Italy 2011

How do you know when you're in Italy? Maybe it's when the guy in front of you in the Budapest airport. starts yelling and gesticulating madly about his baggage surcharges and looks to the heavens and exclaims "Madonna Mia"! As most people know you're baggage must be a certain weight on these cheapo airlines, otherwise they fine you! He obviously never got the memo. On the plane, the flight attendant who spoke over the PA system, had a striking resemblance to a sex phone operator. Her overly breathy voice, drawling Hungarian accent, the occasional giggle as she told us where the emergency exits were, and the rhythmic punctuated pauses didn't exactly inspire confidence in airline safety. Upon arriving at the apartment/bed and breakfast where we stayed in Rome, in typical RANAD fashion we managed to set off the alarm for the entire apartment building. Thankfully, Alessandro, our host, wasn't fazed by it, and we couldn't actually hear it from the apartment.

After a delicious Italian coffee and Nutella bread, we headed out to spend a day at the beach. On our way out, we picked up cheese at a cheese shop, fruit at a fruit stand, bread at a bread store, you get the idea... Remarkably, the Roman rapid transit system takes you right to the coast for only 1.5 € each. At the beach, we swam, had a picnic, read and lazed about. We successfully ignored the pesky beach vendors, but the couple next to us weren't so lucky and got to see his entire kit layed out for them. On the way back from the beach, we had to wait for about twenty minutes for a bus. When the bus finally arrived, it was packed to the gills with other passengers. But we squished our way on anyway. Each of us were completely wedged between a mix of each other and complete strangers, to the point where Aviva didn't have to hold on to a railing or even support her own weight. And just when we thought you couldn't possibly fit more people on, the bus driver pulled over and picked up more passengers. The people at the back of the bus were throwing there hands up in the air and shouting "Basta! Basta!" (Enough! Enough!) Thankfully, we arrived at the station safely and headed back to Rome.

After a supper with an unplanned, uninvited accordion performance, we started walking around aimlessly looking for gelato. Upon asking some Italians for directions, they proclaimed "We live in Rome, and we're going for Gelato too. You should come with us!" So we did! And boy are we glad because they brought us to an amazing artisanal place, translated every flavour for us, and let us tell you, it was awesome gelato!

The next day we went on a tour of ancient Rome with our art historian guide, Silvia. She was like an encyclopedia of ancient everything! We saw the Colosseum, the Foro Romano, and where the Vesta Virgins lived. (Rob momentarily thought she said vespa virgins, so now every time we think of them, we can't help but imagine nuns on mopeds).

For dinner that evening, Aaron ordered ravioli stuffed with ricotta and pistachio. His first bite revealed some salty ground meat inside. When we complained to the waitress she looked aghast and asked if he was a vegetarian. To keep things simple, we said yes, and he ordered a veggie pasta. This being Italy, it took a while to come, so a very hungry Aaron had to sneak bites of Rob's meat dish whenever the wait-staff was out of the tiny dining area.

Okay, now we digress to list the top seven most peculiar vehicular behaviours we've witnessed in Italy thus far:

1) Man riding bicycle along highway without helmet, talking on cellphone.

2) Two year old child standing on front passenger seat of a moving car. Empty car seat in back.

3) Mother with two small children riding on moped.

4) Parked car with shirtless man and woman in car. Condoms strewn about outside.

5) Woman on moped, talking on cell phone headset, wildly gesticulating.

6) Motorcyclists everywhere weaving in and out between cars on the high way as if in video game.

7) Double solid yellow line on high way = Teeny VIP lane just for motorcyclists going in either direction.

Now on to Amalfi! Well first let's talk about the car rental. While Diane and Rob waited in line, they were kissing each other sweetly. The agent noticed and they stopped, bashfully. The agent smiled and said, "No no, don't ever stop. It's wonderful! Have fun in Italy." And she proceeded to give us a major upgrade on our car rental.

Our first night in Amalfi, in a town called Meta, our hosts recommended a local pizzzeria, where, literally all they serve is pizza; including (we're not kidding here) Nutella pizza for dessert. Each pizza was served on its own individual cookie sheet. It was extremely yum!

The following day we hiked up Vesuvius; an impressive volcano that is now dormant. Noah, taking a water bottle for himself, decided he would go ahead around the rim of the crater, but, tantalized by the vista, he didn't notice the "Access Prohibited" sign. After reaching a parking lot instead, he decided it wasn't interesting and would return back up. Meanwhile, the rest of us, who DID see the "Access Prohibited" sign, were growing a bit nervous, realizing that he must have gone ahead, and were greatly relieved to see him re-surface.

Later we took a tour of Pompeii. It really is remarkable how well preserved it is, especially in comparison to the Foro Romano. We learned that the city had numerous penises carved in stone or sculpted to ward off the evil eye, oh and also to indicate directions to brothels. On the way to dinner that evening, Aviva saw a dead bird (a major phobia of hers) and screamed and crawled on all fours into a gelateria. She has recovered, and they have thankfully removed the dead bird.

The next day our hosts sent us on the Malacoccola, one of the famous hikes, high up in the hills of the Sorrentine peninsula, from where we could see the sea on both coasts. If we could get a euro for every time we got lost and had to ask for directions from a local, we would have enough money to buy Diane a new iphone. (more about that in a moment). We ended up in Sorrento that night for dinner. It was a bit too packed with tourists, but still gorgeous.

On our last morning in Amalfi, we went to the beach for an early morning swim. We all had a lovely time, splashing in the waves while Diane took pictures with her iphone. Unfortunately, she somehow managed to drop her iphone in the ocean. It is currently recovering, but in critical condition, perhaps chronically impaired. We're not sure if it'll make it.

With love,
RANAD

Prague and Budapest

July 28, 2011

Hi all,

Skill testing question: Why does Europe smell like pee??
Answer: Hmmm...... I don't know.... Could it be because there are NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS? Yes, we've had our share of restroom-seeking challenges. First of all, we are grateful to Starbucks for being our free peeing haven. It's really hard to get used to the idea of paying 10 Korona (Czeck) or 1 Euro or whatever just to do your business. Now let's talk about Coffee Heaven, a coffee shop with free toilets... or so we thought. In this little joint we enjoyed mediocre coffee, left, came back 15 minutes later to use their washrooms, and got some serious sass - the guy told Rob "next time, go to Starbucks". The next day Diane couldn't hold it any longer and went back to Coffee Heaven to use the washroom. She hustled her way in, making no eye contact as the staff shouted at her "Hey, Hey!!", and on her way out the woman sarcastically said, "Thank you very much", to which Diane replied, "Thank YOU very much!" But our crowning pee saga was when we climbed up to the castle across the Charles Bridge in Prague. Rob dutifully followed the signs that read WC, 10 Korona coin in hand, only to find that it lead him to a locked washroom. Frustrated, we gazed upon the beautiful king's hunting grounds and thought "toilet!" We looked for a nice secluded bush where Rob (and then the rest of us) could finally pee.

So backtracking a bit, we got to Prague from Berlin by train and headed to our pretty apartment. Small notation, we don't speak Czeck and anyone over 50 doesn't seem to speak English. We can't even really read it. So even figuring out how to get tickets for the subway was a bit of a challenge and there have been several situations where we have resorted to mime and animal noises (to avoid eating pork or beef). Thank goodness for the people under 50, who speak pretty decent English, and it turns out you get subway tickets at convenience stores.

In Prague we took a free walking tour with a Canadian guide from Vancouver, who normally works in film, but has been living in Prague for the last year. We were a bit skeptical at first; a free tour of Prague by a Canadian 20-something named Crystal? Yeah right. But it turned out to be an awesome tour and we learned a ton about the city, its history, and the jewish quarter, for example, Hitler's plan to make part of Prague a museum about "the extinct jewish race."

That night we ate at a vegan restaurant near our apartment. It was fine....if you're vegan and enjoy salt and otherwise tasteless food. The next two nights, we opted for the "When in Rome, do as the Romans" policy, and ate awesome roasted duck, stuffed peppers, Czech dumplings, fruit dumplings, palacinky (pronounced palachinky), etc. and the kids shared a stein of Pilsner beer (the town of Pilsen is 45 minutes away).

On our second day in Prague, we went to the Museum of Communism, ironically situated above a MacDonald's and next to a Casino. It's located just off Wencislas square, the heart of the city, where events of the Prague Spring occurred (the failed 1968 uprising that led to two students' suicides in 1969) and the Velvet Revolution (successful pacifist uprising of 1989). Relevant sidetrack: At the top of Wencislas square we had noticed a seemingly out of place roadway with cars tearing along at break-neck speeds, making it dangerous to cross into the square. We discovered in the museum, that the Soviet's had planned this thruway so that they could get tanks into the square rapidly in order to stifle any uprising should need be. The museum itself lost something in translation, but it was interesting to see Cold War artifacts, the video documenting the police beating the student protestors even in 1989, and Soviet propaganda about the West.

On the train from Prague to Budapest, we didn't have to battle off any old people with canes, although to be honest, this time we were a fair bit more pushy getting on and finding seats for ourselves. Once we were safely seated, we proceeded to pull out whole loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, unpeeled carrots, jars of jam and pesto. We then enjoyed a delicious Philipp-Muller meal prepared by yours truly... RANAD!

And then we had to pull it together, because we were staying with Rob's family in Budapest, and they might not have appreciated our savage ways. So we acted normal for three days, while we toured Budapest with the cousins. The timing of our visit also coincided with Rob's uncle's 80th birthday, so on the second day, we all went for an extended and extensive lunch in the country to celebrate Rob's uncle Gyori (pronounced more like Dieu-ree). And then there was dessert. Birthday cake after birthday cake came flying out of the kitchen - dark chocolate cake, white chocolate cake, strawberry short cake, black forest cake, vanilla hazelnut cake, and even diabetic cake! Strong shots of Hungarian liqueur were had by all and pretty soon the language barriers made no difference and we were showing off our best silly faces, singing, and looking at Communist era advertising for sausage - check out the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=9SIJmBd6D3o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

On the two other days, we had our own private tours of Budapest provided by our cousins, Borbala (nicknamed Bori) and Vera, whom we peppered with a gazillion questions, and they did their best to answer almost all of them. In general we managed the language barrier pretty well, as we had Rob's Hungarian, and a number of the family members there spoke English quite well. However, there was at least one noteworthy language mishap. Rob was talking about Toronto to his cousin Judit. He wanted to say that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating traffic (forgalom), but instead he said that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating revolutions (foradalom).

