Daniella's Epic Birthday Week in Tel Aviv!

This year, my birthday fell on the last day of Pesach, which made it a bit tricky to coordinate schedules with friends. Zoya and I made up for it by crashing a Pesach picnic at Gan Meir (the park next to where I lived last year). We inadvertently brought kitniot* food with us (hummus and rice crackers), but there was more than enough food to go around and we had a great time talking and singing with everyone there. And I had many versions of Happy Birthday sung to me in different languages :)

 Post-picnic :)

Channeling my inner-Amsterdammer, biking through Tel Aviv in a dress and heels. 

 

Last weekend, I had my real birthday picnic at the Park HaYarkon.

l-r, people and their countries of origin:

Simon (UK), me (who knows?), Marina (Russia, but now Israel), Jan (Czech Republic), Zoya (Moldava/Israel/Canada), Gonzalo (Spain), Cecile (France, but now Israel), Karen (USA, now Israel), Shay (Israel)  

(missing in body, but not spirit: Mati (Israel))

 With Marina, my Russian friend from Ulpan - she made me a birthday painting!

My scarf was also a present from Cecile - how did she know that turquoise is my favorite color?

l-r: Elsa (France, now Israel), Karin (Israel), Simon, and me

 The last remnants of last year's Kitah Aleph at Ulpan Gordon.

Missing in body, but not in spirit: Pilar!!!

Happy picnickers!

C'est tout, mes amis!

*And now, a bit about kitniot.

What are kitniot foods, I hear you ask? Foods that could possibly ferment, like beans, rice, corn, etc.

Who can and cannot eat them? NOBODY KNOWS!!!

Last year, I asked friends who said that the Persian Jews (ie: Sephardic Jews) are allowed to eat rice, so if you're Sephardic, then you can eat kitniot.

This year, we asked Zoya's Russian family (they were eating rice), and they said that it's the Sephardic Jews who aren't allowed to eat them.

Then according to the Turkish girl who hosted the Pesach picnic Turkish Jews used to be allowed to eat kitniot until a rabbi about 100 years ago announced that they really oughtn't eat kitniot.

But Mati, who is also Turkish, told me that you are allowed to eat kitniot if you say a certain blessing beforehand (or something like that).

The bottom line is, everyone is confused about who is allowed to eat kitniot.

Personally, I don't think God wants people to suffer from indigestion from matzah-overdose every year, but that's just my agnostic, half-shiksa opinion on the matter, who am I to say?

Tiyulim - Matsada, Park HaYarkon, and the Judean Hills

As promised, here are more pictures from the last few months. Enjoy!

We're lucky to have a Jacaranda tree outside our living room window.
Here is part of the tree from a month ago and then again a few weeks later!
These pictures have not been photo-shopped :)

This is Camilla Ginger, one of the resident strays near our building. 

S/he is very affectionate and keeps trying to follow us up to our apartment!

These are pictures from my Ulpan's trip to the Matsada....

(Judean Hills near Jerusalem)

Nice folds you've got there.  

Nearing the Matsada...

 The mesa formation in the center is the Matsada.

 Our ascension to the Matsada.
We took the cable cars since there were 500 people in our group.

The view from the top...

 Tiny people on the Matsada and the Dead Sea in the distance.

Descending from the Matsada.
The square formations are remnants of the Roman army's camps.

The Dead Sea - one of my favorite places in the world.

Back in Tel Aviv, Zoya's little sister came to visit us over Passover vacation.

We put her to work (sort of) in a paddle boat on the Yarkon River.

With my long-lost Russian sisters :)

 

Paddling away....

The first duck family of the season!

We also saw these cool guys along the riverbank.

This mama duck was the sole guardian of 12 ducklings!

 Duck herding...

Over Pesach, I went on a tiyul in the Judean Hills with Zoya. 

Here's the first cave (Luzit Cave) that we visited.

 The view from inside.
Ancient Israelites used to harvest the top meter for building materials. 

Since the material is sandstone and easily eroded, there aren't any remaining ruins from that time.

Prickly pear flower (left) and an unidentified desert flower (right)

Views of the Judean Hills from our climb to Mitzpe Masua.

