does. Well, not exactly the same; he doesn't yell it out at the top of his lungs, but those of you who know will know what I am talking about. After cutting the challah he tosses the challah to everyone at the table instead of passing around by hand or in a bread-basket, exactly the way we do it at home too. After that it was just a normal Argentine-style meal except for two things. At one point, he brought out a homemade book, over 200 pages long, that traced his geneaology in Hungary. He was able to find some relatives as far back as the 17th Century! He told me it took his entire life to work on, and I was quite impressed. The second was that we sang Sol a Kakas Mar, a traditional Hungarian-Jewish song. I knew the words, him, mas o menos as they say here. Sabba and Judy Lefkovits would have been proud.
Tonight I went the Hillel, to a barbecue that had as well as to get my ticket for tomorrow, and I need to correct something that I said in the previous post. I thought that this River vs Boca is the biggest rivalry in Argentina. I met with a British fellow, and he told me that anyone who knows anything about futbol (not me) knows that River-Boca is one of the biggest club rivalries in the WORLD and that the River-Boca game is one of the biggest sporting events in the INTERnatioanl community. My analgoy, then, was innacurate. I guess this game would be more like said Yankees-Sox game if it was also a World Series game and if the world actually cared about baseball.
I also mentioned to a few people that I was going to the game and they said "Do you have a gun?" They have separate sides of the stadium for the different fans, and they let out each side at different times, that's how intense it is. Psyche!

Chinatown and Futbol

2009-10-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

These last couple of days have been up-and-down. I've been a bit under the weather with a sore-throat that was making it difficult to breathe. Interestingly though, with a sensitive throat, the air-pollution here in Buenos Aires is a lot not more noticeable; with the sore throat the irony of the city's name is much funnier. Everyone seems to smoke here, and the streets are so crowded with cars and disgusting fumes pour our from older cars and buses wherever you walk. Cough.
Yesterday afternoon, after a morning staying in the hostel, I decided to head outside for a bit, which is when I noticed this. I also (finally) climbed up one of those huge trees that a scattered about the city. The trunks are big enough that it would take at least 5 people holding hands to wrap around one, and their massive branches extend fifty feet out from the trunk, some of them close and horizontal to the ground. I climbed up about ten feet or so up the tree in one of the local parks in Belgrano and sat up above everyone eating a pear.
After I finished my pear and people-watching I walked to the very small Chinatown, which is actually close to where I am now staying. The entire Chinatown is one block block long and every store on the block is either a Chinese restaurant or a souvenir store whose contents fulfill every stereotype of every Far-East country on the map. After my brief excursion into the Orient I bought some crackers and cheese at one of the kosher shops, also close by, and sat in the Plaza Belgrano reading Kurt Vonnegut (one of the books I bought at Walrus Books). I haven't mentioned Walrus Books yet? For shame! Walrus Books is a used bookstore devoted entirely to English language books. It is a small but amazing place, whose books, while not amazingly cheap for used books, are significantly cheaper than the over-priced new books in the bigger bookstores; their selection is also much better, as the mainstream store only stocks cheap thrillers and pop-fiction. Walrus Books has a bit of everything, from Ayn Rand to Vonnegut. I will be going back.
Anyway, at the Plaza Belgrano I saw a guy reading a Spanish-English version of The Murders on the Rue Morgue. Naturally, I struck up a conversation with him, a poli-sci student at the University of Buenos Aires who wants to write a short story. He told me that his uncle recommended Poe to him to get a good idea of what a good short story is; I recommended a few others to him (read O. Henry), and I offered to lend him my book of short stories. We also talked a bit about Obama and politics. It was interesting that, until the Nobel Peace Prize, most people here didn't concern themselves much with Obama, and they still don't know much about him. Most people I have spoken to have no idea that he is trying to reform our healthcare system, the biggest issue in the State! Yet, when he won the Nobel Peace Prize, everyone had an opinion, and none of them very good. We're now friends on facebook.
On my way home I bought a ticket to the futbol game this sunday. Psyche! The game is River Plate vs Boca Juniors, the biggest rivalry this side of the equator. If you imagined a Yankees vs Red Sox game, where the Yankees starting line-up included Gaius Julies Caesar, Ulysses Grant, Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington, Henry II, Ernest Hemingway, Achilles, Windows, Coca-Cola, and the Roadrunner and the Red Sox starting lining up being Gnaeus Pompey Magnus, Robert E. Lee, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Beckett, William Faulkner, Hector, Mac, Pepsi, and Wile. E Coyote, and you might get an idea of how intense this rivalry is. I have to pick my sides.
Good Shabbos to all!

A Benefit of Traveling Alone

2009-10-21T16:11:00.001-07:00

Traveling can have its downside. When you have a travel with a friend you are never alone, you build on your friendship and create dozens of shared experiences, you laugh at what you see together, and, most importantly, you come out of the trip with great stories and memories to tell and reminisce over when you're tottering down the hall on your walker together years later. Traveling alone finds one lonely, wandering from one site to the next, wondering what it would be like to have someone to share your experiences with, introspecting too much, and taking lots of empty pictures.
However, when you do travel with a friend, you are in a comfortable place that excludes, to an extent, people outside your duo (or trio, or however large your social circle is). The trip gets filtered through your friendship and every you see is interpreted through the relationship that you already have with said travel buddy. When you are traveling alone, not only is everything fresh, but you have the opportunity to make new friends and, even if only for a day or two, form a much deeper bond than you would have if you were already with a friend from the past.
I am, of course, not suggesting that you can become amazingly close with a person in a day or two, but when you have a need for companionship, you open up that much more easily.
Over the past few days I got to hang out with a woman from my Spanish class and a girl from England that we randomly met in the Recoleta Cemetery; I cannot speak for them but I had a lot of fun, a lot more fun with these two otherwise total strangers than I had on any other day by myself. Forming a connection with another person is really an amazing magical thing that has inherent value. In the places we call home, if we are lucky, we have a strong network of friends and relatives, people we already have connections with and can count on, but we can (at least, I almost did) forget the fun of connecting to someone else based only, at first, on our common language. Here's to many more random travel buddies, and here are my first two travel buddies:

