The Misspelled Tales of a Post Grad Girl

Grandma's Footsteps

2011-01-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

Ok so this post is partially named for what's going on in my life right now (just wait one second) and partially because i'm sure my grandma is going - where is that next blog entry i told her to write?
This one is for you grandma :)

so, what's up? Well clearly returning to the blog because i started online dating was a silly idea that lasted about as long as my gymnast career (what? - exactly). I did continue with the online dateing longer than i blogged about it however, but i think i've taken it up as more of a hobby - some actors learn to knit or get a temp job between shows - me? i go on first dates. meh. its something to do.............

segway....

i am not between shows right now, rather i am in the middle of two. Right now i am currently rehearsing for two shows! woopy! one is The Odyssey a new adapted version for the stage and the other - are you ready? are you sitting down? (duh, who uses the internet standing???) Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) Two very different shows in probably every aspect. The rehearsal experiances i can already tell are going to be different, the energy of the companies is entirely different, stories, goal of playwirte, goal of production etc. etc. etc.

BUT i am equally excited about both!

Odyssey
Exciting excteing things! For me as a non-speaking role (or 3rd-actor-from-the-left) its a different experiance honestly speaking since i got to mn. I am doing a lot of physical work which is awesome. i normally shy away from the movement stuff and i am having a far better time than i thought i would with it. Its challenging, and fun, and i feel special and feel like i am getting a moment to shine doing it too. I think most people are familiar enough with the story of Odysseus and his journey over seas and run ins with gods that i don't have to go in to too much detail. I am the prow of his ship that opens the show in a god created terrible storm at sea and then Odysseus' dog who is the only one to recognize him when he first returns home and then also a bunch of variouse servents and scene setters. oh! and a loom! I am getting a chance to work with some really amazing people who have been in this buissness in this town a long time. i am also meeting some awesome new people which is always fun about any show you do. AND i am collecting points or weeks towards joining the actors union! woot! first show that i can do that with - i got an official card and everything from the union stating that i am apart of their candidacy program. Yay! its like i'm a real actor or something ;)

for a fun peek (a few pictures!) at what odyssey is all about and what i have been doing almost everyday from noon until 8 since Dec 2o, you can go to the theater's rehearsal blog that they have made for this show. http://parksquaretheatre.tumblr.com/

Crumble (Lay Me Down Justin Timberlake) or as i called it for a long time Crumble Me Justin Timberlake is a great show - filled with confusion and obserdtiy and saddness and laughter and heart. I play a foul mouthed greasy 11 year old girl that is definetly one of those kids perceived to beat their own drum (or whatever the phrase is). She is smart for her age and trying to cope with having lossed her father and struggling with middle school all at the same time. Oh, and she loves Justin Timberlake. Oddly enough this really goes against my 6th grade self who was a total Backstreet Boys fan and never at any point owned a single album of NSYNC. I guess i'll have to do some charachter research for this one ;) I think the play will be awesome design wise, story wise, production wise, everything else wise too i guess. I'm in love with the script and my charachter. So far (3 days of rehearsals) we have been doing so much wonderful actor shmactor bullshit stuff. Playing theater games, developing a common language so we can really talk to each other on a more specific level when it comes to developing the show. I love this stuff, can't get enough of this stuff. All that stuff that make us actors people-watch all the time. or rather.... what comes of all that people-wathcing - playing games to try and replicate those interesting people we see out there in that big facinating world filled with the human condition. My director for this one also built into rehearsal time about 5 min of journaling at the end of the night - maybe that's why i am here, caught the bug i guess. I'm really bad at journaling - exhibit A: this blog.......so i think that will be good for me. especially because while this charachter is going to be endless amounts of fun to play i think she will also be a challenge for me. GOD I LOVE THIS STUFF!

Recently i had an existensial thought - could i just drop all of this cold turkey and not care? i don't think i came to a conclusive answer but then its moments like this or times like rehearsal tonight that i just remember that on some other level - i can't descirbe what ...deeper.....higher.....who knows but some other level it just does it for me. there is a click, a snap, a gear alighnment, a shift, a drop, a settleing........i don't know .......something that just feels good and relaxed and at peace. and all at the same time, i get tremblingly excited!

PS. Grandma's Footsteps is the British name for Red Light Green Light apparently. We played it to explore a state of tension that people will sometimes exist in for whatever reasons - you are trying to sneak out of the house unnoticed, you are carefully walking past a bomb so as not to set it off, you are in a cage with a ferocious lion, in this case, you are tense, i guess, because you don't want to wake Grandma. (see: actor shmactor bullshit)

Rules Of The Game

2010-07-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

I never was so good at sticking to the rules. Socially or otherwise - i keep forgetting what they are - which makes for some messy games.....