On the last day, we had a bit of a wild ride to the airport. We went in two cars - one driven by Rob's cousin, Miki, and the other by Rob's uncle, Gyori (whose 80th birthday it was). It was all going ok, until Gyori missed the cut-off for our terminal. Phone calls were flying between the two cars. Suffice it to say, that it culminated in Gyori pulling a U-turn on a highway, which did solve the problem, but both Diane and Bori had their hands covering their eyes and were saying "Oh my G-d" in their respective languages.

We all got to the airport safely, had a tearful goodbye and really hope to see each other more often than we have till now.

And now we're in Roma!!

We'll post again soon.
Love,
RANAD






Prague and Budapest

Summer 2011

July 24, 2011

Hi all,

RANAD here (as in Rob, Aviva, Noah, Aaron, and Diane writing together). Here's our first instalment of our Europe 2011 trip blog.

It all started off perfectly; we arrived at the airport with our bags packed, our passports and etickets booked, and our snacks prepared. We hadn't yet paid the cab driver, when Aviva turns to exclaim, "Oh my G-d, I left my costume at home!!" (she needs the costume for her upcoming performance in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). So there was no choice; we had to go back and get it. While Rob and Aviva raced back to the house with the cabbie who should consider driving in the Indie-500, Diane, Aaron and Noah checked themselves in, anxiously firing off multiple texts to Rob and Aviva. At the house, Aviva dashed in and out in record time and, $183 later (the cabbie had no mercy), the two made it back to the airport two minutes before last-call for check-in. Meanwhile Aaron and Noah's backpacks needed to be wrapped in enormous plastic bags and sealed with duct tape, Diane and the boys tried several wrapping maneuvers, which we called "the mummy", "the parka", and "the birthday present".

On the plane we stopped in Quebec City. Thanks to a really awesome flight attendant, and beyond all post-911 odds, Aaron and Noah got to go to the cockpit and meet the pilot, co-pilot and crew! Aaron got to sit in the co-pilot's seat - it was way more comfortable than our seats. They showed the boys all the bells and whistles and answered some questions that Aaron had about flight school.

Berlin - We got to the apartment, which we would have never found had the cabbie not shown us - it was in a separate building called the "gartenhaus" behind the building with the street number on it - apparently this was evident to him by looking at the key. We realized we needed food for the next day, so Rob and Aviva went to get groceries at the local Kaisers, however, it was closed, so they brought back Vietnamese food instead....our first real German meal.

Our first full day in Berlin we went to the Jewish Museum. Designed by Daniel Liebeskind, it gives the history of Jews in Germany over the last 2000 years - including, but not exclusively about the Holocaust. What was perhaps the most interesting was the end, where they had the stories of current Jews living in Germany, a generation or two after the Holocaust. One in particular was of an Israeli guy who moved to Berlin in the 1980s as a young man and experienced preferential treatment from his housemates, which he enjoyed until he realized this preferential treatment was out of German guilt.

Dinner was at a pan-south-asian restaurant, where they told us that we should buy bottled water as their tap was rusty. The restaurant was uber modern and slick - hard to imagine that only the tap was rusty. At the next table were two transvestites who left half-way through. We told Aaron about them, but he didn't look till the second half of the meal; when two women were seated there. For Aaron, these were very convincing-looking transvestites.

Next day we went on a Hop-on-Hop-off bus tour in the rain (Berlin Circle Tours). They managed to make a pretty fascinating city unbelievably dull, by monotonously announcing random facts with no historical or cultural context. We hopped off at the Sony Centre where we dined on our picnic lunch in a back corridor, underneath an escalator as there is nowhere to sit and eat if it's raining. And as always in Europe, toilets aren't free, hard to get used to when what you pay for is sandpaper tissue. The Sony Centre is this gorgeous new indoor-outdoor complex in Pottsdamer Platz, which was formerly no-man's land when the Berlin Wall was standing.

We also got off at Checkpoint Charlie Museum and learned all about the Berlin Wall. The museum is a bit haphazard, and the biggest problem is that it ends with no detail about how the Wall came down and beyond. However, we learned a lot and had really interesting discussions about The Cold War.

Quick note about Starbucks. We feel we have given them plenty of money over the years and so we feel absolutely no guilt about going in there, hopping on their free wifi, downloading maps, finding restaurants, and then going elsewhere to have our coffees. We're in Europe after all; there's better coffee out there!

On our last day in Berlin we'd had enough with the museums and tours. We rented bikes and rode all over the city. It's an amazing city to bike in, with lots of marked bike lanes. In particular, we cycled along the Spree (river in Berlin, pronounced Shpray) and went to what remained of the Berlin Wall (a couple hundred meters), where various graffiti artists were commissioned to do murals. It's amazing how much more you can like a city when the sun is shining and you're not listening to a boring recorded tour guide.

Quest for the perfect German pastries: Based on our previous experience 11 years ago in Worms (another city in Germany....really), Rob has been on a mission each visit to rediscover the perfect hazelnut-chocolate butter tart, but to no avail. We have tried valiantly, sampling pastries from a variety of bakeries here. Last night we bought four different cakes and ate them all! Ok, they were small cakes. The poppy seed one came close, but not quite. Oh well.

Now we're on a train to Prague. The train is over-booked but we have reserved seats. Ha Ha Ha, as if anyone actually cares. En route to our seats, Noah asked Rob, "What if a little old lady is sitting in our seats?" To which Rob answered, "We'll show no mercy and kick her out!" When we arrived at our reserved seats, there was, you guessed it.....a little old lady and her little old husband, and...another little old lady with a CANE and her little old husband, all sitting in our seats. And no, we were incapable of kicking them out, though we really wanted to. But we did kick out the young man from the 5th seat, and we are now huddled in the aisles on our way to Prague.

As for being prepared for Prague, we know two words. We know how to say "yes" and "no", but we keep getting them confused.

We'll write more soon. Love,
RANAD

We're off

It's true, RANAD is off on perhaps her biggest adventure ever. Updates will be coming shortly. Now we have to pack,
Love,
RANAD

East Coast Part Two

Hi again, RANAD here with another Newfoundland update!

So after St. John’s we drove to Trinity. It’s a quaint little former fishing town on an inlet, with picturesque houses and a rocky shoreline; in a word, breathtaking. Even the three-story house we rented could have been in “House and Garden”. We rushed there from St. John’s in order to catch their “pageant,” an outdoor play that moves through the village, describing the history of Trinity. Some of the scenes were kinda hokey, but on the whole, it was very entertaining.

Later that evening, we went to “dinner time theatre”. First about the food: it was great if you like tasteless overcooked food, recycled mash potatoes, and edible petroleum product on your dessert. The show, on the other hand, was very entertaining, with great comedy acts, a magic show, and typical Newfie music; i.e. where the harmonies are gorgeous, the rhythms are cool, the fiddling totally rocks, and the lyrics tend to be only about adultery or drownings, and their love for Newfoundland.

The next day, we went on a stunning 5.3 km hike. It involved climbing up cliffs to look down over the shoreline where we saw puffins, picnicking on a hilltop, descending down into luscious bogs and back up again, and skipping stones along the glassy surface of Trinity Bay. The most physically demanding part of the hike was carrying our little 120-pound backpack named Aviva. Because Aviva had mono, after the first kilometer on flat ground, she was somewhat out of commission, so inclines were pretty much a no-go for her. So the guys, and even Diane on desperate occasions, took turns shlepping Aviva up the hills on our backs, managing to turn a 1 1/2 hour hike into a 4 hour one!

On our way across the province from east to west, we stopped in Gander to check out the Aviation Museum, touted as a “Find” in our guide books. You can hardly call this place a “museum” as it was more like walking through somebody’s attic, who’s really really really into planes. It was not well organized, but they did have some cool planes and cockpits to explore. We also learned that Banting - as in the dude who discovered insulin - died in a plane crash around here.

Next stop: Gros Morne Park, on the west coast of Newfoundland. The ads you see on TV do not exaggerate the majestic beauty of this place. We had less time here than we needed, but we managed to pack in a lot. The major highlight of our stay was an overnight sea kayaking trip with a guide. We had 3 kayaks and the most atypical Newfoundland weather imaginable: clear blue skies and 25 degrees. We paddled under towering rocky mountains, passed harbour seals within spitting distance, saw caribou grazing as well as tons of different birds, paddled along a mirror-like winding river, and then hiked the last part up to a waterfall. We filled our water bottles there and then paddled back to our campsite into the setting sun and wispy cotton candy clouds. And, were greeted by a welcoming committee of about 37,652 mosquitos.

Back at the campsite, we finally got to eat something, because we were absolutely FAMISHED at that point. Our uber rugged guide apparently doesn’t believe in eating or drinking, “I don’t really need to drink water.” We ploughed through 8 bottles of chili, all the dinner rolls, and basically ate everything else we’d brought other than the breakfast oatmeal.

Our guide was extremely knowledgeable; a walking, talking, paddling encyclopedia about nature. However, at one point he did turn to Aviva and say, “I really need to find a wife soon.........So what are your plans after you graduate?”

We paddled back the next morning and hung our clothing out to dry on our car and then headed to The Tablelands. This is a landscape where the earth’s crust got turned over, exposing the mantle. The mantle is rich in nickel, not allowing plant life to grow. The outcome: a Mars-like desert landscape that looks uncannily like Israel; a huge expanse of rusty yellow rocks and cliffs.

Let’s digress now to discuss some of Rob’s recent “toilet adventures.” While dining at a restaurant in Gros Morne, Rob went to use the WC. The toilet, sadly, got clogged, and one flush too many led to water over-flowing onto the bathroom floor. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except that the bathroom emptied out onto the proprietor’s laundry room, which had a full basket of clean white laundry siting on the floor. Rob did manage to save the laundry, but not his pride. Bathroom adventure number two, in L’Anse aux Meadows, even more embarrassing. From his bathroom stall, Rob misheard Aaron as saying that the public washroom they were in was empty, when in fact there was a 10 year-old boy there using the urinal. Thinking he was alone with Aaron, who had in fact just left the washroom, Rob started to sing animatedly to Aaron “Smoke on the Water” with a vocal guitar solo. Somewhere there’s a 10 year-old boy out there, who overheard some weird 40-something guy singing Smoke on the Water from a bathroom stall.