Sunday and onwards

2009-10-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

I spent part of Friday and Sunday in the center of town. The buildings around here are magnificent (look at the pictures on Facebook). On Friday on Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian walkway/mall, the middle of the walkway fills with people selling all kinds of crafts, from handmaid mate gourds to massive knitted bras (I have no idea who would, or could wear on of those things). Plaza de Mayo, the most famous plaza in a city a dozens of plazas, is home to the Casa Rosada, the Cabildo, the Catedral Metropolitina, and other beautiful buildings. The area around the Plaza is also full of gorgeous architecture and large statues and monuments. I wish I knew more of the history of BsAs.
On Sunday I went to San Telmo, the ex-Upper-East-Side of BsAs before yellow fever drove the upper-class out of the area. Sunday sees a massive crafts market open up along Calle Defense. The market reminded me a bit of Nachalat Binyamin in Israel, except it is much much bigger. It goes on at least ten blocks if not more, and they sell absolutely everything; there also musicians and tango dancers all along the way. I did not take pictures. I also found a magnificent place. It is truly wonderful. See for yourself:

This was a theater that they turned into a bookstore. The balconies are reading areas, and all of the original theater is still preserved, including the beautifully painted ceiling. Most of the books are in Spanish, though I did manage track down the only used bookstore devoted entirely to English books. Very awesome, but very dangerous.
After hanging out in the city for most of the day I went to the Parque 3 de Febrero, to the Rosedal, where they had a free concert from Django something or other. It was fun, and the bassist had an amazing moustache. Dinner was pizza (which came with rolls and an herby mayonnaise and toast rounds with an eggplant salsa) and a submarino, a massive mug of steamed milk poured over a chocolate bar. The pizza was, as it seems it will always be here, mediocre, but the submarino was nice.
Yesterday I met with one of the Americans here working for the Hillel,had ice cream, and chatted about many of the social activities and other opportunities to integrate with the community. The conversation was quite productive, and the ice cream, was, as usual, amazing! after class I went to the Recoleta Cemetery with a lady from my class. If you think it sounds a bit strange weird to go to a cemetery for fun, well, so did I, until I saw it. It is truly a necropolis. Each tomb is big enough for a small family to live in, and probably cost as much as would to feed one of those families for a year. They are magnificent, but I don't understand why someone would go to all that trouble and expense on the dead. These are massive construction, and each building has a cellar where most of the family is buried; only the Patriarch and Matriarch are buried in the main room. There are a number of famous Argentines buried here, including Evita. Most of the tombs are very well-kept, but we saw a few that were quite rundown, and we even saw a casket that was broken open (we could see the fellow's leg bones). We also met a British girl on holiday on her own, and she tagged along for the cemetery, ice cream after (yes, twice in one day), and today as well. We (Margaret from class, Leona for Manchester, and I) went to La Boca, one of the more dangerous but also more famous neighborhoods, where we saw the famous bombonera futbol stadium, the famous colored houses, the famous thing they call tango, and drank the famous Quilems, Argentina's local beer. The tango was cool, the beer was cool (but not so great, very light, it is like a moscato d'asti of beers, and that isn't a compliment). The conversation was the best part; it's really nice to talk to someone about all the british tv shows and comedians! Afterwards I bought a few books at the used bookstores and called it a night.
Buenas Noches!