I am so confused by the strange world of online dateing. Everyone has their own pace - everyone has their own rules - and nobody ever lets me in on it.

Kissing -
I don't think in any real world match - meeting someone by chance at a party/friendly get together/etc. - would i be kissing them the second time i ever saw them - i mean that would have to be some damn good chemistry or crazy vampire powers stuff (just finished another Anita book). I mean maybe if we talked a lot in between first date and second and the conversation chem was just as great as the in person chem (just to recap there would have to be amazing chem all around) - then i get it..... I don't know. this stuff is weird. Like how much touching is ok - hand on the leg, arm around the shoulder, hand holding when you walk together, etc. I mean it all just boils down to what feels comfortable for you right? its that "when you know, you know" thing i guess.

[insert number here] date appropriate activity -
Is it ok to go to someone's home for a second date? or what about a first date - yeah that has been offered.

Calling it off-
In person? At the end of a date? Voice male? Text?
i mean really what do i owe them - we are not going to be "friends" - i mean let's be honest, that's not what either of us are here for right? "J" needs to be done though. A good friend of mine said 3rd date is make it or break it - and we had our 3rd last night. Conclusion: break it. And Jewish online dateing would never be complete with out the guilt right? So i feel very bad that he paid for 3 dates worth and ended up paying for a couple of my friends drinks too. This is why i'm not really into letting a guy pay for everything. I mean i would be pissed....

And to top it all off, the cherry on all of the over thinking and circular logic that goes on in my head, the serial monogomist in me is going crazy! How can i like one guy but go on dates with another? well i kissed him, can i kiss the other one? How do i keep them all straight?

yeah i don't know if im cut out for all of this.......

So The Bachelorette: When i started this whole online dateing thing i had just recently gotten hooked on watching The Bachelorette. I couldn't help but feel like Ali and i were going through the same thing. It was like watching my life being more glamoursley played out in once a week episodes. I mean aside from the fanstastic dates happening all over the world in places people arn't really supposed to go - like old temples or the middle of a pool or a mens' bath house (i guess when your on TV you can do anything) aside from all of that, really, i'm basically the Bachelorette. EXCEPT they are moving way faster than i am - i can't imagine what we see is all the time they spend together - its week 8 or 9 and she's already met the families. And talk about ultimate monogomists night mare shes been "brought home" by 3 different guys. That's intense. SO unfortuantly my kindred spirit is beyond me at this point - i can't look to the show for advice or comfort anymore, it all being out of my realm now. Oh well. It was nice to have Ali there while it lasted.

Ok so now the updates:
"J" needs to go as we concluded earlier
"Cupid" seemed very into seeing me a 3rd time but went off to Japan and haven't heard from him yet
"Swinger" and i went on a lovely date (drinks and live music) which resulted in a second date at his place (he cooked me dinner and we watched big fish and cuddled on the couch)
"DVUP" and i havne't managed to meet up yet
but "AJDr" and i did and that was unfortunate. Thus he is appropriately named Awkward Jewish Doctor.

Ok back to the blog......

2010-07-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

Where does post grad adventures take you? New countries, new states, new jobs....how bout online dating?

recently inspired by a fellow online dater and good friend NJG (Nice Jewish Girl) who shares dateing sites with me - here i am - about to embarc on a new adventure - online dating!

please join me.

Lets start with the basics:
2 websites, 1 girl, and a summer with one show and one session of camp = a lot of time on her hands

i currently have profiles listed on JDate and on OKCupid.
What i like about JDate:
They are all Jewish
A lot of "chat" is used
extensive profile

What i like about OKCupid more than JDate:
Short answer profile prompts - forces you to really spend some time on it and gives you an opportunity to really put some of "you" on there
FREE - i don't pay for Jdate so the only way i can contact someone is if they are online and we "chat"

Ok. The boys. I shall change the names to protect he innocent. Behind door number one we have "J" and behind door number two we have "Cupid".

"J" and i met on Jdate one evening - chatted a little - i could see by his checked boxes that he might like one/but possibly more of boardgames/backgamon/chess (another thing i think is a little lame about JDate) so i went with why i checked that box myself: "So what's your favorite boardgame?" Hoping this was the right direction to go - it was. That simple little question got me a date at Chatterbox - restarant/bar with cupboards of board games and old school Nintendo video games (the ones my brother never let me play). If you know this girl at all - perfect first date!

We went we had a lovely date, lovely meal, good fun playing games(S0rry and Taboo), he payed (good cuase i'm no-joke-broke right now (see above: working one session of camp))

Do you feel the "but" coming yet?