The watch tower at Mitzpe Masua.

 This is why English lessons are important.
(Or spell/grammar-check, at the very least)

 More desert flowers

The thistles in Israel are particularly prickly.

We also crawled through (and slid and pulled ourselves up and through) the Bar Kochba caves. 

In ancient times, the Israelites dug narrow tunnels through the caves so that the Roman soldiers couldn't follow in their clunky armor.

It was a tight squeeze for us, too!

Afterwards, we visited a vineyard - 

what better way to end an exhausting/dehydrating day in the desert than with a wine tasting?

Domesticated desert flowers.

Also last week, Mati and I discovered that the goats at the HaYarkon zoo have had babies!!!

The lady turkeys weren't impressed by this guy, but I was!

Sleepy goats...

Hope that you enjoyed the pictures! Stay tuned for pictures from my epic birthday week!

May Day, May Day!

May is upon us already! How did this happen? March and April were busy months - Purim, Pesach, Yom HaShoah and all the days in between. Just a quick update and then I will post pictures over the weekend.

I've been keeping busy with Ulpan - my Hebrew is really improving and I understand a lot more thanks to the 20 hours per week of saturation. I try to converse with some of the French and Italian students but usually the words that I am searching for come out in Hebrew or English. I wonder what will happen when I start learning German this summer.

Last year I really didn't do much to celebrate the holidays, but this year I have been making up for it! For Purim, I went to a salsa club and after a short lesson, I was dancing away! It was a lot of fun and of course there was a costume competition which had some amazing entries.Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me, so you'll just have to imagine the costumes. There was everything from dancing rabbis with butterfly wings to futuristic motorbike riders with fiber optic LED lights (they won the competition). 

For Pesach seder, Zoya invited me to Ashdod to be with her family. I had a real Russian seder complete with beet salads, deviled eggs, gefilte fish, and more! Zoya's family was concerned because I wasn't drinking or eating meat, so her grandmother gave me the fish head from the gefilte fish so that I wouldn't starve. We ended up spending the night in Ashdod and I realized how much I miss the quiet of the Northwoods. Since Ashdod is so close to Gaza, I expected it to be slightly more frazzled somehow, but it was actually quite nice and the apartments are new and well-maintained because families own them rather than renting them as in Tel Aviv. If it weren't for the safety issue, I'd be tempted to move there!

Also before Pesach, my Ulpan took a trip to the Matsada and had our symbolic seder at the foot of the mountain. I sang two solos: "Deep River" and "Alla fiera dell'Est," which is the Italian version of "Chad Gadya," except that the goat becomes a mouse...nobody's really sure why. I also sang two Hebrew songs with a group of women from other classes. It was the biggest audience I've ever sung for solo (500 people), but after just a few Grinberg warm-up and breathing exercises from my new teacher, I wasn't nervous and was ready to go! (Even despite slight dehydration from the desert conditions.) I'm still working on getting a recording from the event - sadly, I wasn't standing close enough to the microphone for one of the songs, so I don't know if it came through on the video. People were still able to hear me, though, so I know that my voice is indeed improving!

I also took a day-tiyul to the Judean Hills with Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organization through which I made aliyah. I snuck Zoya along (technically, she is what we call a "veteran immigrant" not a strictly "new immigrant," but it didn't seem to make much of a difference) and we had a grand old time in the lush, green hills. I also had my first experience crawling (not an exaggeration) through a cave. I was a little nervous to go in but then once I was in, there was only one way out and it was quite exciting. The only downside was the very exuberant Israeli children behind us who didn't understand that caves magnify voices.

Spring has definitely arrived in Israel - everything is in full bloom and the parks are packed on the weekends! This past weekend I had a belated birthday picnic (my birthday fell on the last day of Passover) and we had a lovely international mix of old and new friends. I was speaking a mixture of English, Hebrew, and French, so by the end of the day, my brain was fried. But it was one of the best birthday parties I've ever had - good food, good weather, good location, and good friends! I will post pictures soon.

I hope that everyone is well and that you are beginning to experience Spring in your respective corners of the world.

A bientot!

Daniella

We don't wait for Facebook to write on walls!