Back to the trip - After a gorgeous cruise in Western Brook Pond, a fresh water “fjord”, we headed up to L’Anse aux Meadows, the northern most point of Newfoundland. All along the highways of Newfoundland there is a serious road hazard. We Torontonians think we have it bad with the raccoons. Here, there are ongoing problems of moose unexpectedly crossing the highway and causing major accidents and even loss of life. Dusk and dawn are particularly dangerous, as they graze at these times and with the poor lighting, are very well camouflaged. We have seen 5 on the side of the highway so far.

L’Anse aux Meadows is the place where the Vikings landed about 1000 years ago. We met a bunch of really cool viking re-enactors who taught us a lot about who the first European settlers really were. One man explained to us the entire process of smelting bog iron ore into pure iron. All the folks working here are “experimental archaeologists” meaning they read about viking artifacts and then recreate them out of the same raw materials. For example, we met a guy who made a comb out of bone and horn. He also made a bowed harp; not something you can pick up at Long and McQuade. Aaron and Noah both played on some of the Norse instruments, impressing the crowd. We really enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot.

Now for our accommodations in l’Anse aux Meadows. When we arrived at the inn where we had rooms booked, there was a bit of commotion at the front desk. Apparently the manager had given away not only our rooms, but those of another group as well. There was only one room left for all 9 of us. When that other group put two and two together, they promptly dove into that room, slammed the door shut, and stated, “well we’re in it now!” and were never to be seen again. The manager suddenly sat down, put his face in his hands, and declared, “Why don’t you all just lay off! I need to relax,” and almost started crying. Knowing that there were no accommodations for miles around, we wondered where we roomless ones were to go. Eventually, a second man, whom we have affectionally called “the schleper guy,” materialized and suggested we sleep in the conference room; a large, dusty old space with a lumpy futon, book cases filled with university textbooks from the 80’s, an old TV, and a whole shwack of dilapidated armchairs strewn about. Shlepper guy shlepped mattresses and linens into our “conference” room. Later the manager told us we wouldn’t be charged for the room, but then proceeded to tell us this about 8 times, making us realize that he was a little bit senile - perhaps explaining why he had given our rooms away in the first place.

Today we drove all the way back down from l’Anse aux Meadows and are about to leave The Rock for Nova Scotia and PEI. More from us in a few days.....

Love,

RANAD

Off to the East Coast

As always, this is written by all five of us RANAD, RobAvivaNoahAaronDiane:
A tale of an acronym who decided to take the month of August to head over to the Canadian East Coast for yet another vacation.
So-o-o, let's get you caught up on what we've been doing of late. It took us 7 hours to fly to Quebec City; 9 hours door to door! We could have f@#$ing driven there in that same time! Why, fellow readers, you might ask? Well apparently it was "Monsoon Season" in the province of Quebec so our planes were grounded on various tarmacs due to outrageous rain along the way. But we made it to Quebec City just in time for a blackout that lasted several hours. This meant that both check-in and supper had a litle 19th century twist. We checked in by candlelight and were handed glow sticks and were sent to our rooms. Oh yeah, we had St. Hubert's BBQ delivered to our room where we dined by glow-stick light on the bathroom floor; a glorious supper with limited cutlery. At some piont or anoter during the blackout, Grandmommy (Eva P) arrived at the hotel, and we all tumbled into bed after a warm welcome.
Highlights of Quebec City... well it depends on who you ask. Aviva could give you the inside scoop on the workings of Hotel Dieu hospital. She spent chunks of the first day and a half getting herself diagnosed with mononucleosis (not the end of the world but still kinda sucks). Aaron, Noah, and Grandmommy spent the first day on the town exploring the city. They took the funicular up to the Haute Ville, saw the awesome vistas and the ruins of the original fortress, and had high tea at the Chateau Frontenac. From this point on in the trip Aviva has been joining us some of the time (often via piggyback) and some of the time has stayed back at the room.
Now back to the highlights of Quebec City. We toured the Citadel, and went to Les Chutes de Mont Morincy. We had thought to rent a van for this excursion for $150, but there were none available; so we had to resort to using public transit, which meant that on a $3 ticket we were able to go to Mont Morincy, go back to the hotel to pick up Aviva, return to Quebec City for supper, and return to our hotel for the night.
The next day as we were heading off to St. John's Newfoundland, we gorged ourselves on chocolate-almond croissants at the airport and scared off everyone else at the gate with our pig-like croissant-eating manners. We next parted company with Grandmommy and headed off for St.John's. During our layover in Montreal (which for some reason was further from our destination than our original departure point in Quebec City) we started reading The Hunger Games (an awesome family read).
St. John's: Yes, it's true, the stereotype about Newfoundlanders is correct; they are outrageously kind, or as Rob calls it "cult-like-love-bombing-friendly". Not only do the drivers let you in and stop for jay-walking pedestrians, but on one occasion on a main street, a guy in a pick-up truck ground to a halt, got out of his truck, walked over to our car, picked up Aaron's camera case that he had accidentally dropped out of the car, and asked us "is this yours?" Every moment is a chattable moment here - just when asking for directions or bagging groceries at the grocery store.
Our first day here, we went to the most eastern point in North America - Cape Spear. It is crazy gorgeous, so we took way too many pictures. All over the park their are signs clearly marking that you should NOT go off the trail as there are high waves and the sea can change suddenly. So, of course, we got off the trails, hiked right down to the waters' edge, and along a tiny grassy trail mid-cliff. To our mothers/grandmothers: it wasn't really THAT dangerous, but the story wouldn't be as good now, would it?
We also have been to Signal Hill, which over-looks St. John's Harbour, and for centuries was used by the military to send fire signals. But the most important signal to be sent there, was one to Marconi in 1901 -the first wireless trans-Atlantic signal from England. Today, we went to "The Rooms", a beautiful museum and art gallery where we learned about the history of Newfoundland and its strong Irish roots. They also had a visiting Art exhibit about the impact of oil on people and the environment. The artist chose St. John's as the first Canadian city to display the work because it is an emerging oil economy.
By the way, we have been eating really well here in St.John's. Who would have thought? Tomorrow we're off to Trinity on the Bona Vista peninsula to an authentic Newfie fishing village and for some local live theatre.

As always with love,
RANAD

Israel Entry 4

So Eilat......Eilat. Eilat. Eilat. Eilat was not our favourite city. But, to be fair, we came to it from an absolute highlight of the trip, Mitzpe Ramon and the Succah Ba Midbar where we enjoyed the wilderness, the stars at night, a vegetarian retreat, and the wonders of the desert. And then we plunged into this loud, touristy, 24/7 resort town with all the trimmings of any such place. The first day there we went to the coral reef reserve where we rented snorkeling equipment. In our, oh so Canadian way, we inquired about the cleanliness of the the mouthpieces. We were assured that all clients returning equipment are required to dip their mouth pieces into a special cleansing bath next to the front desk. We stepped outside, and the first thing we saw was a not-so-hygienic looking man washing his feet in said “cleansing bath”. We headed straight to the washrooms and we each thoroughly cleaned our mouthpieces with warm soapy water! After the cleaning fest we headed out into the sparkling blue waters of the Red Sea where we snorkeled for a couple of hours, admiring the coral and the gorgeous fish. It was really fun to swim together as a family, pointing out various things to each other as we went along.

The next day we took a tour to Petra, Jordan - the ancient Nabataean city carved out of a soft stone canyon. Crossing the border into Jordan was an event unto itself. We were given all kinds of instructions from the Israelis: you can’t bring any food or water with you, your tour guide will be in cahoots with the horse and camel handlers and will try to get you to pay for things that are already included in the price, etc. As it turned out, we brought food and water in, and our tour guide did not try to get us to pay for any extras! More on the actual border crossing: the oddest part of the whole thing was that we handed in our passports to the Israelis who gave us some stamped piece of paper. Then, with no instruction, we were left to walk across this 500 meter, fenced-in, no-man’s-land between the two countries. On the other side, we went through security a second time, and had our passports stamped up some more.

After a brief and very boring tour of Aqaba, Jordan (where they pointed out various hotels, most of which are still under construction, and one of which is considered a “six star hotel” - whatever that means) we headed off to Petra through some amazing desert terrain. Along the way, we stopped at a truck stop where we peed in real middle eastern toilets: two foot rests and a hole in the ground + a spray nozzle to tidy up afterward. We also had outstanding Arab coffee - they put cardamom in it, and it is so good. After the stop Aaron decided to use the toilet on our bus (mostly out of curiosity), unfortunately he proceeded to get stuck in the washroom and we had to get the driver to stop the bus and he and the tour guide worked for several minutes on freeing Aaron. Ultimately it was Aaron himself who worked the lock and got the door open!

When we arrived in Petra we got a very good, low key Bedouin guide named Madji, who toured us around the place. At the outset there was a bit of an altercation between Madji and one of the horse handlers who offers rides down the last 800 meters through the canyon and to the entrance to the city itself. No one on our tour opted to go by horse, and as a result, one of the horse handlers started yelling at Madji in Arabic. The only word we could glean from his tirade was “Arba”, the number 4. We all figured he was saying something like this: You schmuck! You promised me at least 4 of these suckers would ride my horses! ......or words to that effect.

We walked down to Petra through this amazing canyon, while Madji explained how the Nabataeans figured out a way to bring water down to their city through these extensive clay water pipes that they carved into the canyon walls. We learned about their gods and some of their rites, although much of this is still speculation as there are many questions remaining about this ancient people.

The last major site we visited while in Eilat was a hike in the Red Canyon as well as taking out kayaks in the laguna. Both were low key, but fun activities. Of note, the Canyon was completely deserted, so we wondered if everybody else knew something we didn’t about the Canyon. We emerged unscathed, had an amazing meal in a Pan Asian restaurant called Ginger, and headed off a bit late for bed. Little did we know that Thursday night would be party night in Eilat and that the “Sport Hotel” across the Laguna, would be blasting loud Arab/Israeli pop music and shouting over the mic until 4:30 in the morning. Noah and Aviva were finally able to fall asleep after midnight by moving themselves onto the floor in the hall of our apartment, Diane fell asleep around 2:00 on the living room couch; Rob was only able to fall asleep after the very last performer closed the show at 4:30 in the morning......and Aaron slept through it all.