He just came on way too strong - i felt like i was being given an oral resume!
Over complimentary
And said, in not so many words but did use the phrase "putting all my cards out on the table", i like you and want to pursue a relationship with you.
Here is a tip - this is a lesson i think i have recently learned - we all like a little bit of chase and mystery.
He's a nice enough guy, i mean i think he really means everything he says - as strange on a first date as it might be - but just too much too soon. I told him to cool his jets and stop trying so hard (ok so it didn't come out as harsh as all that but i'll take "a little rude"). I was hopeing maybe second date would prove to be a little less intense and him a lot more at ease. He said he felt comfortable around me and i earged him to talk himself through why he thinks i am so perfect for him. He wasn't any less nervouse - he scraped the side of his car while trying to park and i believe the analogy he used for us dateing later was "i'm putting my hand in the jar but i don't own the cookies". OH MY. Everyone was embarassed.

Biggest problem for "J" is how over shadowed he is by "Cupid"
"Cupid" - the worldly - the exciting - the adventurous - the tall.
"Cupid" also happens to be a J but i met him on OKCupid. He messaged me first and gave me kudos for coming to the TCs to pursue my art, asked me how i found the awkward interpersonal skills of Minnesotans to be treating me, and expressed hope that we are not related because his fathers side is also middle eastern and Jewish. Through emails i learned of his work with green energy and his guest lecturing in NY, his enjoyment of unique restaurants and cooking for himself, his explorative nature and his number. SO i called. We went to a fancy little joint for cocktails known for their unique creation. A grand ol' time or as he put it in his text message the following morning "a metric ton of fun". As he hugged me from the step below - so as to be a good hugging height (profile says 6'2'') - we planned to see each other again between his trip to NY for the 4th and his buissness trip to Japan. I guess i'm that great i'm worth planing a second date for sometime within a 2 day layover. SCORE!

"Cupid"'s second date: dinner and then seeing A Midsummer Night's Dream in the park

"J"'s 3rd date is tentativly planned for later next week

In other news:
23/m swing dancer who makes up words gave me his number - we'll call him "Swinger" for fun.
24/m deep voiced urban planner called - we'll call him just that "DVUP"

Next up:
The Bachelorette and WTF are the rules to this game?

Sitting in a cafe in Chicago

2009-12-30T16:14:00.000-08:00

Just sitting here - reflecting on my past week or so.
Ahhhh vacation - i will miss it terribly when i am back in the everyday grind of my life in MN.

I do like it in MN i enjoy where i'm living, i like the family that i'm living close to now and have been able to develop some quality relationships with, I am enjoying the people i have gotten to know in my time there, and i feel lucky to have had all the acting opportunities i have had since last February. Really the move has been a brilliant decision if i do say so myself and more than i ever could have expected has come from it.

I have been analyzing where i am lately though. In life, in acting, in teaching....
MN is my third place to call home. The second time i have just picked up and moved - to challenge myself - to attempt something new - to further the career i want for myself in some way. I just can't help wondering where do i go from here? People ask me if i think i might go back to NY someday others encourage me to move to LA - I say to them that each of these cities will have their time - their moment in my life. I don't think i am completely done with NY but i don't see it in the relatively near future. Same with LA really. So my question is still where do i go from here? Could i live in MN the rest of my life? i don't know about that - i mean definitely in the area i'm in right now - i get it. I get the appeal. I get why people come to the twin cities and just don't leave.
But i don't know about me.

other questions on my mind...
Teaching - is this really what i want to be doing right now - yes maybe in the long run or when all is said and done that's where i'll be - but damn teaching takes a lot of energy. I mean would i rather i was less involved no - at least i don't think that would be as fulfilling. But maybe i don't need fulfilling right now - i do want to focus on acting and my career - does teaching everyday allow for all the opportunities i could be taking part in? does teaching leave my energies and focus available for the rest of my life, which is supposed to be my priority right now? I don't really know/lean towards not, but maybe the grass is just greener on the other side.

i guess a new year coming leads to reflection and pause and taking in where you have been in the past year and suggests thinking about where you want to be going in the next year. Is this where seriouse resolutions come in? I've already come up with resolution number one - nothing too exciteing or original - i want to go back to yoga. Although maybe thats why i am in such a mood of reflection becuase it has all built up since the summer when i stopped going becuase life got busy. SO maybe yoga will help me get back in to a state of ease and a restful mind. Who knows really.

Being home was wonderful - getting to see my friends and family really involved in life - i think we are all still going through a period of "what is it i really want out of this world?" but either way we all seem to be out there making our way towards our goals or at least making our way towards figureing out what we want our goals to be. Seeing everyone and their homes and their lives for a split second really made me think just how grown up we've all become. Maybe this feeling is a little surprising becuase the majority of people i spent time with this trip were all freinds from way back when. Family freinds, 1st grade, middle school freinds. So maybe knowing all these poeple for so long has something to do with this feeling but none the less its impressive how quickly time flys and how fast we all grow up and join the real world. I mean in a matter of months we all seemed to have become adults. I'm impressed. I'm surprised by this feeling, but i am impressed.