Last Shabbos

2009-10-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last shabbos was quite interesting, for a few reasons. Friday night, as usual, was pretty normal; shul was the standard Jabad fare, with the added singing and dancing of it being a Shabbat Chatan (the groom came in from Uruguay along with a chunk of his community and the Jabad rabbi of Montevideo), and davening was all the longer for it. I ate a the hostel this time, which was nice (the food, as usual, was delicious) though I ended up speaking in Hebrew instead of having the opportunity to practice Spanish. I will continue to go to families in the future.
On Shabbos day I went to the shul on Moldes again. It was the shul's 80th anniversary, and there was a nice kiddush in honor of the occasion. I also received 4 invites for lunch! I'm set for the next few weeks. One invitation from a Hungarian fellow who's hobby is tracing Jewish families in Hungary before the Second World War 2. He asked a few questions (I didn't know the answer to some of them), and I will probably have more to say about him next week.
The fellow who got to me first, Alejandro Fuchs, did not speak much English, which was excellent, as I got to practice. He had another family over, last name Fireman (yes, but here those fellows are called Bomboneros). He spoke a bit of English, and in our Spanglish conversation, I came to realize a few very interesting things.
One question that has been on my mind is why they do not build an eruv in Buenos Aires. There are tens of thousands of Jews, easily over a dozen shuls, and not carrying on shabbos is a huge pain (though maybe that is only because I am not used to it). When I asked, they told me it was because the government and people of BsAs are not very open-minded. We segued into general prejudices, and what they said, both about the people and government of Argentina, as well as their own personal feelings, made me realize how forward America really is. It seems that the people here are barely accepting of other religions and practices, at least so long as they remain private, but ask to build an eruv and people start getting suspicious. There are very few black people in BsAs, and the people that I talk to have a pretty backward way of thinking about people, mostly gleaned from movies. I know all the arguments of the pay discrepancy, and the opportunity discrepancy, the ratio of blacks to whites in jail, and all the other issues in the US, but stepping outside and seeing the States from an outsider's perspective makes me realize that, whoever much farther we have to go, we have really come far.
Another really fascinating little anecdote that happened over shabbos requires a bit of preface. Most of the Orthodox Jews here seem to be, as they are in the rest of world, politically right wing. I have already heard of a number of them say that they do not like Obama because he will not be good for the Jews. I also must mention that Argentina has a free healthcare option that, while not frequented by the wealthy, who opt to buy private insurance, allows any Argentine regardless of income or class receive free healthcare. At lunch on shabbos I mentioned America's lack of free healthcare. The portenos, all of them politically right wing and, if they were in the states, would have voted for McCain, were shocked. It took them awhile to understand what I was saying (No tienen seguro para todos in la Estados Unidos?), but once I got my message through, a big grin spread across their faces. "You mean Argentina is more advanced than the USA?! We are more advanced than the USA!" Something that we take as politics is taken for granted in Argentina. We here lots about how the USA is the last fully developed country to lack healthcare for all (though form what I hear Switzerland doesn't have it), but it strikes harder when you realize that a country that is otherwise a good few kilometers behind us in every other way gives every one of its citizens access to a doctor.
Finally, I found out, that Buenos Aires in the NY of Argentina. I shall explain. In Buenos Aires, the portenos have the attitude that the only really worthwhile part of Argentina is Buenos Aires; the rest of the country is just around to feed and support the city, and form the country that the city can rule. The portenos see Mendoza, Cordoba, Bariloche, etc, as nice vacations spots as best. This attitude is infuriating to many Argentines, and the people outside of BsAs band together against BsAs in non-porteno pride. It works the same in New York, except the New Yorkers know, for a fact, that their city truly is the best in the world; the portenos are just fooling themselves. :) It was a very interesting lunch.
I need to backtrack a bit for the next story. At davening Friday night, the rabbi from Montevideo spoke instead of the rabbi from the Jabad Olleros. It was clear, from his Spanish, that he was from New York. Wait! Another story first. This story that I am about to tell you shocked me. I have never had something like this happen to me in the States. Ever. I almost couldn't believe my ears. While I was sitting in shul, one of the regulars who I have talked to before came over and asked me, "........quieres novia?" "Mas despacio, por favor." I replied. He asked, "Tienes novia?" I responded, "No, no tengo novia. Por que?" He said, "Quieres novia? Cuantos anos tienes?" "Veintiuno, pero en poco tiempo tendre veintidos," was my reply. Then came the shocker, "Ah, vos mas joven para haber novia!" And that was that. Mas joven!!! At 21, mas joven! In the states, over the last two and half years a have gotten at least 20 calls/emails from people who want to get me a novia (no exaggeration.) Now, it is not that I don't appreciate the offers, and I know everyone who tries is doing so because they care and because they are doing something that they see as valuable and right, and they are right. However, the dating scene in the States is quite rushed, and, even though most guys don't feel that they are wasting time at 21/22, most of the ones I know have entered the market. No one who has ever tried to set me up has been turned away by my age. 21, in the American frum community is perfectly normal to date, if not marry at. Heck, I'll soon be surpassing the age at which my father got married! That wasn't even a shidduch date! And here I am in Argentina where just mentioning my age is enough to turn away my first potential shidduch! I like it here. I must stress, again, that this in not because I have no interest in dating and because I resent people trying to set me up, but because people here are not so stressed and rushed about dating, to the point that they are fine with actively pushing it off to a later age. A mi me gusta Buenos Aires!
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the Uruguayan rabbi who was obviously from the States. At Seudah Shlishit I approached him and asked him if he was from New York. 35 years ago he told me. Where are you from? And what's your name?
Aaron Muller...No way! Aaron Muller?! Fancy meeting you here!
It turns out, when I was still researching my trip a few months back, before I decided to come to BsAs I email this rabbi, asking him about Uruguay, where I could stay, and any opportunities for integration in his community. He did not respond immediately, being in the Elul rush, but he told me that my email came up right before shabbos, and he was planning on responding after the weekend. Quite a coincidence.

I couldn't help it

2009-10-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I broke. It is so hard keeping kosher, it was too much. I had to find the first McDonald's and just go for it. How liberating! I never thought eating McDonald's. I mean, I've always heard that the food isn't so great, but the feeling of liberation after biting into that burger! Wait, what? The McDonald's was kosher!

Alright, so I was kidding. I have desire to stop eating kosher, and it is pretty easy to do here. I just had to do the whole kosher McDonald's shtick at least once, and I wanted to at least find something positive to say about it. Well, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever eaten. In fact, it was better than pretty much any other fast food kosher burger I've ever had. The fries were standard, thin, crispy and salty, not bad but not outstanding either, and the burger was a bizarre exercise in uniformity. The three buns (I got a BigMac) and two burgers were perfectly circlular and were exactly the same size. The flavors were also strangely uniform, without any texture or flavor contrast at all. I can easily see how a regular diet of these can desensitize someone's taste buds. I can see myself eating there again if I ever happen to be in the area and hungry; it's fast, cheap, and, while not great or even healthy for that matter, it is a decent fast option for a place where you can't even find kosher food in a normal supermarket (without the kosher list, which is in Spanish and which I will not shlep around). I won't be making any more pilgrimages to McDonald's however. I was Yotzei, I got the experince behind me, and I am glad it is over.