We drove straight from Eilat to Tel Aviv the next day; traversing a huge swathe of desert, and transitioning into farm land as we got further north. We dumped our car at the airport and took a cab to our apartment. About where we’re staying: we are on the fourth floor in this amazing penthouse right in the heart of the city in a very funky neighbourhood. Also staying with us in our place are Bubu and Schnitzel, the owner’s cats. They spend most of their time on the roof outside, petrified of us, and we have worried on several occasions that Schnitzel had died due to dehydration. Another of our responsibilities is to care for his plants. Every morning Rob or Diane send Aviva out to the roof top garden, watering can in hand, to water the marijuana plants. Yes....you read it right, our landlord has a number of marijuana plants that he is licensed to have in his garden. Why? Because he is a film maker working on a documentary about the medicinal uses of marijuana. His film will air in early October in Israel and through the process of making the film, he has become quite involved in advocating for the medicinal use of marijuana in Israel to treat a number of medical disorders. He now also attends medical conferences, and brings the plants along for demonstration purposes.

Here in Tel Aviv we have visited with family and friends, dined amazingly well, and enjoyed the sites and sounds of the city. We saw our family friends, the Bar Selas for a delicious Friday night dinner and a 21st Birthday party; we are now in the 4th generation of a friendship that dates back to Budapest!. We spent shabbat with the Kofetz family; Rob’s dad’s cousin’s family. Michael (Rob’s dad’s cousin) and his wife, Sarah, made a huge feast for us. Once again, we have a long history with them also dating back to Budapest. A theme here. While there, Sarah told a story about when Rob visited them when he spent the summer in Israel at the age of 19. Apparently while waiting for the bus, he had taken off his shirt. Once he got on the bus, someone told him in Hebrew to put his shirt back on, at which point he claimed not to speak Hebrew (ah, the recklessness of youth).

The next day we rented bikes and rode all over Tel Aviv and to Jaffa. It’s a very bikeable city, and they have done a lot in the last few years to create bike lanes that are safe - a good thing given that you take your life in your hands when you go on the roads here....and that’s in a car. As per our experience in the past, the bike rental guy was able to give us an outstanding dinner recommendation (a place called “Sheila’s”) when we returned our bikes to him.

Yesterday we hung out at the beach. We took two chaise longes and an umbrella. At some point Aviva and Diane were approached by a guy who asked them in Hebrew to pay for the spot, at which point they claimed not to speak Hebrew (sound familiar?). Unfortunately this time the guy spoke English....so we told him we had no money and he went away.

Last night our family friend, Yoram Barsela took us to Mini Israel, a reproduction of much of Israel’s major sites and regions, but 25 times smaller than the real thing. It was the perfect way to wind down this amazing trip, as we saw so many of the places we had been to. After, we went to Abu Gosh for incredible, authentic Lebanese food.

Today we went to an arts and crafts market here in the city and we are now heading out for our last dinner. Tomorrow we fly out!!

Love RANAD.

Israel Entry 3

So, we got to Ein Gedi.....without any of Jeremy the GPS’s help; a good choice since most of the drive was again through the West Bank and he gives us the silent treatment when we do that anyway. Noah was particularly happy about Jeremy being shunned to the glove compartment as he has serious sibling rivalry with Jeremy (Noah has quite the navigational skills, as many of you know).

In Ein Gedi we stayed at the Kibbutz/spa/resort with breakfasts and dinners included. Breakfasts and dinners were in fact plentiful, fresh and quite good....so much so that we helped ourselves to “extra” breakfasts, that we stored in our knapsack until lunch every day. Note to future travelers: remember not to squish hard boiled eggs, yogurts, and buns in knapsacks already containing large bottles of water, unless using separate containers. We’ll leave the appearance of our first lunch to your imaginations - serves us right for yet again trying to beat the system!

For our first full day in Ein Gedi we went on a water hike to a hidden water fall (not the usual touristy 30 minute hike). In Israel it is popular to hike in rivers...yes, in the rivers not beside them. We thought this very strange when we heard about it in Canada, but having done it, it makes perfect sense. The heat is oppressive, but the mountain water is cool and refreshing, and we frequently immersed ourselves, in our clothes, and continued hiking. At the outset of the hike, Aaron noted some black creatures that we now believe are water slugs, but he worried that they were leaches, and was reluctant to step on the water, preferring to hop from one stone to the next. Eventually he was reassured and joined the rest of us as we slogged through the water. When we got to the hidden water fall we went for a lovely swim, but then quickly continued up another half hour to the fresh water pools that feed the river. The water comes down from the hills of Jerusalem, leaching through the rock over a period of days to years, and first emerges at these pools, cool, filtered and clean enough to drink. On the way up, we heard a cute little boy yelling out to the echoes in the hills. We called back to him a couple of times. Within moments of our arrival at the top, a person who we initially thought was a 12 year-old boy, but turned out to be a 20-something female park ranger, accosted us angrily saying, “Didn’t you hear me yelling at you earlier?!” Once again, we were in trouble with the Israeli authorities- this time for not responding appropriately to a park ranger; it turns out that the yelling child we'd hear earlier, was no child, but said angry park ranger. Apparently we were not supposed to have gone up to the very top after 2:00 pm. We consequently received a ranger escort back down the mountain. So we sang religious songs in 3 part harmony in the hopes of either entertaining her, or annoying her. We wondered if she was particularly angered by us because she doesn’t like kids, so Aaron renamed her “The Kid-Stop-o”. After the hike we went for our first dip in the Dead Sea and all enjoyed the floating, but not the stinging in various body parts.

The next morning we awoke at 3:45 am!! You’d think this would be an annoyance, but not for us; we did it on purpose. We got in the car and started driving further south.....to....Massada for sunrise. The hike is a steep 45 minutes, and you definitely need a flash light as the Snake Path is not lit up and it was pitch dark at the beginning. Even in the dark it was still quite hot, but manageable. When we got to the top, we sat on an ancient wall overlooking the Dead Sea. We watched the sun come up over the mountains of Jordan. It was beautiful. We then walked around the grounds of Massada, discussing the story of the 967 people who died there in order to be free and not to become Roman slaves. We took the cable car down; a mere three minute ride.

Back at the kibbutz, we had breakfast (and fed the knapsack more carefully its lunch), and then went off to bed for two hours. In the late afternoon, we headed to the spa of Ein Gedi, where we swam in the pool, smeared ourselves with mud and took typical tourist pictures of ourselves. The next day we went the spa once more so that we could soak in the Dead Sea again, and then we made our way to Mitzpe Ramon.

Mitzpe Ramon is a small desert town on the ridge of the world’s largest “erosion crater”. We stayed at a place in the desert called “Succah BaMidbar” which means, Huts in the Desert. This was the most amazing place we’ve stayed at so far. It is way outside the town, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, in the Negev Desert. It consists of several straw huts each quite isolated from the others. A gong is rung twice a-day, when it’s time to eat amazing, plentiful vegetarian meals in the main succah. The first morning we went on a hike to the crater and saw its immenseness. It reminded some of us of the Grand Canyon - vast, inspiring, and untouched. In the afternoon we met up with a guide, Oded, who took us off-road cycling along the ridge of the Canyon, as well as into the desert. He was the best guide we’ve had to date - knowledgeable, fun, and totally rugged. He described the geology of the place, pulled up a plant whose leaves have oils and salt and with a few drops of water can be lathered into a kind of soap, and found some camel poop that he opened up and dissected; bringing it up to his nose and taking a long sniff, claiming it smelled fine (camels are herbivores).

In the village of Mitzpe Ramon, we had a few adventures. It is a weird combo of artist colony and army base. So, in the main square we saw oodles of Israeli soldiers, young men and women, stocking up on junk food, buying pizza and falafel, and generally hanging out like the normal teenagers that most of them are. Around the corner from their is an artists’ cooperative and a true french chocoatier, where we nibbled on home made truffles and sipped on chocolat chaud. While driving through the town, we found ourselves being chased down by Israeli authorities yet again. This time the police pulled us over and we had no idea why. Turns out Rob ran a stop sign and made an illegal left turn all in one combo move. The police officer seemed quite irritated as Rob tried to explain that we were looking for a restaurant and got confused by traffic. The officer wasn’t impressed and said, with a thick Israeli accent, “If you were an Israeli citizen, I would take away your license and take away your car and make you take the bus. But since you are a tourist I will just give you a warning. Now, for restaurant recommendations......” - and he proceeded to tell us all the local restaurant options we could choose from. This is now our prime example of the Sabra (Israeli native); prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside.

The next day we drove to Eilat, which is where we are now, reeling with culture shock as we have gone from a silent desert retreat to a booming beach resort town.

Until the next time....RANAD!

Tuesday August 17, 2009

Israel entry 2
Jerusalem

So, obviously we made it to Jerusalem safe and sound. Jeremy, our GPS, was not happy with us driving through the West Bank, and so he gave us the silent treatment the entire time. And then, suddenly, once we arrived in the city, he woke up from his passive-aggressive slumber and decided to start giving us directions again.

Our apartment here has been great. Great location. Great lay out. Great price. Great cockroaches. OK, we’ve only seen two, at the beginning, but they are massive here in Israel, so they are pretty scary. Consequently, we come home from our touring every night and have done “Makak checks” (Cockroach checks). By the way, both roach murders were committed by our hero, Rob. The first, squeezed between two bottles of olive oil. The second squashed with his foot (well....with his sandled foot; he’s not that barbaric).

The first day in Jerusalem we took a comprehensive guided tour of the old city, although not necessarily all that well organized. Our enthusiastic guide, Dorit, explained tons; everything from the coming of the various Messiahs to the current political situation, with a little about local plant life along the way. We went to all four of the Old City’s quarters, met the Armenian Arch Bishop in a little shop, hung out in all of Jesus’ stops along the Via Dolorosa, saw the Western Wall, where the kids placed notes they had written, saw a bunch of Mosques, one synagogue, and went into a gazillion churches. The number of churches we saw per minute kept increasing in our minds as we subsequently relayed our day’s site seeing to others. We also toured the Western Wall tunnel, which was most excellent thanks to a superb tour guide and really cool archeological work, and we ended with a tour of the Arab Shuk, which was totally cool. At one point during the day we went into a Messianic church, and received a little lecture from a New Yorker turned Jews-for-Jesus. The lecture started out factual, but was followed quickly by a healthy dose of full-on attempted conversion. We got outta there quickly. Of course, it goes without saying that we saw many Roman ruins. At one spot, there was a bunch of highly under-supervised kids, one of whom was whacking at a Roman pillar with a mallet; okay, it was a toy mallet, but still...