Sitting in this cafe waiting for Elie to pop in and out of work - i am left to my own devices. So sitting and thinking is really all i got. And i've been so analytical and in my head over the past couple weeks - my brain is exauhsted. Maybe i just need to get back into the hussle and bussle of life - be distracted a little again. I think this is my problem - in my own head - i just go around in circles - around and around and around in circles. I never land anywhere. I think i just keep thinking about the same things but can never come to conclusion about it all. No wonder i am exauhsted. Also maybe i got to take a break from the caffeen - i can't imagine that helps when i have a lot of time bymyself on my hands. I just feel so restless. Maybe this is also becuase i spent a month of not really doing anything (i.e. no show to be rehearsing or performing) so i just feel restless cuase i am happy when i am a busy bee. So maybe its not the yoga i need (i need to go back to yoga but maybe not for my mental rest) or the distractions or even the change of life right now. Maybe i just need to go back to what my busy life was pre December. Hmmmmmm interesting thought. I thought maybe typing this out my help but i'm still not coming to any conclusions. I described it as having lots of strings - fraying the ends - and then walking away without tying any bows, let a lone big beautiful ones.

So as 2010 rapidly aproaches i leave my frayed ends of twisted rope for another day.
I'm going to go get something sweet from the front of this tea house i'm sitting in. And dream of getting rid of those calories as soon as i get to MN.
Bikram i am on way. 2010 i guess i have nothing to say to you but .....Bring it!

I believe its time....

2009-12-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

Wow - its been so long i don't really no where to start.
Things are going well - hows that?
I'm really enojoying life here in the twin cities at this point. I have really developed some great friendships in the past few months. Teaching the kids is just more fun everyday, as they grow and learn more and are able to retain the things we teach them (that is the most amazing part about it). Auditoning and performing is continuing to go well. I am looking into getting some agent representation to start doing more on camera work soon. Right now though, i am home for a visit and will then be in Chicago for new years with the one and only EB.

i finished up my fall shows and am ending 2009 with some real positive work. I was really happy with the past couple of shows - proud to be working so consistently and having a lot of fun with the work and groups of people i have gotten know. Here's to it continuing.

As this year starts to come to an end. I realize how quickly 2009 went by. Pretty wild. i can't believe i have already been in the cities for 10 months. so much happened in the past year and i am eger to see whats in store for 2010.

I already have a couple of shows lined up. And what with teaching as well, it should be pretty busy right out of the gate.
I have a show starting rehearsals when i get back from vacation - this one is with the same company and some of the same people i worked with over the summer with my Fringe Festival show. This one will perform in February - not a large role but i do like the show. I think it will be a good one. Also i just heard about a show i auditioned for this past week - this one will be in April/May - really looking forward to this one (interested to read the script). It is with the Minnesota Jewish Theater Comapny. I havn't read the whole script - just bits and peices at auditions and call backs - so im not sure the whole story or what my character is really about but i gathered that the show is a pretty controversal one dealing with Orthodox jews in Meah Shearim in Israel and Homosexuality. (Like i said interested in reading the script)

I decided to not do the tour i did when i first got to minnesota again this coming spring. I was planning on it but once i got my teaching job and realised how much time i'd have to step away from the class room for it, i realised i didn't really want to do that to the kids. I think it was a good choice - its opened up some options for me - other shows i am now available to do (like the one i just described above) so i am happy with that decision.

Hannukkah was fun this year. i was worried a little bit about yet another holiday kind of on my own but one of my new good friends (the other assistant teacher for Pre K at school) is super fun, we get along famousley, and we had a hanukkah party with latkes and home made jelly donuts and everything. I think we were the only jews at the party but thats part of the fun. We told the story and tought peopel about dreidles and traditional foods and ate a lot! I think this hannukah i ate more latkes than i have in all my years of latkes . I owe that to Rachel- thanks.
Also celebrated with the Elhais that live in MN, we had a very enjoyable family hanukkah celebration together. I also got to decorate the tree - that was fun and pretty. Oh! and i got lots of hanukkah gifts from my students - a plate of cookies, gift certificates, a bottle of wine - really no one told me how good a gig this teaching thing is.