Rosedal and Park February 3

2009-10-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Monday was a national holiday here, though they call it Dia de la Razas (Races, as in, Italian, Chinese, Indian, etc), not Columbus Day. In order to avoid the crowds and protests I decided to go to Buenos Aires' answer to Central Park, Parque 3 de Febrero. was a gorgeous day, with a sky so purely blue and not a cloud in the sky you just want to stay outside forever. I walked to the park, which is huge, and had a small picnic of crackers and cheese while I read. A dog (everyone has a dog here) ran over and started eating my food! It's owner called it back, but after I finished I went over (to show there were no hard feelings; also, the owner spoke English). I ended up talking to her for a bit about Buenos Aires, studying in England, and her Philosophy major. Afterward, I went to one of the most amazing planned parks I have ever been to. In the middle of February 3rd is a section of the park called Rosedal. It is stunning. There are beautiful paths through pristine lawns that feature the busts of many famous poets (including Dante, Cervantes, and Shakespeare!) and the most magnificent rose garden I have ever seen. I hate to say it, but New York could do with a Rosedal.

Doppelgangers

2009-10-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

This seems to be the land of doppelgangers. So far I have seen the long lost twins of:
Josh Wisotsky
A tall Chaim Nemetyoff
A tall Dina Margelovitch
Estie Roth
Gil Kobrin
Yehoshua Nechemyah Laker
and Jamie Oliver among others.
It's kinda bizarre.
Some of these doubles not only look alike, but have very similar mannerisms. Have you all followed me out here? Either that or I am living a kind of Truman Show and you are reusing actors.

Chag II

2009-10-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

The second days of Yom Tov were, for the most part, very nice. Shabbos was a normal shabbos, davening and eating way more than is humanly possible. I went to the Jabad on Friday night, where, weirdly, they did hakafos (Jabad does hakafos on both shmini atzeres and simchas torah), and it was actually good, in retrospect, that I was at the friday night hakafos. The rest of shabbos went by very well, with a continuation of the hospitality and good food that I experienced the first days of Yom Tov. Motzaei Shabbos was different. A few people told me that I had to go to one of the Jabads in the area, that it is the place to be for simchas torah. Some other people warned me that the drinking of alcohol was common at that certain Jabad. I figured I would go; how bad could it be? They'd daven maariv, perhaps make kiddush, start hakafos, and then bring out booze. I probably wouldn't imbibe, but it would be a new experience.
I got the Jabad at 7:15 to be on the safe side; I wasn't sure when they would start. I sat in the Jabad for over an hour, learning, talking to people, and watching the preparations. A few people approched me as a new face, which was very nice, including a young autistic fellow. He has been, so far, the only person here who I have been able to talk to, in Spanish, on their own level. Puts thing in a weird perspective. My spirits were lifted a bit when I saw the folks setting up preparing for what looked like a meal. It looked like I'd get free food in the bargain!
Finally, at around 8:30, they started maariv. It also started to rain. To pour. It poured like I had never seen before. The falling of the rain sounded like thunder, it started suddenly, and it lasted the entire night. After maariv, they had to move the tables from the sukkah to the building. By the time all this was done, it was almost 10, and the bookshelves were lined with bottles of vodka. This whole time, people are getting very rowdy, singing and stomping and yelling. They brought out beer for kiddush, which, as far as I know, is totally not a valid kiddush drink. Luckily they did bring out wine for the rabbi to make kiddush. As the rabbi picked up his cup of wine, I could see that he had been pregaming. This tall, white-bearded, otherwise dignified rabbi's eyes were red. Then, when he started making kiddush, my suspicions were confirmed. The kiddush was a mockery. He paused in qeird places and did all kinds of weird sing-songy things with the brachos in order to elicit laughs from the congregants, and completely forgot havdalah. As he was in the middle of Shehechyanu a bunch of peopled yelled out and he changed shehecheyanu to Ha'aish. They served food, and people ate and, of course drank. It was getting way too out of hand for me, and I left early; luckily i had hakafos the previous night. I have nothing in particular against people who drink.
I don't enjoy it myself, I don't quite understand the appeal, but I do see how it can be anjoyable for some. However, if I am ever going to get drunk, it will be socially, with friends, not under so bogus religious pretense. Anyway, when did simchas torah turn into Purim (which also begs the question of why Purim can be synonymous with wild drunken revelry)?
On my way home I met one of the fellows I met at Rav Oppenheimer's shul, Pablo Neustadt, and he invited me upstairs to his neighbor's apartment for dinner. I ended up sleeping there because the rain was falling too hard for a half hour walk home. The people here are amazing.
The next day I went to Rav Oppenheimer's shul which, though also a bit different from home (it is yekki after all), is a bit more orderly and respectful. I also discovered a bit of information about this congregation that blew my mind. This kehillah of around 150-200 orthodox men (and their families, which includes the ashkenazi and sefardi minyanim) are 98% baalei teshuvahs. 98% of these men were not religious at all! That is a huge number! At one point during the luncheon (I will get to that) there were around 50 people in the room and Hungarian fellow I was speaking with told me that, as far as he could tell, he was the only FFB in the room. Amazing. I was also impressed when the sephardi minyan joined the ashkenazi minyan for hakafos and mussaf.
After hakafos the shul had a buffet luncheon sponsored by the Chassan Bereishis with an enormous amount of amazing food.Not only were the tables laden with salads, delis, and sushi, but the waiters continuously brought out platters of kibbeh, lachmanjin, empanadas, potato knishes, and some other meat pastry. At many jewish events the scavengers, the people who hang out by the entrance of the kitchen, usually late-teens and early-twenties, pick the platters clean before they can make their way to the general populace. Not here. Enough food came out so that the scavengers were sated and the normal people got food. Then, more food came, so that evryone had second and thirds. And then more food came. And more. They were still bringing out platters of food as everyone was sitting down to bentch. I've never seen anything like it. There is always that one really good tray at the wedding or bar-mitzvah or luncheon that someone didn't get. Not here. It was amazing. I am going to be ridiculously fat by the time I get home.

I ate...!