That evening we ate at an amazing Armenian restaurant in the Armenian Quarter of the old city. On the English menu they offered pieces of chopped lamp (perhaps they meant lamb?). On our way home from dinner we bumped into Rob’s dad’s cousin Michael and his wife, Sarah, who were in town from Tel Aviv to celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary. In the same block, we next ran into our friends from Toronto, the Newmans, We don’t typically run into as many people we know in downtown Toronto as we did that night in Jersualem!

The next day we had to buy Rob pants. You see, he somehow thought that he could show up at this Bar Mitzvah we were invited to in shorts and a t-shirt. So Diane had to explain to him that he is no longer 12 years old, and that grown men actually dress like grown men when they go to functions. While we waited for his pants to be altered, we ate lunch at Sam Bagel’s, which in the rest of the world is called Sam’s Bagels; one of many interesting alterations to the English language here. While on the topic of alterations in language, the hardest part about reading Hebrew is reading the English words transliterated into Hebrew. The other day, Diane saw a business and said “Oh look, that place is called ‘Disco-net’, I guess you can dance and go on the computer there!” It turns out it was really a bank called ‘Discount’ (both look the same when written with Hebrew letters). At the end of that day, we visited the museum of Islamic art, which is in the neighborhood we’re staying in. The first exhibit we went to could have been called Islam for dummies; it was very basic. But the exhibit on swords, shields, and armour, from the Persian and Ottoman empires was very cool. That evening we had Shabbat dinner at our friends’ Lee and Shira, who graciously answered about a million questions that we had been saving up for them on Israeli politics, army duty for Orthodox Jews, and so on.

Saturday morning we took a walking tour of the new city of Jerusalem, offered by the city. This time, our tour guide was less than desirable - speaking in a monotonous, quiet and uninspiring manner. He was far more organized, however. It’s amazing that the city of Jerusalem is this ancient ancient place, and yet the modern city only began in 1860. After the tour and a quick brown bag lunch, we went to watch a time elevator movie. Time-elevator is a company that makes video experiences for ancient cities. They take you back in time thousands of years, teach you the history in an animated way. All the actors were dubbed into English, including a 14-year-old boy who had the misfortune of having a woman dub his voice; he sort of sounded like he was on helium. For the afternoon we went to the Newman’s, grazed and hung out with them until the end of Shabbat. It was so fun, and we rolled out of there at the end of the evening.

The Newmans have a nephew named Ilan who has a vast amount of knowledge about the history of Jerusalem. On Sunday, he took us on a wonderful tour of the rooftops of the old city. We learned a lot about the current situations in Israel, as well as a ton of historical information. After having taken three tours of the city of Jerusalem, we feel as though we have barely scratched the surface of this incredible city. We then took a tour of the City of David, just south-east of the old city. This tour goes through underground tunnels that used to be the water system for the city of David, 2700 years ago. During the entire walk through the tunnel, we were submerged in water up to our thighs. The enthusiastic tour guide kept turning around to explain stuff to us. Since the tunnel was very thin, we all had to walk in single file, and so every time he would tell us something, we would have to relay it back to the people behind us who then told the people behind them, and so on. It was like a real life version of broken telephone. We figured that when he told us there were calcium deposits on the wall of the tunnel, by the time the last person heard it, they would think that’s where you can make bank deposits.

That night, we went to the Ellis Bar-Mitzvah. Aaron and Noah’s friend Eitan had his Bar-Mitzvah in Israel, and it was really lovely. It felt like a Heschel school reunion, as there were a number of families here in Israel from the children’s school. We had an amazing time schmoozing with everyone. On a funny note, Aviva was seated directly next to some of Eitan’s cousins, who had a bickery moment. The sister yelled at her brother about how disrespectful he was for not wearing a kipah to a Bar-Mitzvah. They had an elaborate argument in Hebrew, assuming that no one could understand them.

The next day, we all went to Yad Vashem for an emotionally-moving and informative journey through the history of the Holocaust. It’s hard to find words to describe it without sounding trite. We didn’t want to miss anything, so we only got part-way through the museum. We’re hoping to return.

Yesterday, we went to the Soreq caves in Beit Shemesh. The caves are just outside of Jerusalem, and so we took a sheirut to get there and back. A sheirut is a cross between a public bus and a taxi. People get on and request where they want to go, and the price is negotiated accordingly. Our bus driver was driving barefooted. On the way back, he kept yawning and shaking, and we realized he was falling asleep. So Diane asked Rob to start firing questions at him in Hebrew to keep him awake.

As for the Soreq caves themselves, they contained huge stalactites and stalagmites. We were forced to take a tour in Hebrew, with a guide who had a thick Russian accent. Through the five of us understanding various segments, we eventually figured out the full picture. That is, they were the result of millions of years of water dripping through limestone, leaving behind tiny deposits along the way, creating these formations. The caves were gorgeous, true natural wonders. This was the most impressive part of the trip, in Aviva’s opinion. We felt as though we were in a Dr. Seuss novel, because the formations were so surreal feeling.

We had dinner at this funky courtyard near the old city. At our table, there were a bunch of cats begging for food (Jerusalem, apparently, is the stray cat capital of the world). At one point, an off-leash dog chased one up a tree where we were seated. Rob was convinced that the cats, in the tree just above, would poop on his head. He insisted on wearing a napkin, and finally settled for a safari hat for protection. Then, one of the cats started having a coughing and sneezing fit, but eventually, the cat quieted down and fell asleep. We were all certain, at this point, that the cat had died, and Rob became convinced the dead cat would fall on his head. In explaining the situation to the confused waitress, we learned how to say, “We are afraid that a dead cat will plop on his head,” in Hebrew.

Today we are driving to Ein Gedi, an oasis near Massada and the Dead Sea.

Love to all of you,
RANAD

RANAD Philipp-Muller family blog.
Summer 2009. Trip to Israel.