Now i am home - so far a good relaxing trip. Landed Saturday night - daniels bday. Totally surprised him - he had no idea i was coming home and it was a perfect birthday present. Its weird to be home with neither of the boys around. I do hope to get around to both apartments this trip to see how my brothers are getting along on their own. I hope to see lots of friends enjoy some good catch up and then head to Chicago for some new years fun. Thats basically it over here for now.
Hope everyone else is well
Happy new years to all of you, may 2010 bring success happiness and health to all.
-Roneet

P.S.

2009-10-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Changed my pictures check them out. Production pics from the shows i've been in since i got here. Plus a pic from the new one opening Nov 7.

Also to see something i worked on this summer go here (check all 5 out they are great) :
http://www.vimeo.com/videos/search:zipnosis

Thought i would write a little.....

2009-10-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

It is quite gloomy here in MN. Rainy for the past couple days. I woke up this morning thinking i had missed day lights savings switch because it was so damn dark. I kept expecting the radio to say it was an hour earlier than it really was and then i would be able to go back to sleep.

Things are going pretty well. I have a show opening in a week and half, so we are starting to get down to the all consuming week of rehearsals right before opening. It's been a fun light short rehearsal process. I have to say i am looking forward to the break from shows for a while. I do have a good few projects i should get to work on completing that were started at the beginning of summer!

Marisol was an amazing experiance - i don't remember if i said something about it here yet or not. It truly goes on the list of best theater experinces in my life. Just a peice of work i am so proud of. I loved performing it (as much as i complained before hand - it was taxing - i loved being on stage and going through her journey each show) I wokred so hard to make it happen and the result was something i can not really put into words how i feel about. I said more than a few times that i was jelous of the audience becuase i would never get the chance to see the show unfold from an objective point of view. The rehearsal process was so challengeing, frusterating, overwhelming, fun, feirce, and empowering. I really went through so much during that experiance from feeling to green and inadiquite to really feeling like i had found the charecter and her world. I will miss it terribly. And this next show? has been like some bad watered down coolade in compareison.

Teaching at the preschool is going well. I am enjoying the children more and more each day. They are so fun, high energy, sweet little people. When i'm having a rough day - regardless of whether they are the cause or not - they will just go ahead and do something real cute and i am powerless.
Recently the wonderfulness that is childhood that they decided to share with me was lice! Yay! SO i have lice once again after 12 years of critter free hair ::a little shudder:: The best part was when i was washing my itchy head with some extra strength dandruff somthing or other (thinking that would do the trick) i discovered a little bug on my finger. Having had two kids pulled from school becuase of lice at this point, i quickly google imaged lice and found a direct relative of my little friend staring back at me. FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN!
Yesterday was a day off from school filled with laundry, vacumeing, intense smelling shampoo, and lots of hair in my face. Also some creepy crawly feelings on my skin. again i repeat FUN!
The funniest part was when i looked around my apartment and realized i was worse than these kids: 4 stuffed animals, 2 pillows and a body pillow, 3 blankets - and thats just whats on my bed.
At some point you just got to laugh. Laughing is better than crying. so thats where i am.

The gloomy season and my cold apartment makes me think. i still miss home a lot, family and friends. I have made some friends here, but its still the beginging of those relationships, my freinds at home can be called fora trip to target(or insert any errand here) or to help me lug garbage bags of laundry up to my apartment, while i could probably call on my mn friends for that i feel like its just too soon. A friendship has to blossom before you can request manuel labor.....
I did plan a trip for my winter break from teaching, which i am so excited about. I will be at home for a good 10 days and then New Years is going to be with the one and only EB. Nothing could serve as better incentive to get through this gray season.
I didn't mention it here but i feel as if it might be time to let my blog followers in on things. Granted some of you already know, but the famous boy this blog was started in association with and i are no longer together. We broke up for several reasons, i will not go into, at the end of the summer, when Guy went back to Hungary. While this is a decision i am glad i made, feel relived about, and notice the differance in my life because of, needless to say, things arn't perfectly hunky dory. Break ups never are. They leave a lot of retrospective analysis and complicated feelings in their wakes. A rainy day is perfect for visiting that aspect of my life.
While not spending so much energy on that relationship has given me time to focus on my life here in MN, making freinds, working, school and shows, i still feel like i have a lot of time on my hands i didn't used to have. Yes i could use that time for the dishes in the sink, the memorizing or the many crochette projects i have lying around but somehow those don't get done. I guess i'm just chewing on everything a bit and finding it hard to be motivated to do stuff.

I am excited for this weekend. Going to hang out with 3 of my 7 mn friends (i'm counting) for halloween. Should be fun, i don't remember the last time i had a truly fun halloween. Maybe i just don't remember past halloweens now that i think about it......We are going to a show sat night that one of the freinds is opening and then who knows what the night will bring. i will also be doing my young cousins make up for his (truly yucky) girl costume (too much pink for me) which i know will be a blast. and of course lots of rehearsal. SO it will be a busy weekend which will be good. This past week i spent a lot of time at the family's house lots of birthdays in october. A different birthday dinner and present opening each night almost. It was fun to be able to be apart of all that. So aside form the lice thing its goingto be a pretty fun week in the end.

i guess all in all things here are good, just a little funk to go with the day. I could use a little sunshine soon.