2009-10-12T06:14:00.000-07:00

Goose eggs! Yes, that's right, I ate goose eggs over shabbos. It was amazing. Actually, they are pretty much just like big chicken eggs, but I think just having eaten them is kind of awesome. That was only one of the highlights of the weekend, but I don't have time to post everything now; today is Dia de la Razas here (Latin America's answer to Columbus Day) so there are no classes. I am going to avoid all of the protests and crowds and walk to the very large Parque Tres de Febrero. Supposedly there are a few awesome things to see there, and it is a beautiful for a stroll in the park, perhaps a picnic.
Speaking of a picnic, I experienced a phenomenal Argentine tradition last Wednesday called the asado. An asado is pretty much a barbecue on steriods. Burgers and franks are no where to be found, instead, steaks and these massive ribs are the stars. The steaks are good, but the ribs, with a thick layer of flavorful fat that, over the two hours they spend over the coals (if you use gas here they publicly flog you after a first offense, after that, to the gallows), renders into the meat and make them, frankly, ridiculously good. So unhealthy but who cares?
And to segue from unhealthy, after Hoshanah Rabbah davening the Jabad served breakfast to the congregation (perhaps rewarding us for sitting through a two hour davening on a weekday). I had conits de dulce de leche. The best way to describe it would be to say that it is exactly like a crembo, except instead of marshmallow fluff inside it is filled to brim with dulce de leche. Amazing! Between the conitas and the ribs, and this deli meat that they have here (I forget the name) that is like a mortadella but with an egg inside, I am going to develop cardiac problems and diabetes while I am here. It's worth it.
What is everyone doing for Columbus Day? And have the leaves turned yet? If anyone goes upstate and catches the fall foliage, and happens to take a picture, send it to me! How I miss autumn in New York (and early shabbos, it keeps getting later here!)
Chao!

It's a Baby! It's an Engagement! No, it's...

2009-10-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

In shul this morning a middle aged man got an Aliyah, and afterward everyone yelled out Mazal Tov! and began dancing around the Bimah. Of course, I wanted to know what the Mazal Tov was for, so I asked one of the fellows standing on the sides. He told me "Is Happy Birthday."
In other news, Argentines have a ridiculous sweet tooth. They love dulce de leche, alfajores, ice cream, any cookies, cakes etc. It is anti-traditional, in Buenos Aires, to have anything savory for breakfast. No eggs, but croissants and dulce de leche galore. This morning the Jabad put out breakfast after shul which consisted solely of an eclectic collection of cookies. I must say, the Argentines love their sweets, and they are amazing at making them too.
Last night I went to meet someone who runs a very ambitious blog called International Jewish People. We met at one of the few tea places in the city (portenos don't drink much tea) and I had my first lapsang in ages. It was amazing. We sat there for 2 hours talking and then decided to go get ice cream. I will try to explain how amazing this ice cream was. Compared to Argentine ice cream (helado):
Baskin Robbins is bad
Turkey Hill is terrible
Haagen Daaz is horrible
Good Humor is gross
and Coldstone is, well, also bad.
This helado was unbelievable. I got two types of chocolates, one with almonds and the other with something that reminded me of the honey-nougat of Toblerone bars. Not only was my tongue smiling, my T1R2 and T1R3 receptors were laughing in unison. That was some darn good ice cream.

Pics

2009-10-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

It seems some of the picture did upload, but not as I would have liked them to. Check out facebook; if you aren't on and need an invite to view them, let me know.