Israel entry 1:
Haifa and the Galilee

Our trip was scheduled to begin like any other. We had five tickets for Israel, scheduled to leave at 8:40 P.M. Our plane decided to leave two hours early, or more accurately put, Diane had the times mixed up, and realized that we had two hours less than we thought we had. This of course was no issue for the Philipp-Muller family who, as always, was completely ready far in advance, in fact, our bags were packed 8 days ahead of time. NOT.
Anyway.....we had a restful plane ride, relatively uneventful, and ate vegetarian meals along the way. Aaron, however, was still hungry after his vegetarian breakfast, so Diane scored him an extra one by hiding her platter beneath her tray table, and “innocently” accepted a regular meal when they came around a second time.
Upon our arrival, we got off the plane, got hit by a wall of Israeli heat, and collected our bags. You all know the song “United breaks guitars” (if not, check it out on u-tube), well here’s a new one for you: “Austrian Airlines breaks bag handles.” Diane’s bag handle was completely broken off, and she had to perform immediate surgery to salvage her bag.
We picked up our rental car, and all seemed to be going as planned. That is until Rob tried to put the car into gear. The car growled its disapproval. After a couple of laps around the airport, we finally figured out the problem with this crazy car - that we have nicknamed ‘the golf cart' as it continues to growl disapproval anytime we climb a hill.....not great if you’re touring Haifa and the north, where we were headed.
So we raced out of the airport at a fast clip, only to hit terrible traffic en route in Tel Aviv. A drive that should have taken an hour ended up taking three hours.
We arrived in Haifa, excited to get to our apartment, only to realize that we forgot to get the address, telephone number or any means of communication with the owner of the apartment building. We had a little adventure in “Burger Ranch” trying to access internet, because this is the only joint in Haifa, that our lame Canadian brains could find, that has free internet access whatsoever, no matter how crappy it is. After about an hour, we were finally able to open our email and we retrieved this elusive information.
We had dinner at a pizza place and headed off to bed from our tiring adventures.
The next morning we ate breakfast using the groceries we bought from a very Israeli location. Apparently the Hebrew word for drugstore is drugstore - although actually it was a convenience store; very confusing. We had a gorgeous two story apartment with magnificent windows overlooking the Haifa harbour, and the entire city and skyline of Haifa. In every Israeli home there is a metal room that exists in case of attack, the entire family should hide to be safe. This room happened to be Aviva’s room. So essentially she was sleeping in a bomb shelter.
The first day in Haifa we went to Dado beach, which is a beautiful beach on the Mediterranean, but not before we had to buy a GPS. With great difficulty, we finally reached the Grand Canyon Centre, the mall where we purchased our wonderful GPS. We realized that the reason no one could give us directions to the Grand Canyon centre was because we don’t know the proper Israeli pronunciation of the term. In Haifa, they call it “Grond Conyon Centerrr”. Our GPS has never failed us once. We named him Jeremy. Jeremy has told us to turn where there is no turn. Jeremy has sent us going around and around in circles, destined to never reach our destination. Jeremy has told us to turn straight into the Mediterranean. Jeremy has not failed us once, he’s failed us multiple, multiple times.
After purchasing our little friend, we spent the afternoon body surfing, swimming, and lying on the beach and resting. Sitting next to us were several characters. There was a man laying to our left that had a huge tattoo of Jesus on the cross covering his entire back. Rob thought “Wow, these Israelis are becoming so edgy that they tattoo crucifixes on their backs.” This was the moment that Rob remembered that there are, in fact, Arab Christian Israelis as well. Behind us, there was a group of kids smoking a very large bong, or hookah as the kids these days are calling it. Aviva explained the basic concept of a hookah to Rob and Diane who were nicely listening to their little lesson.
After the day was through, we went to an amazing beach-side restaurant called Ha Chavit, or Barrel, for supper. While at the restaurant, Aviva had a little adventure in the bathroom. She realized that she had literally locked herself in the washroom stall. This would have been an okay situation if this were a normal bathroom door that had a gap at the bottom, out of which she could crawl. In fact, in her jet lagged state, her Hebrew was so poor that she couldn’t even remember how to call for help. She wasn’t worried, however, because she knew that eventually her family would sense her absence and look for her. In the end, she figured out how to unlock the door, and she rejoined the rest of the Philipp-Mullers for a wonderful meal.
After dinner, we went for a nice walk on the boardwalk of Dado beach. We saw some Israeli guys playing an interesting combination of volleyball and hackie-sac. There were two guys on either side of a net, hitting the ball over without the use of hands. They used their heads, chests and legs to basically play volleyball. We then encountered a rooftop wedding ceremony, which we admired from afar. And here comes to an end the first day of our Israeli experience.
The next day, we went to Akko, and learned about the history, culture, and architecture of the ancient city. We learned about the significance this historical town has had through the past 4000 years. We learned about the various empires that have taken over this city, and we recognized the differences in architecture. We joked that Akko reminds us of Toronto, in that the various occupiers would just tear down old buildings to build new ones. Upon arriving in Akko, we wanted to go to the visitors centre to pick up headsets to tour the city. This is the day we came to the realization that Akko-ians are just not that great at giving directions. One man told us to go straight and then turn at the orange man. We wondered whether by “orange man”, he meant a man who was literally orange, was wearing an orange shirt, or was selling oranges. We decided he meant the latter. We finally found the visitors centre, after passing three orange men; making erroneous left turns at the first two.
We ate our bagged lunches in the shade in a beautiful garden in Akko. In the middle of our lunch, a little hassidic boy of 3 or 4, right next to us, pulled down his pants and took a whiz. Rob thought he looked like an unmanned hose, and told Noah to take cover, as he was in this boy’s potential line of fire. The boy was quite prolific as he sprayed just about everywhere. He then ran away from his sister, still naked from the waist down, as she chased him around the garden of the visitors centre. We had our second lunch of Shawarma, where the owner gave us complimentary slushies, and taught us how to say “thank you” in Arabic (shukran). There were a lot of “independent” cats in Akko.
That night, we went for Shabbat dinner at Diane’s father’s second cousin’s house. Amos, looked strikingly like Rudy, his cousin. Oddly enough, his wife Pninah, did not. Amos and Pninah were incredibly hospitable, knowledgeable, and kind. Amos has been a ship-man since birth. After the navy, he became a ship builder, and has always been interested in the sea. Pninah, who is almost 60, took up drumming five years ago, and now drums about two hours each day. The running joke throughout the evening was Amos trying to convince us all, especially Aaron and Noah, to drink more wine, and take up cigar smoking ....Well, we think he was joking.
The next day, Amos and Pninah took us out for the day, giving us a tour of the area, and the Golan Heights. The kids sat in their car, while Rob and Diane followed behind in the golf-cart car. Amos explained about different locations and landmarks that were involved in the six day war. We saw the Jordan river, the border between Syria and Israel, and plenty of abandoned Syrian tanks along the side of the road. We took a chairlift up Mount Hermon, the only ski mountain in Israel. We got to the top of the mountain, and could see Syria down below. Pninah was very proud that it was her first time ever on a chairlift. She told us that Amos is afraid of heights, but he hid it exquisitely. We had dinner at a restaurant called “Milkman and Witch Casserole” (it loses a bit of it’s catchiness in translation) The food was unbelievable. They had the best ostrich Rob and Diane have ever tasted. Amos and Pninah took us to see a lovely view of Haifa and the Bahai gardens, and then we said our goodbyes.
The next day we started out with a ride on the only subway in Israel. It is actually only 6 stops and goes up and down the mountain in Haifa. Even at rush hour there was hardly anyone on it. Kind of weird.
Next we headed off by car to the Galilee. We arrived at the Shavit Guest House on a Moshav in the Arbel. We ate a fantastic meal, made by the owners and explored the gorgeous, lush grounds of the guest house. There were trees of all sorts everywhere. We could pick our own fresh grapes and figs whenever we wanted. There was a beautiful pool, and clay tiled pathways. On our first day on the Moshav, we went for a short hike. Rob and Diane, the supposed parents, tried to get us all to sneak into the nearby national park, in a very adolescent way, but in the end we were caught, and payed the full price. Serves us right.
After our hike, we headed to Tsfat, where we met Susie, our niece/cousin. Tsfat is a Kabbalistic town, that has many artsy folk and had a Klesmer festival going on that week. Susie had quite the adventure on her way to Tsfat. She took the bus from Jerusalem to Tsfat, and it was incredibly crowded. Old people were shoving others with their canes, trying to find a spot on the bus. At some point, the driver turns to Susie, and asks her if she knows how to get to Tsfat. Apparently this was his first time driving there. Eventually, after much yelling and gossiping at and about the bus driver, a man from the back of the bus comes forth, and leads the bus to Tsfat. This is the most eventful bus drive we had ever heard of!
Susie showed us around Tsfat, showing us her favourite restaurants, art galleries, shops, and tourist sites. We saw a weaving shop, a candle store, and many art galleries and jewelry shops. Susie was amazing showing us around the bustling city; including a tour of an amazing synagogue. That night, the Klesmer music we heard was fantastic, but we were very tired, so we headed back to Arbel, until the next day.
The next morning we went on a much longer hike on the Arbel cliffs. The hike was a scramble on sheer cliff with hand and foot holds. It was like rock climbing but without the harnesses. Okay okay, the holds were permanently welded into the rock, and the majority of the hike was performed on all twos. But still, it was one of the most challenging hikes our family has been on, and included some moments of serious anxiety as Diane’s fear of heights reared it’s ugly head. Fortunately she had her handy pocket psychologist, Rob, to help her do some deep breathing exercises mid-cliff. Along the way, we saw many caves, that had clearly been used thousands of years ago as a dwelling place by centuries of humans. We saw an ancient castle that had been used by the crusaders. And when we got back from the hike, we went for a much appreciated swim in the glistening pool and had a blast.
That night, we went to Rob’s father’s cousin’s house for supper. Avi and Yonit were great hosts, and we enjoyed practicing our Hebrew with them. In fact, we had no choice but to speak in Hebrew, as Avi does not speak English. All five of us were surprised with the amount of Hebrew that flooded back, the moment we began using it in conversation. It helped that Yonit used to be a Hebrew as a second language teacher, and therefore used basic vocabulary, and spoke at a slower pace.
As we write this blog, we are driving through the West Bank, witnessing lots of dry desert, rocks, cliffs, rocks, abandoned formerly Israeli Kibutzim, rocks, palm trees, rocks, agriculture, rocks, settlements, and.... more rocks. We are currently sort of nervous about our location, but you couldn’t tell by our style of writing. If you’re reading this blog, we emerged okay.
RANAD Philipp-Muller

Hey, this is our third installment on this trip. We realized we forgot to mention a couple of other highlights from LA. One of the nights we were there we also went to Little Japan, which is near the downtown core. It’s such a cool little neighbourhood and really looks like the photos we’ve seen of a downtown Japanish neighbourhood... in Japan, well you know what we mean. Also, we stayed in this cool Mexican neighbourhood, where no one seemed to speak English, except the guy at the local laundromat, who cleaned our clothes for us.
Also, at the Doubletree we stayed at, every morning they charged us a different price for breakfast, depending on how old they decided our children were; ranging from all three being under 10, to not charging for the kids at all.
The train station in LA (Union) was an absolutely gorgeous structure. The wait for the train was unremarkable, except that everybody stood in this really long, organized line until it was time to board. Then all hell broke loose and all started running in a chaotic way to get on the train.

ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO:

So the night on the train from LA to Flagstaff, Arizona, was our worst so far. It was packed, so we didn’t have as much room to spread out, plus there was a group of people in our car who were talking noisily, laughing about how they’d never been on a train before, getting up and moving around, etc. Now we know what you’re imagining, a group of teens or twenty somethings. But no. These were a bunch of obnoxious, loud, silly and inconsiderate.... senior citizens.

We got off the train in Flagstaff at about 6 in the morning (the early arrival time also contributed to the yuckiness of the ride). We found a greasy spoon and had breakfast there and received a recommendation from the waiter who told us that if we wanted to get really good coffee, we should really go somewhere else called Macy’s, the crunchy granola, universityish hang out. It was totally cool and really did make the best coffee we’ve had so far.

We headed off to Grand Canyon, in yet another SUV (no not hybrid....burn fuel, yay!!). The Grand Canyon is such an awesome experience. You have no idea you are approaching something so spectacular until the moment you arrive and see it. We only looked at it briefly that first day, as a thunderstorm broke out, and we had been told by the rangers that you can’t be near the rim during lightening. After the rain we set up camp, in a gorgeous campground. Note: this was after Noah had a “hysterical hissy fit” (his words) when we were briefly considering hotel-ing instead of camping because of the rain.

During the two days at the Grand Canyon, we went on hikes each day. The first, Bright Angel Trail, was more touristy but the views were spectacular. On the second day we did a much longer and more rigorous trail, called the South Kaibob trail. There were much fewer people, and the views were even more spectacular. By the end we were exhausted, low on our water and a bit dehydrated, but exhilarated by our adventure. We refilled our water bottles at the top and each drank like a litre or so. On that second hike we went 4 miles down into the canyon, where it was close to 40 degrees celsius, but an extremely dry heat. Rob kept going on and on about how he loves dry heat. The hard part about hiking the Grand Canyon is that the easy part is when you’re going down, and the hard part is the return, so it can be deceiving for people. We learned that 250 people need to be rescued from the canyon each year.

On the first day we also went to an Imax movie about the Grand Canyon made by the National Geographic Society. It focused more on some of the history of the early discoverers of the canyon. Much of it was a dramatization of these early explorers, using replicas of the original boats. So we got to see some amazing white water rafting on fairly rickety looking boats, and the cinematography was one of the highlights of the movie.

Words can’t describe how beautiful the Grand Canyon is; it should be on a list of the things you need to do before you die or perhaps before you catch your next cold.

The last day in Arizona we spent back in Flagstaff getting hair cuts for Rob, Diane, Noah and Aaron (i.e. not for Aviva!). Aaron and Rob both had their hair cut by a stylist who had just gotten out of jail. We learned this by eavesdropping on a series of conversations. The recent trip to jail didn’t seem to be a problem, as both of them got great cuts anyway! Noah and Diane’s stylist also gave great haircuts, despite not having gone to jail recently. Of course we also returned to Macy’s for more awesome coffee and an incredible vegan “chicken” sandwich. Next we headed off on Route 66 to New Mexico.

One of our pit stops along Route 66 was Winslow, Arizona where we committed obscene touristiness. We took a picture of ourselves “...standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona.....”. And that is all we did in Winslow, Arizona, ‘cause it really ain’t “such a fine site to see”. In fact, route 66 was kind of a grave yard of has-been towns. It was more sad than interesting.

We had intended to go to Santa Fe next, where we had a reservation in yet another campground, however, by the time we got to Albuquerque it was really late, so instead of making “a left toyn in Albakoyki”(*Bugs Bunny) we decided to stay in Albuquerque. It was a pleasant surprise, as so many had told us that we shouldn’t bother with Albuquerque, we should just go straight to Santa Fe. The first and only day that we had there, we went to the museum of Atomic Energy. This older vet/volunteer gave us a whole private guided tour of the entire museum, including how atomic energy works, the history of the creation of the atom bomb, the testing that went on in New Mexico, the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Cold War.