Well Hello There

2009-10-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

So so sorry about the disappearing act. So much has happened including moving into a new apartment without internet - thus the blogger lameness.

The new apartment has gotten better and better with all the shiputzim (fixer ups) that have happened to it. The last of which will be heat. Once that starts happening i will be a happy camper. So far since i moved in - the place has been painted, the wood floors have been redone, new linoleum has been put in for the kitchen and bathroom. This does not include the total bathroom and walls make over that was done before i moved in. I also have to finish emptying all the storage unit boxes from NY. Then the place will really feel like home. Its a little lonely to live on my own but really only at night. Coming home from a show and not really having anyone to share with is sort of a bummer but i am so tired by the end of the day i am not bummed for long cause the second my head hits the pillow (and my body has warmed up the layers) I'm asleep.

After heat - internet is my next project!

Also I've started teaching at a jewish preschool at the local synagogue. Its a blast teaching little ones about Judaism and hebrew and all that junk. I have 9 wonderful 4 and 5 year olds. The are cute and excited about everything and sticky and of control and beautiful 4 and 5 year olds. I am having fun. It's a busy tiring day, I'm with kids from 9 - 1:30 and it is a 4.5 hour whirlwind.

On the theater side of things. I just opened my first show this fall. It is going great so far. I'm real proud of it. And its an awesome show regardless of me and what this theater company has done with it (i mean, don't get me wrong, that also makes it awesome). My dad took a special trip out before another one of his big business trips to see a final rehearsal because he last minute had to go out of the country for the entire run. It was wonderful to have him here - show him around my life (the school, the theater, the apartment) and having him as my first audience. The show is such high energy and fast passed that it takes a while to come down from the actor high, hence the sitting at a computer in the coffee shop/ice cream place a couple blocks down on the way home.

Yesterday i started rehearsals for my second show of the fall season. This one is still in the process of being written as we rehearse which is also a pretty interesting experience, i arrive at rehearsal am handed what we will be working on for the first time and add it to the rest of my script. And thats how it works. Should also be a fun show - i play a sort cleopatra type character in an adaptation of an old brittish adventure book.

Other then that - ive been trying to go out more and see more shows or meet more people. I was able to do a little of both right before tech happened. it was nice to be out with other people for a change.

These were my first holidays without anybody really - not my fam and not Elie. The past almost 5 years i'd say i spent almost every holiday with Elie and this was a change. I got through it fine though. Spent some time with the family that lives here which was nice and then went to services for the most part by myself. My coworkers from the preschool were very kind and generous in taking care of me and making sure i got into services somewhere.

And now its work work work until the end of November - thanksgiving really. December should be low key and then i'll have winter break. I hope to be some where warmer than here for the majority of that. havn't figured it out yet though. And then when i get back in Jan i'll start rehearsals for a show going up in February. That's abut as far as i have planned out right now. The auditions have sort of taken a pause with the no internet and no time thing. That's ok though - I'm ok with that for a little bit.

Well on that note - it looks like they are closing up here. I should probably go.

Hope all are well - would be more than happy to get an update back from you all.

Yours (no matter how negligent),

Roneet

blogitty blog blog blog

2009-07-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

So ive been busy how bout you?

Sorry for the long time no blog - i know there are perhaps many of you who are very upset by this - let's all try and move past it and make the best of this blog post

ok so - whats going on now?
I just moved into a new apt - signed a lease until next July - its really coming along thanks to all of Guy's help. He has been a real trooper with all the domestic activities that come with moving to a new place - all the silly shopping that needs to be done and all. My goal was to really try and make it a real home not just an obviously temporary dwelling - when it is done i will post a video or something clever like that.

Guy is here! Besides being stuck doing apartment projects and shopping and him being stuck at home by himself when i am off at auditions or rehearsals we have been having a nice time
We spent a lovely week in cali visiting so cal and no cal. Guy got to experience a little of what i do - he came and helped out the fiddler on the roof jr camp that i taught for two weeks. he helped us with costumes and sets - the 5 girls (my entire camp) loved him and called him dude. He also came to a rehearsal of mine. This was pretty funny becuase it was a rather abstract day at rehearsal - non of your traditional block bits and run kind of rehearsals - we walked around the space trying to fine our characters and inner fat woman. He had a lot of questions afterwards. It was quite actor shmactory if you ask me and i was impressed he was so into it the whole time. Even though we don't have tons of time together with me working and my aunt was able to find an israeli doctor she works with who took Guy under his wing - we are still finding some time for day trips here and there. And we have a week planned in NY for later in august to visit family and friends.