The Jewish Portenos and the Beginning of my First Week

2009-10-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

Portenos is the word used for people who live in Buenos Aires. They are not Buenos Airesian or Buenos Airites or Buenos Aireslings; all those terms were just too much of a mouthful so they chose portenos, which means 'port-people' (Buenos Aires is a port) and is spelled with an 'enye,' the n with the squiggly thing on top that I don't have on my keyboard.
Over the weekend, which also happened to be the first days of Sukkos, I got to experience the hospitality of the Jewish portenos in Belgrano (the barrio, neighborhood, that I am currently living in). On friday night I went to Jabad Olleros (they spell Chabad with a J; Olleros is pronounced as if the ll is a soft J), and to Jorge and Raquel Goldfarb (Yair's uncle and aunt) for the meal. The food was amazing, and I experienced the beginning of, what I think, is turning out to be the traditional way of eating in Buenos Aires. The company was also amazing, and I managed to communicate with the Goldfarbs, including two of their grandchildren and a number of their children, with basic Hebrew. They also had an Israeli girl on her traditional post-army trip who, besides for speaking fluent Hebrew, spoke a decent English as well. Between the three languages I am trying to juggle I am mucho mitbalbel.
I walked about half an hour to the only Orthodox Ashkenzi shul in Belgrano, run by Rabbi Oppenheimer. The community was very friendly and welcoming, and I had enough invites for more meals than were left. I ate by Rabbi Oppenheimer the first lunch in his large backyard sukkah (the second of the growing trend) and had great English conversation with him and his wife (from Toronto; except for Yuval's wedding, I don't think I was ever so happy to see a Canadian). I'm kidding; I love Canadians and Canada is awesome. I hung out at the rabbi's house until Maariv, and after Maariv I was directed by Rabbi Oppenheimer to go to Pablo's. Pablo's was amazing. Pablo himself spoke basic English, and I was able to give a toast (l'chaim) with him as translator. Matti was also there with his wife, Uri with his, another fellow whose name escapes me, and Michel (pronounced Michelle with a long i, like ee, but it is a guy's name). These guys were all a ton of fun, but Michel was amazing. We spoke mostly in basic Hebrew, and most of the time he spoke in Spanish to the other fellows, but his face, his mannerisms, and the way he talked and laughed were exactly like Josh Wisotsky (a fellow who goes to our shul back in Teaneck; Josh, if you happen to read this, you may have a long-lost bro in BA. Also, you will probably correct me for spelling your last name wrong). Michel was very cool; he travels to China for his business of selling video game consoles.
The food at Pablo's was stellar, and yet again the service was similar. Perhaps I should explain. I am used to the American-Jewish style of Shabbos/YomTov meals. We start quite soon after we get home from shul (unless we went to hashkama/early minyan, in which case we still usually start by 12:30), and we have courses, at least fish and main, if not a soup in between. The table starts off empty, besides for the challah and wine, and the food is brought out on serving plates, each course subsequent to the clearing of the prior. In Buenos Aires people eat late. Very late. Really really late. The family yom tov meals were fine, though we waited at least an hour between shul and lunch (shul finished at 1 the first day, 12:30 the second) and at dinner we waited a hour as well, though shul ended at 8:30. We didn't finish dinner until 12, and yes, there were little kids. The portenos, however, are absolutely nuts, and think nothing of going out at 12 in the middle of week. People here start their nights out at 12 or later on weeknights. It's a jewish schoolmom's worst nightmare.
The table is set with numerous salads and vegetables and perhaps eggs and other appetizer/starter foods (think at an Israeli Sefardi table but even more so) and everyone's plate is either empty or plated with a fish and various veg. The starter/salad course goes on for a long time with everyone eating and talking and eating and talking and eating and eating and talking and then the salads are cleared, as are the plates, and plates are brought back with food on them. You don't take your own food, you do not choose how much to take, you just get the food on your plate (and if you aren't careful, when you are finished, you will get more). This is the formal porteno meal (so far). The food is good and plentiful here, and, especially once I find the kosher heladerias, I am sure I will come back a bit larger than I left.
After havdala at the Jabad Olleros, the Goldfarbs and number of other congregants hosted a port-chag party in the chabad sukkah. They had cholent. They had amazing thick-cut pastrami. And they had more cholent. The guys giving out cholent gave me a small plate full at first; when he asked if I wanted more I told him I might have later. The second time around he asks, and before I answered he grabbed a plate twice the size of the original and filled it with cholent until both the plate and I could take no more. It is awesome here.
On Monday after class I got my first tour of the city when Kendra (yes, Kendra), a girl in my Spanish class, showed me the student residence hall (I may move) and the Congreso area of BA, including the Congress, the Obelisk, and 9 de Julio, supposedly the widest street in the world. To go off on a tangent, the streets here are named after dates and the street that I live off of is 11 de Setiembre. Weird. Pictures are on Facebook.
At night Taglit had a BBQ at our hostels sukkah, so all the residents were invited, and tahnk goodness too. I was starving, and I ate enough chorizo to give a marathon runner a heart attack. Chorizo are like sausages, but they are to American sausages what Prime Grill is to McDonald's. Chorizo are over an inch thick and bursting with flavor. Oh man, my mouth is watering.
This morning I went to the American Embassy (not too impressive, I wanted to find out how to get a Visa for Brazil), the Palacio San Martin (pics on Facebook) the Jardin Botanico (ditto) and, after class, the Hillel of Belgrano! A five minute walk from me is the nicest Hillel I have ever seen, with American students studying abroad and a pool! A pool in a Hillel! This place is amazing. Details may follow later, I am off to meet someone in a fantastic looking tea shop.
Chao!

My First Homework

2009-10-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

For our first homework I had to write a presentation about a friend. I am posting it at his request.

Mi Amigo Ephraim

En Nuevo Jersey yo tengo amigo. El llama Ephraim. Ephraim estudia en Ieshive Universitad en Washington Heights. El muy gusta correr y el tiene exito a corriendo, pero no gusta pasear en bicicleta. El es muy tradicionales. Nosotros andamos comer en panaderias. El vive en Teaneck Nueva Jersey con su familia.
En la manana se lavanta en madrugada por la escuela, y el en escuela por todo dia. Despues de escuela, Ephraim corre, come, hace deberes, y se duerme.

This is probably totally grammatically off, and also a way simplified version of one of my closest friends, but hopefully I will be able to do both him and the Spanish language justice when I complete the class.