On our way to dinner, we discovered that Noah’s toe, which he had been complaining about for a day already, seemed to be infected. So....we trotted off to the local pediatric urgent care centre at the University of New Mexico. Here’s the story that Noah and Diane told Aviva about what happened during that visit: an intern came in and examined Noah. She began stabbing Noah repeatedly in the toe to try to drain it. There was blood everywhere, so Noah started screaming really loudly and hyperventilating. They had to give him oxygen. Then the pediatrician came in and said “What the hell are you doing?!” to the intern, who burst into tears. The End. Here’s what actually happened: the intern drained Noah’s toe successfully and sent him off with a prescription of antibiotics and a dinner recommendation at a local New Mexican restaurant, which turned out to be outstanding, just as the care at the hospital had been.
What was even more outstanding, was the fact that Noah swallowed his first couple of capsule pills! He was so proud of himself.

The next day, we caught the train back to Chicago. What we mean by “caught” is: first we missed the train in Albuquerque. And there is only one train per day. We had arranged to drop the car off at the train station Hertz. Only problem: there is no Hertz at the train station. So as we stood on the train tracks with the train rolling away, with the kids...and Diane, all wailing, the conductor shouted to us that we could try to catch them in Las Vegas, New Mexico, two stops ahead. So we raced the clock to get to Las Vegas, New Mexico, making arrangements with Hertz along the way. We got there with 45 minutes to spare, when Rob and Diane got the bright idea that we now had enough time to go and get some food. Rob and Aaron took off to get burritos for the family at the local bakery, and when they returned not 10 minutes later Diane was frantic since the train was already pulling in. As we raced once again to get on that same train, Rob tossed the car keys to the train station attendant and we managed to make it in the nick of time.

We took the train overnight to Chicago, arriving in time to make our Second City reservation for that evening. In case our kids didn’t already know how to swear and talk rudely about the birds and the bees, Second City completed their education. It was actually another highlight of the trip; we all laughed our heads off, even if it was quite raunchy and political as well as extremely politically incorrect.

After breakfast and a morning stroll on the Magnificent Mile (the most elegant stretch of Michigan Ave in Chicago) where we got our next read aloud book in our series and a shi-shi picnic lunch (chevre, baguette, and jelly beans) we are now on the train to Detroit, once again annoying our co-passengers with our loud, obnoxious behaviour.

Tomorrow we drive our mini-van back to Toronto.

Talk to you later,
RANAD (always capitalized)

California

August 13-18, 2008

So we got to San Francisco-ish by train, but we needed to take an Amtrak bus to get to the Caltrain to get to the shuttle van, to get to our hotel. Somewhere along this foray into various forms of transportation, during a mad dash to catch said Caltrain, Aaron unfortunately left his camera on the Amtrak bus seat, never to be seen again. This was very upsetting, as he had had it since his 10th birthday :(. It was very late so we all hit the sac without dinner :( (again) Oh, but first we all washed up because we hadn’t bathed since the morning we had left Chicago (which was 5 days).
The first day in San Francisco, we took a shuttle to the airport to take the air train to a van which took us to a car rental place. Yes folks, despite our best laid plans to use only public transit, the various systems were going to be so cumbersome and expensive in San Francisco, that it turned out to be considerably cheaper and more convenient to simply rent a car for the three days here.
So, next we made our way down to Fisherman’s Wharf and took a Bay Cruise. It was a bit cheesy, and they probably violated several codes by jamming 100’s of people onto a small boat, but we actually liked it (especially the cheesiness). We learned a lot about the history of San Francisco, e.g., people from San Francisco hate the term “Frisco”, the Golden Gate was the first construction site that used a safety net, and Alcatraz means pelican in Spanish. There were windsurfers on the bay and it was a gorgeous day. That first night we went for dinner in China Town followed by Gelato on the way back. It was excellent. We could have had Budweiser beer flavoured ice cream, sesame flavoured, avocado, etc. but we all stuck to more traditional flavours, On our way back to the hotel we drove down Lombard Street. As a man we met on the train said “You haven’t seen San Francisco till you’ve looked down the hood of your car and not been able to see the road beneath you”.

After stealing oranges and bananas from our breakfast buffets and catching a few minutes of the China vs. U.S. men’s basketball game, (summer Olympics) we headed off to Berkeley to eat lunch at a restaurant called Chez Panisse. This was a very special experience for Aviva because when she was little she used to love to read this book called “Fanny at Chez Panisse” all about the owner’s daughter. Aviva had this book read to her so often by Rob and Diane that we all started calling it “the bible”. The restaurant had outstanding food, although pretty pricey. After eating they even let us tour their really nice kitchen. We spent the afternoon in Berkeley and saw a protest by Tibetans against China’s oppression of Tibet. Their have been a lot of such protests with the Olympics, but this one was quite large (and some of the speeches were in Tibetan). We had dinner at a Turkish restaurant and watched what we thought was “Turkish Idol”. We drove home via the “Golden Gate Bridge” Damn those aliens they’re at it again go away- away I tell you!!!!!!!!!!

The next day we headed straight to the Cable Car museum and saw how the whole cable car system runs from that building and we also learned about the history of the cable car. We then went on an actual cable car along California street. We rode the whole line hanging the side poles like the true tourists we are. It was not that long a ride so we walked back. Next we went to a fortune cookie “factory” in a sketchy looking back alley in Chinatown. This wasn’t really a factory sorta just three little old people at two fortune cookie machines; there hands whizzing away at hydraulic speed. Which reminds us, Aviva has discovered that she has hydraulic force; but that’s a different story. We got some samples of chocolate and strawberry flavoured fortune cookies and bought sesame cookies and fortune cookies. We opted not to buy the bag labelled “adult fortune cookies”. We went to little Italy and ate dinner with no dessert because we’d had some hydraulic flavoured cookies and mummy and daddy thought that was enough for one day.

The last day of San Francisco...otherwise entitled “Noah Gets His Cast Taken Off” (remember, he broke his pinky in a freak portaging incident in Algonquin). The doctor thwacked off his cast with a large jackhammer and replaced it with buddy taping. Meanwhile... Rob and Aaron tried one more time to find Aaron’s camera with Amtrak, while Aviva changed our GPS to shout directions at us in Spanish.

As you may know our sole passion and purpose in life is to destroy pollute and wreak havoc on the environment as much as humanly possible in our short time on this planet. Our reputation is at stake here people! So...we rented a non-hybrid SUV for our loooooong ride down the pristine coast to Big Sur on route 1 (This was where some of the fires had happened in Calif.). We just thought that now would be a good time to mention that everything up until now that we have written in this very blog that you few people are reading has been grammatically correct and not awkward in the least!!!!! That’s all.

The coast line was spooky and SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!! That was an alliteration... heh heh heh. Actually as Aaron pointed out it was more on the eerie side than spooky. The waves were crashing against the rocks down below, the fog lingering in the cool air. This made it very difficult to navigate on the narrow winding roads. It quite reminded us of our drive in Scotland to Inverness (see summer 2006) except this time we chose to drive on the right side of the road. COWS! we saw cows grazing by the ocean. Cows are Diane’s friends.

We arrived in Big Sur and pitched camp in darkness, trying to find soft ground to put the stakes into. Eventually we came up with some pretty creative solutions to tie down our tents. Next we arrived at a beautiful cozy and overpriced pub style restaurant where Diane and Noah saw a small animal scurry across the rafters. After, we sat around a campfire outdoors (controlled) and met some french people who gave us some recommendations for some hikes. The next day we went to the beach in Carmel. We know you’re imagining towels, swimming, sunscreen, lifeguards, parasols etc. but no dice my friend; you are sorely mistaken. The water was bone-chillingly-cold, the beach, not much better. The guys went in up to their ankles, Noah played tag with the waves. Rob and Aaron chased ginormous flocks of various races of birds including huge-ass pelicans, while Diane and Aviva huddled together on the windy beach using their towels as blankets. The guys joined up to go rock climbing along the shore. We had a picnic with the birds on the beach which was rather traumatic for Aviva who conquered her fear of birds- a little- with the help of her Mummy.

The next day we went on a hike in a Redwood forest. Some of the trails had been burned during the wild fires that swept Calif. two weeks ago. In fact the region was only un-evacuated quite recently. We saw many Redwood trees on our hike that were spectacularly large, although apparently considered somewhat on the small side but we were impressed none the less anyway and needless to say. Of note, even though Diane has no problem with sleeping on the floor of an Amtrak train she had a hissy-fit about sitting on the ground to eat our lunch during the hike but we forced her to do it anyway. Apparantly it has something to do with her protest against the cows being held hostage by the martians- more on that later.

We left Big Sur, bye-bye. On our drive down to Los Angeles we stopped to admire thrashing whales in the sea, scenic coffee breaks and most importantly we saw Elephant Seals who are cool and look like seals, laze around, throw sand on themselves to keep cool with their flippers and look like they have socks hanging off of their schnozes. Apparently they only come to this beach once a year to deal with the birdsies and the beesies; and let us tell you, we saw some pretty awesome seal action going on in the water.

Hey, we should mention that place in Santa Barbara where we hit our max. on some pretty rad mexican food. It had a name. But that is not important right now. Our guide book and Julia Child conveniently both recommended it. It was this cheapo total hole in the wall, and we got a local to tell us what to order. YUM!

We arrived in L.A. where our S.U.V. fit in perfectly. Swimming pools, movie stars. Since we lost the family read aloud book, we all got into Aaron’s book called Fart Party by Julia Wertz. We f*$%ing love it. Side note: our family is irresponsible; we lose things. The list is infinite: a Croc, important classified documents (if found please memorize them, burn and proceed to eat), the family book, and a camera. We’ll lose more don’t worry.

The next day in L.A. we went on a v.i.p.tour of Warner Bros. studio. Everyone who takes a tour is a V.I.P., so we managed to fit in. Of course Warner Bros. is the home of the most gifted actor of the 20th century: Bugs Bunny- Rob’s hero. The tour was frickin’ amazing. We saw an entire fake town made to look like NYC, Philly, Chicago etc. We saw an Ersatz mini-Central Park, the city sets for “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”, and E.R. and the set for the TV show “Chuck”. We even saw the now retired set of “Friends”. You would have to go on the tour yourself to grasp the awesomeness.