I never seem to take many pictures when I'm not a tourist, but here are a few to give you a taste of "winter" in Tel Aviv. 

Sunset in HaYarkon Park - reminds me a bit of Amsterdam.

 This is the tree outside of my window - it started blooming last month already! 

Sometimes we see these birds in the tree, but mostly they hang out by the river. 

They're called Rose-Ringed Parakeets and are originally from Africa.

 These are their cousins, Monk Parakeets, who took over a football field in the park one day.
They blended in so well, I almost missed them!

I'm not sure what these guys are, but I thought they were really cool. 

I saw these modern dinosaurs on another trek through HaYarkon park.

From the previous pictures, you may be thinking that I only interact with birds. 

Don't worry, sometimes I see people, too!

An old friend - 

This is Mati, the former madrichah of the Rishon Teaching Fellows (I went on some trips with them last year).
Mati is a tour guide extraordinaire and an all-around awesome person.

A new friend - 

This is Zoya, my new flatmate. She travels the world, speaks three languages, and makes a mean curry!

Running friends - the Tel Aviv marathon was last weekend. They decided to move the marathon to an earlier date since somebody died from heat exhaustion last year. Good idea, Tel Aviv :)

There are more stray cats than I can take pictures of.
This is the first one that I petted and let climb on my lap.
After she'd finished with me, she returned to her pre-warmed seat on a motorcycle.

 A classic example of graffiti found throughout the city. 

Richy says, "We don't wait for Facebook to rig write on walls."

Hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for more pictures of Tel Avivian birds, cats, and maybe even people!

Oh, you made aliyah? But you're from America - Why would you come here?

Shalom, kulam!

I hope you haven't been holding your breath since my last blog post - or maybe you have incredible lung capacity and can hold it for 3 months!

Speaking of lung capacity, I started working with a new voice teacher, and right away, we began intensive breathing exercises to teach my body how to really support my singing. Except for a few times while singing with Alexander Technique teachers, I've always felt tension in my lower back while singing, but I thought it was because I was tensing those muscles unnecessarily. I kept trying to release the tension, but actually what was happening was that my muscles were weak and needed to be engaged! For the first two weeks of working with my new teacher, I wasn't allowed to sing at home and only did breathing exercises. Now I've had 6 lessons and I'm able to sing for an hour in good voice without feeling tension or pain in my back and without my speaking voice being hoarse afterwards. It is so nice to have finally pinpointed what was wrong with my singing and to really have clarity throughout my range. Oh, and my volume has increased meod - a lovely side effect!

In other vocal news, I was accepted to two out of the three German summer programs that I'd applied to, so I'm going to Munich in July to learn how to sprechen Deutsch. And also to work on not one, not two, but three opera scenes! I definitely have my work cut out for me, but it's good to be productive again.

Last week, I finally started my Hebrew classes. I tested into "Kitah Alef Plus," but the class was full, so the secretary advised me to go to the regular Kitah Alef, but to wait until the end of the month while the rest of the class learned the Alef Bet and Hebrew basics. Most of what we're learning is still review for me, but a lot of the verbs are new and we have a lot more speaking practice because the class is 3.5 hours long. Being immersed like that for five days a week makes it seem much more natural to speak Hebrew in the city and I'm understanding a lot more. Our class is like a mini-UN; all but one student are olim chadashim (new immigrants) like me from Russia, France, the UK, Australia, Italy, Uzbekistan, the Netherlands, and of course, the U.S. Our teacher challenges us a lot, but she is very knowledgeable and the classes are really well-structured. She makes sure that everyone gets practice speaking and ends every class with a game. I wish that my English classes with the kids last year could have run as smoothly!

Oh yes, I decided not to teach at the school this year. It was a difficult decision because I was really attached to the kids, but between Ulpan, my voice lessons, and my movement classes, I barely have time to do my homework and practice! I'm also living farther north in the city, so it would take me an hour to get to the school versus the 20-minute trip last year. But I did bring them all the books that I lugged over in December and I hope that they are using and enjoying them.

So, that's my new life in a rather large nutshell. I hope that everyone is well and staying [relatively] warm. Fear not! Spring is around the corner!

Chibuk gadol* :)

Daniella

* big hug