Day 1 of Classes

2009-10-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

Hola! It seems like forever since I last posted instead of 24 hours; so much happened between then and now. After I published the last post I helped the management (Sebastian and Esteban) build the sukkah for a bit, until the hour grew late and the cellphone stores were in their final hour. I walked down the main road in Belgrano, Avenida Cablido, and using my very limited Spanish, I was able to find a locutorio, buy a SIM card, activate it, and put 50 pesos of Argentine minutes. The cell phone is turning out to be very convenient.
After my first successful navigation of Buenos Aires I began calling my contacts (thanks to all who set me up with someone!). One friend (go Perel!) gave me the numbers of some of her family in Buenos Aires as well as an envelope to bring to one of them, and made the conveyance of said envelope my mission of the evening. I took my first (and hopefully my last) taxi ride to the apartment of this older couple (last name Worms) to give them them the envelope. When I entered they were just about to eat dinner, and they insisted that I enter and join them. Their son and his wife and two kids were visiting from Israel, but they all spoke English (and German and Spanish), and we had great conversations about healthcare in America and Israel, business in Argentina, traveling, retiring, and, of course, they gave me tons of tips for survival in Buenos Aires. They also invited me to their sports club! People here continue to be awesome. I walked home after that and showered (in the small but clean shared bathroom) and collapsed before ten, way before any of the Israelis even got back from wherever they were, the first time I've done that in ages.
I woke up early and met Esteban downstairs; he invited me to go to shul with him. We went to the Beit Jabad Olleros for Shacharit, I got an Aliyah, and I was unable to find anyone who spoke English. I did, however, find out that one of the Israeli girls at the hostel has American parents, and therefore perfect English, and believe me, it was quite a relief to hear unaccented, fluent English. I polished off a bag of pretzels that I bought in Queens for breakfast and went down to Once (a neighborhood) to the language school (Centro Universitario de Idiomas) to sign in. I gave myself a half an hour buffer zone, in case of any commuter confusion, and they initially told me to be there 2 hours early on the first day. I commuted correctly and the fellow who told me to be there half an hour early was mistaken, so I had a few hours to kill, which I did by sending out more emails to contacts, getting an invite for Shabbos day at Rav Oppenheimer (thanks Noah!) and a text from someone who runs a blog called International Jewish People (in Buenos Aires) to hang out (thanks Google!). I also got a random phone call from the Worms' relatives inviting me (I think) to their house for Sukkos (though it was hard to hear; I have to call them back). I now have an invite to Raquel (thanks Kinney!), Rabbi Oppenheimer (Noah!), the Goldschmidts (Perel!) and, most probably, Raquel's daughter (Kinney again!). I also spoke to my mom on Skype (go Skype!), so all in all, the few hours before class were quite productive.
Class itself is tough. They decided to place me in level 2 right away based on my placement test, and the entire class is n Spanish. I am able to keep up for the most part, and, though the first class is an introduction, i learned that the usage of vos instead of tu that the Argentines use for the informal second person pronoun is actually traditional, and that the traditional name for the language is not Espanol, but Castellano. I also that some of the word structure is similar to Hebrew. For example, the word for why literally means 'for what' (LaMah, for what; Por Que, for what). Spanish also makes use of Shoresh verbs and complex conjugations based on the subject and uses gender and quantity specific adjectives. It is also a bit like Australian slang; when Michi Hayman, an Australian friend, came for Rosh Hashanah, he asked 'how are you going,' meaning how are you? In Castellano they say como andas, literally 'how are you going,' meaning the same thing. Otherwise class was uneventful (though there is a girl in the class on a gap year between high school and college who said, in her introduction, that she hablo Hebreo. I must find out more).
By the time class finished (at 4) I was starving. Once happens to be one of the more heavily concentrated Jewish communities; it is like Borough Park except with non-Jews also. I found the first kosher pizza place and had my first Argentine Pizza (not so cheap though, despite everyone telling me how cheap the place is. Hm...). It hit the spot though, and I was ready for lulav hunting.
It took me a good hour, but, a lot of walking and one bakery later I found a yeshive (or ieshiva) and bought my arbah minim for sukkos, which, in the end, were not much more than what they cost on Main St in Queens). Alfahores, by the way, are delicious. They are very crumbly cookies with very sweet and very delicious dolce de leche sandwiched in between, rolled in coconut. Also very tradtitonal here; it is a day of tradition. In the topic of not changing, the frum girls here Buenos Aires dress exactly the same as the frum girls in the States. Almost makes me feel at home. Kidding!
I decided to walk back to the hostel (partly motivated by my desire to see the city and partly by the alfahore), and it did not seem like such a long walk. My map is not scale however, and I underestimated the distance; the walk took an hour and twenty minutes (not terrible, but with stuff and later in the evening, not ideal). One thing that struck me about the city was, well, it is dirty. It's a pretty dirty city. I haven't gotten downtown yet, and the residential areas are a bit nicer, but the parts that I have seen so far are not very clean; there is litter and dog poo on every block. Perhaps I've only been in the not-so-great neighborhoods. I hope that's the case. Now I am off to do homework; yes, I traveled to Argentina just to find myself doing homework.
Ciao for now!

Chai Lifeline

2009-10-01T07:55:00.001-07:00

A very good friend of mine, Ephraim Feman, is doing a half-marathon for Chai Lifeline for the second time. If you would like to sponsor him, click here :http://www.teamlifeline.org/mypage.php?myid=56357.

Picture Problem

2009-09-30T13:42:00.001-07:00

My photos aren't uploading, so until I figure out the problem, they will be on Facebook, though so far it is nothing exciting.