The next day we went to Beverly Hills, Rodeo drive, and Malibu. We went to a beach in the latter. This beach was more normal this time. The guys were able to actually play in the water; body surfing, while the girls worked on their tans. They can now graduate from ghostly pale to slightly pasty. There were surfers on boards all over the place, from as young as about 5 to as old as 60. We were struck by how suburban everyone looked in Malibu, and even in LA. For dinner we went to this place that also had a name, but that’s not important. What’s important is that we were told we might see movie stars there. We did see lots of very Thornhill-looking people (that can be taken however you would like to take it, if you’re from Thornhill - hey, it’s probably flattering to think you look like you come from Malibu to us). And....we saw.....or at least we think we saw.....two tables over.....talking very animatedly.....the woman who played “Coco” on the TV show Fame!!

These past days we have been watching the Michael Phelpslympics known to non- Americans as the Olympics of Beijing 2008. And now we are whizzing along on Amtrak, which surprisingly left only half an hour late. We’re off to see the Grand Canyon next.

Love,
RANAD (always capitalized).

Crossing America

Aug 2, 2008

So RANAD (Rob, Aviva, Noah, Aaron, Diane) is off on another adventure. A train journey across the USA! And we’re writing this blog, once again as a joint effort between all five of us, on various Amtrak trains. And, as any journey starts, we start at the beginning.

We drove to Detroit. Unfortunately we didn’t start the drive till 9:00.....p.m.. And then we hit bad traffic around London. So we only got to a hotel in Detroit at 2:30 am.
The next day we headed to Royal Oak to get on the train. We raced to get to the train station, to unload our luggage from the car, to park the car, and get to the platform and wait and wait and wait. In fact we waited over two hours. The train was apparently late because a live wire had fallen on the tracks and for some reason they didn’t feel comfortable driving over it.
The train was um remarkable mostly do to our neighbours; an obnoxious grand mother with her two grandsons. It all started with the idea that we could turn the seats to face each other. The highly agitated and easily excitable conductor was not uh interested in this plan. She was very concerned about filling every single seat before 200 more people got on. A deal was struck. The grandmother proposed that we that sit together as a party of eight. this seemed like a good plan. Four of us sat together facing each other, while Diane sat with the grandmother and her 2 grandsons it was very squishy. Diane mentioned so. Twice, the grandmother told Diane that she was “welcome to sit somewhere else”, but Diane said that she wanted to be near her family. Finally the grandmother angrily moved saying that she didn’t know why Diane “insisted” on sitting next to her. In the end, the five of us ended up squishing together in the four seater while Aviva read the book “The Lightning Thief” aloud to the family (no accents this time it takes place in U.S.).

We arrived in Chicago, took a cab to the hotel, and met up with Grand-mummy.... surprise, surprise. (We actually planned to meet her for our stay in Chicago). We then went out for dinner to Weber’s grill which is part restaurant and part advertisement for Weber’s bbq company. Oh we forgot to mention that we hadn’t eaten a meal all day other than dinky little snacks and paw fulls of bread and cheese and humus (we had no knife).

The next day Grand-mummy woke us all up in time for breakfast. After six showers, and a big breakfast, we went on a boat tour of Chicago’s architecture-that was amazing! We saw the biggest building in square footage in floor space. The tallest building in the world known only by it’s street address. And the Sears tower which was the tallest building for 28 years. On this boat ride we also got complimentary Starbuck’s paraphernalia. This is probably an apt moment to mention that Rob has been off coffee for a week and a half, and the mind bogglingly horrific migraines have just about ceased. After the boat tour, we went for a jacuzzi at the hotel; except for Noah. :( This is probably an apt moment to mention that Noah has been in a cast (well his pinky has) for about a week now, having broken it during an unfortunate portaging incident in Algonquin park. That night we went to see Mamma Mia which was quite cute. We all had barrels and heaps of fun and laughter but than the aliens came and we all knew we were screwed. The fun and the laughter was now over.:( That night, for dinner, we had Chicago’s famous paper thin pizza. Um well actually Chicago kinda isn’t famous for their paper thin pizza, that would be Italy. What Chicago is famous for is their deep dish pizza. But that was an hour’s wait and none of us even like deep dish pizza so there goes that plan.

The next day Grand-mummy woke us up in time for breakfast. After 5 showers, a bath, and a big breakfast we headed out for Chicago’s Ferris Bueler’s day off day. This is a civic holiday and no one can work. In honour of Ferris we started off at the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts and systematically destroyed each and every piece of artwork.....
Rob managed to get in as a student and Grand-mummy managed to get in as a senior and Diane managed to get in as an adult. We saw Grant Wood’s American Gothic, finding out that the two models were really his dentist and sister. We saw American and European impressionist art. And it made a big impression. We then had a half hour tour of Sunday at La Grand Jatte by George Seurat. We rode the “eL” to a Grecian restaurant in Grecian town where they rushed us out faster than we could say “Homer”. We then took the “eL” to the Sears tower and together we scaled our way to the top with suction cups. The view was very impressive. We got there just after sun set and we saw the city lights not to mention the nightly fire works by lake Michigan. The aliens returned and stole all of our souls and any pink buttons we happened to have on us. Unfortunately we had a lot.

After a send off to grand-mummy and a mad dash to the train station we are now on our way to Colorado on a train, acting quite hysterical and out of control.

Point of interest:
One of the two conductors, both of whom are named Gary, explained to us the reason for what looked like Lakes around the Mississippi between Illinois and Iowa. Turns out the levies broke on the banks of the Mississippi, causing thousands of acres of flooding this past June. Vehicles and farmhouses were still almost totally submerged. The bridge we just crossed on the train was reconstructed only two weeks ago.
Currently, we are traveling 80 miles an hour across the very flat state of Iowa.

August 6, 2008.

So to pick up from where we left off, we had our first night on a train, and we got about 12 hours of sleep...between the five of us. Actually, we each got from 4-8 hours of sleep, depending on who you speak to. Rob slept on a bench in the lounge area. Aaron fell asleep peacefully with Aviva, but then awoke at 4:30 am to roll over, but kicked against a foreign object below. Diane’s head popped up from the floor underneath the seat and both let out a yelp. Aviva played musical chairs, and floors, but won the most sleep contest. Noah was comfortably sleeping on two chairs, with his feet hanging out in the aisle, but was the first up to see the sun rise over Nebraska.

We arrived in Granby Colorado at mid-day. Strangely, we were two hours late, since Amtrak always runs on time. We picked up our rental car and headed into Rocky Mountain National Park. The drive was spectacular, amazing vistas, birds, the cutest chipmunks and even some elk. When we arrived at the camp site the ranger who checked us in warned us that there had been a bear “incident” a few days earlier. He then proceeded to tell us what precautions to take, but he said it at ninety miles an hour, so that it was almost completely incoherent. To top it all off, the second ranger we spoke to contradicted what the “motor mouth” ranger had said about what to do when encountering a bear.

On each of the two days in the park we went on a huge hike. The first day was up to Alberta Falls and Loch Vale and the second day was up to Flat top mountain, which is at 12,324 feet, and is above the tree line (we only hiked the last 2000 feet). We had our first experience with altitude sickness, which hit us all on the descents both days. We were all fine once we drugged ourselves up on Advil and Starbuck’s after the hikes. During the first hike we were a bit low on water and that was a bit stressful as we really had to pace our intake (and may have helped us with developing the altitude headaches). The views were gorgeous and both hikes were quite challenging; uphill for 2 hours on the first day, and “relentlessly uphill” for three hours on the second day.

First a little about the weather here in Colorado. It starts our sunny and beautiful in the morning. Around mid-day the clouds start to build up and then for about half an hour in the mid-afternoon it pours for about 30 minutes, including thunder and lightening. And then it’s beautiful again by late afternoon. If you’re unfortunate or stupid enough to be above the tree line during a lightening storm, you’re at great risk for being hit by lightening, and it has happened. Both days we were just finishing our descent when it started to rain. But, on the second hike, as we were reaching the bottom, and it started to rain, by some mystical force, Rob magically knew to bring us under a small shelter along the path. Less than a minute later, it started raining giant hale stones, the size of grapes. It looked like everything was covered in moth balls. Within a period of about 1 hour, the weather went from feeling like a hot summer’s day, to looking like a cold winter’s day, and back again. When it had all stopped, Aaron and Noah went out and scooped up handfuls of ice pebbles and were throwing hail balls (far away from people).

On the second night in the park, at 4 in the morning from inside our tents, out of the blue we heard these dog-like creatures howling. It started with just one and then it seemed like there were dozens of them chiming in. It sounded like a combo of howling and yelping. At first we were scared they were wolves, then we knew it was the aliens, but by the next morning we figured it was Prairie dogs....probably because we also had their two foot deep holes all over our camp ground. In fact Rob fell into one of them while cooking one time. There were also deer grazing all over the camp ground, within feet of the campers. On our last night we had a cornucopia dinner consisting of sushi, Mediterranean salad, followed up by fruit and whipped cream-topped pancakes. And just as we were finishing up, we had another burst of rain, followed by a phenomenal full-arc rainbow.

The last morning we had to wake up at 6 am to pack up and clear out by 7:30 am, which we did by 7:55 am. We made great time on the way back to Granby. On the way we stopped to fill up the car with gas, but we had a little trouble opening the gas tank. After we searched for a good five minutes, these motor-cyclists started helping us as well. We all searched all over for 15 minutes including one or two other motorists. Then the cashier came out and the first place she looked was underneath the carpet under the driver’s seat, and there it was, the button to open the gas tank! This is just one example of how remarkably friendly and helpful people have been here. People have struck up conversations with us all over the place, most recently at the Amtrak station with a man and his deaf father. The son chatted with us at length, translating back and forth for his father in ASL. Even the attendant on our train here was incredibly kind and friendly. He was clearly expecting us when the train arrived, having already prepared 5 seats for us, with a plan to re-seat us after Grand Junction so that we can have better seats. Oh and by the way, the train was two hours late.

Now we’re sitting in the lounge of the Amtrak train, writing our Blog, reading Lightening Thief and enjoying the Colorado landscape, which looks like something out of the Zoom Zoom commercials or the TV show Bonanza. We are amazed by how vast, variable and undeveloped so much of the terrain is. We’ve also managed to scare off anyone who was seated around us by our obnoxious, loud behaviour while writing this Blog. Next stop: San Francisco.