My show is going well - its a great show, a good group of gals. I am looking forward to Fringe and lots of theater - it is rather expensive so we'll see how much theater i actually get to see. But it should be an exciteing week. That starts as well as my show opening in a week.

Coming up ive got shows scheduled for fall already and in the process of applying to jobs. So things are going pretty well. Thats all i got really. Maybe more detail soon but i just wanted to up date everyone - let you all know i'm still here.

Hope all is well - feel free to shoot me an email i would love to hear how things are going by you.

Yours always,
Roneet

Some pictures from the tour!

2009-05-15T23:27:00.001-07:00

This was in the living room area at the amazing, adorable, high character, and a little haunted bed&breakfast we stayed at in New York Mills, MN. This was such a fun and nice change from the motels.
In Pelican Rapids, MN this pelican has been repainted and reads "Minnesota State Bird The Loon"
A picture of the Minneapolis skyline as we return home at sunset.
We went to the original first ever Super 8 Motel located in Aberdeen, SD.
One of the well equipped high schools left signs and water in dressing rooms for us. Some of these HS theaters were really something to write home about. Spangenberg had nothing on some of these theaters.
This was the first restaurant we stopped at on our first out of town gig. Also the last restaurant we stopped at on our last out of town gig. We actually went back to the same city and same motel. This place was not only a bizarre experience in itself, but had great fries and fabulous 2$ drink specials!

PS. remember how i promised pictures of MN? Well unfortunately all those pics i kept boasting about having got erased, serves me right for never getting around to posting them. Sorry about that. I've learned my lesson. Hope you enjoyed these!

oh blog, how have you missed me?

2009-05-15T22:22:00.000-07:00

It does take two to blog. I hear the words of my mother in my head, "Roneet, what are you doing? Don't just sit there with your teeth in your mouth! That blog isn't going to wright itself you know?"
Ok so ive taken some artisitc liberty with my motherisims. But if she were to comment, in this tone, on my blogging skills, it would probably sound something like that....except in reality she would probably add something about the spelling too.
moving on.....

SO what. is. up?!

Hijab Tube is coming to an end. We actually extended one more show day (this monday) in the end. We had the possability of extending a week but there just wasn't enough interest to make it worth it. I guess this one school is paying a lot for two shows to make this happen. A-ok with me, its not like i got anything else giving me money, so what am i going to say? no? pah!
So monday will be our final shows. Bitter sweet i'd say. It was a great experiance, fun, intense, challenging, tiering, exciteing etc...i would like to seperate exauhsting out from the rest of those adjectives and underline it. maybe more than once. Not only was the show a high energy show lots of costumes and quick changes you wouldn't believe, but early morning, lots of waking up to sit in a van, a different bed each night when on the road, not much down time, loading and unloading the set twice, sometimes 4 or even 6 times in a day (and we are not taking feathers and foam here, try metal bars soddered together). Not only was the show physically tiering, but also mentally and emotionally, this coming from the Jew who the majority of the questions were not personally directed at. In hindsight it makes a lot of sense that the more religiouse and immegrant populations we performed for would have strong reactions to the more libral american and feminist view of Islam that the play portrayed, but i don't think the show or the poeple involved were prepared for it. I think the responcibility lies with the teachers and schools for not preparing those specific groups for western ideas of performance, for one thing, in some cases, as well as our side not insisting that this show is not for just popping in and haveing some good ol' educational theater experiance for students, its a lot of info all at once and audiances are asked to pay attention and be engaged. I mean this is all good, and what theater is about, don't get me wrong, i just think that we as actors had to endure some back lash that was not expected and it would have been nice to have been prepared. In short, we had audiances that called out at the characters, completely walked out within the first scene, and directed personal comments about being a bad muslim to one of our actors.......this was hard. But i would like to add that we also had students come up and tell us how much this meant to them, to see someone like themself on stage, to share that as they walk down the halls of their highschool people will ask if they are hiding bombs under their Hijabs and other hardships they have had to endure, and to thank us for coming and performing this at their school. The interesting thing is that i think across the board the people who came to talk to us after the shows were all muslims, rarely did we get a white bread american to come up and say wow i learned alot thanks for cleraning stuff up for me, which i think that was what this play was really meant for. I think second season of this show might go a lot smoother so i guess this can all be chalked up to first run of a new play with a lot of contraversal material.