First Post from BA

2009-09-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

I made it. The weather here is Amazing, and, though I cannot tell much about the city yet, I have a very good feeling. However, let me start at the beginning.
My flight left from JFK, and my Dad decided to take advantage of that and kill two birds with one stone; on the way to the airport we (my father, the bottom half of the brother chain, and I) stopped in Queens to get Arbah Minim and shwarma. I had no appetite; I could barely finish a falafel. My body must have been nervous, because I otherwise would have wolfed down a shwarma in a laffa like it was no body's business. It's a strange thing though, when your mind isn't nervous (I knew that the worst that could happen to me after arriving is getting cheated out of a couple of bucks; in the ends I saved a TON of money, but more of that later), but I had many of the physical symptoms of being nervous. Very strange.
Anyway, my grandfather came to meet us in the shwarma place and, so as to expedite my younger brothers' bedtime, we decided that my father would go home and my grandfather would drive me to the airport. After a quick goodbye to my magnificent Uncle Bartholomew and awesome Aunt Sara, it was off to the airport, and with a goodbye to my grandfather, it was into the airport.
The next few hours were nondescript. The usual checking in, waiting for security, crying babies, etc etc. The one thing that separated this flight from all other previous flights is that I was so tired I actually slept the entire first leg of the journey! Seven hours of sleep between JFK and Lima, a first for me for sure. Lima was also uneventful; we were only there for an hour and half, and, by the time I got to the gate and davened (I am willing to bet not many people in Lima have seen tefillin) they were calling us to board. This flight was a little less uneventful. I spent most of reading the Let's Go Buenos Aires tour guide cover to cover (thanks Samantha!) and watching the first half of the Simpson's Movie (not that great), staring at the Andes (amazing!) and wondering what I felt about the trip. I really didn't feel anything; I wasn't nervous or excited, apprehensive or happy. Maybe because I did not plan at all and no idea what to expect, I just had a void where some emotion should have been. I assumed though, that I would be a tad nervous and apprehensive at first before I transitioned into excitement and happiness. I was quite wrong. As we began the descent and I saw the city, any potential fright fleetingly faded, sloughed off like a snake shedding it's skin, and, weirdly enough, I felt completely in my element! As if this is what I was made for. It was a great feeling, and, even though I don't speak the language and don't know the city (or perhaps because I don't know the city), I felt a surge of confidence.
Disembarking from the plane was where things started to get interesting. On the plane, on the way to the bathroom, I noticed two other kippot on the plane, though one was watching TV and the other sleeping, so I did not approach them. However, as we left the plane, I made sure to confront them. The first I met was a very tall version of Chaim Yerushalayim Nemetyoff (my father's cousin). It was very surreal, and he was a tad surly. All I was able to discover is that he lives in Buenos Aires and was visiting family in New York before we were separated by the security officials (tourists to the right, residents to the left). The other frum fellow lived, until recently, in Baltimore, near where Saarei Zion used to be (no, he did not know any of my relatives there). He told me he had recently moved to Cuzco, and was on a business trip looking for hair. Yup, hair. He and his wife run a shaitel (wig) business. We were separated as soon as it was my turn to go through security. Thank God, all the red tape security shmecurity customs shmustoms went without a hiccup and (after exchanging money and futilely trying to find a SIM card for my cell phone (I have yet to accomplish that task) I was outside and trying to find transportation to the city.
I was told to take a company called Tienda Leon, but of course, as soon as I got out of the airport I was assaulted by the cab drivers, who offered upwards of 95 pesos (3 to the dollar). I asked about Tienda Leon and was told it is a shuttle service that takes you to the city center for 45 pesos. The hostel, said the nice cabbie, would be another 40 pesos ride from the city center and it would be two hours before I got there! Luckily, I spotted another kippa from afar. I ran over to them and asked them the best way to get to Belgrano (the neighborhood I am staying in) and after a bit of chatting in Hebrew, they drove me to the subway and for 1.10 pesos I took the subway right to the hostel! For the record the Zayat family of Buenos Aires (no relation, supposedly, to the Zayats of Teaneck) are amazing. Not only did I get a ride and saved at least 80 pesos, I got a new contact and a great tip on where to buy Arbah Minim.
The hostel is nice; there is WIFI, a kosher kitchen, breakfats and shabbat/chag meals included, and they are now building the sukkah. The rooms are dormitory rooms (five to a room) and I have not seen the bathrooms yet, but it seems a great place (though we shall see how things go for the long term). I have yet to call my contacts here, as I have yet to buy a SIM card, but I will do that as soon as I finish typing this message. Then it is relaxing time until tomorrow, when I have my oral Spanish placement test at 11:30 and my first class at 1:30.
Ciao for now!

It's a Rush

2009-09-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

I am in the last whirlwind minutes of packing. I do hope I have everything that I need. I definitely have enough underwear and socks; all the rest is commentary. No, I am not entirely done packing and yes, I am leaving for Queens in a half an hour. Seriously though, I just realized that I am going to a country with an entirely different country, where I don't speak a word of the language, and where I am only bringing what can fit into an internal frame backpack (I may fold and take a duffel). It doesn't help that the manager of hostel where I will be staying for the first night asked me if I was Israeli, and when I told him I was American he paused for a bit, made an 'oh' sound, and finally said (in Hebrew) "Well, it's really all Israelis that come here, but I am sure you will be fine." Oh boy. It will be a bit crazy, but it will be awesome. Many people have been asking me why I am going, and, besides for the desire to learn Spanish, the desire travel, the raves I have heard about Argentina, my need to get out of my parents' house (that one's a joke) and the sizable Jewish community, I am doing this in order to put my self in an uncomfortable position. I want to be pushed to the limits of what I can do and past it; it is the only way, I think, to grow, and above all, that is what I want to do this year. The only reason I do want to get out of my parents' house is because I am comfortable there, too comfortable.
Anyway, this is a bit rushed, because I do have to go and finish packing and shower. Shoot, I forgot to pack myself food! Okay, signing off for now, catch you on the other side.
Ciao!

I will post soon...

2009-09-29T14:02:00.000-07:00

I will post soon, I promise, but I am not packed yet; once I am done I will be back.

Test Post

2009-09-16T16:29:00.001-07:00

Hello all. I've decided, in anticipation of not having that much internet access down in Argentina, that instead of trying to keep in touch with everyone individually (sorry folks) I would write a blog whenever I can and let any interested in knowing what I am up to. For example, I am now listening to my brother telling me that I may become a drug dealer (seems to be from the Schmooze magazine).
Anyway, I should take a step back. If you are reading this, you may know that I am going to Argentina, first to Buenos Aires, for the next 4 months. I have a year off between college and medical school (this is, by the way, the reason behind the name of my blog; liminal is anything to do with the finishing of one process, right before the beginning of the next. In my case, my limin is a year long), and I want to see, do, and have as many new experiences as I can. I also want to learn Spanish, which is why I am going to Argentina.
I'm leaving in less than two weeks (why am I going again) and, as yet, I don't really have any plans. I've got a couple of contacts down there, but I don't speak the language, have a place to stay, take classes, have arbah minim, haven't gotten vaccinations yet (I need to get vaccinated for yellow fever, what fun!), or have really any idea of what I am doing. Psyche! All I know is that other people have done it and have survived, which only takes a little away from the fun of it.
I'll post next when I get more news.
Ciao! (That's what they say in Argentina for goodbye)
Aaron