Up next?
The Trial of Mother Teresa. also a play that hits high on the scale from 1-contraversal.
We are starting run throughs which have been a little lack luster really. This play has been hard to peice together for all of us it seems. Putting the scenes together has been interesting becuase of the nature of the play. rehearsal time was spent rehearsing scenes that don't come together chronologically in the run of the show. (sounds familiar huh? Table For Six anyone?) I have been working hard on being a youthful 87 year old global icon in death - peice a cake i tell you!
I am excited for the show, next week we start tech rehearsals, i guess that means we meet in the theater?? i will love being able to just walk to rehearsal instead of driving out to no mans land.....probably isn't but it feels that way to me without having explored or any knawledge of the surrounding area, we rehearse in a sort of wearhouse that has some offices and a karate place in it. An underground cement box has been our reherasal hall. Excited for my family to come and see this one. Too bad i'm not getting paid.

I've got a couple of auditions in the wings. Someone is doing a production of Most Massive Woman Wins (a play i saw performed i think my first year of college during DP's maybe?) for the fringe fest. That audition is next week. And i have a call back for After Juliet, another play i am slightly familiar with. These would both perform end of summer.

In the mean time i am looking for sublets for Guy and I for the summer. It seemed like a good idea for everyone and this way i will get a little feel for living here on my own, which i feel isn't a bad idea at this point. Craigslist is a frusterating world, but rent is far, far, far did i say far? cheeper than NY which is beautiful, we're just dealing with entirely different numbers here.
Also i have been given the job as a camp director for two weeks at the JCC here. I am super excited. Its not that big a deal really, I will be directing/teaching/hanging out with 5 young girls (at this point. it was supposed to be like a full size camp but due to JCC camp conflicts and bad schedualing, ultimatly, it will probably be about 5-8 kids) age range 3rd grade to 6th grade. The original plan for the camp was to put on Fiddler On The Roof Jr. Clearly that is not possible with 5 girls so probably i will take advantage of having such an intimate group and allow the kids the luxury of haveing a say in what they do for the two weeks. Be it wright, be it rehearse with a performance goal in mind, be it play lots of fun theater games, whatever. So i am excited about that. I love working with kids (and, of course, i love Fiddler) so how could this be bad. I also i get paid, so no complaints.

This weekend there is lots going on and not being so tired and around has been fun to be apart of whats been going on for my cousins and family here. Tonight the boys and i went out to a movie while aunt and uncle took a night out. (We saw Star Trek, loved it!) Zander has started Baseball so ive been going to his games and taking him to practice on the way to rehearsal. There are end of the year concerts and play to see and tomorrow is the elemntry school's yearly fund rasing carnival which should be fun provided weather is good.
Right now it seems as if Dorothy and toto might show up any minute. It rained several days this week, was warm and sunny in between, and right now we are having a "cold blast". This place is crazy!

Well i guess thats it for now.
Hope all is well out there.
Missing you,
Roneet

Hello Hello

2009-04-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

Hey all,
It's been a while, i know. When it has been this long i usually go back and read the last post to update whatever i left hanging as a teaser for you all. I am not going to do this this time. I think i will just go ahead and update what ever is going on right now. ok?
ok.

SO we started performances this week for Hijab Tube - the show with Mixed Blood Theater - the one where i play 5 different muslims, make that 4 different muslims and a lutheran feminist valley girl. We have had 2 performances so far in and around teh twin cities, one for a college and one for a higschool. The college was a good trun out a rather quiet audiance i would say but a good first show. Very different from our highschool performance. This was rather large highschool crowd in a very big auditorium theater space (they have a balcony!) . Did i mention the audiance was also lagely mulim immegrants? and may i add quite fundamentalistic.....nothing got out of hand or disrespectuful in anyway but our very liberal point of view being portrayed by our play was chalanged. I have one charachter that says outright " i am muslim, i don't wear the hijab, does that make me a fake muslim?" I had a mini heart attack when an overwhleming amount of the students called "YES!" and that was just the tip. Afterwards we had lots of questions and some students who wanted to find out more about the playwright and had a lot to say about whether what we portrayed was true islam or not. again it was very interesting, and the most important part is that it started questions and conversations, that was the most important part of the day. I do hope the conversations continue in the classrooms, i mean this is what theater is about right?
a good response to experaince second show in i think too.
Tomorrow a middle school performance and then our first real on the road performance is on friday so we are leaving tomrorow night to drive to a hotel so that we can start the morning at a decent time. instead if driving a good few hours early friday morning.
should be fun, its really is a good group of poeple, fun easy going. we get our own rooms at the super 8 motel in St. Cloud Minneapolis. woohoo!!

The Mother Teresa gig is also going well, we started blocking and getting stuff up on its feel this week which is awesome. also a rather contraversal play i think we will find, interesting all this religion challenging going on everwhere i look. And whats super exciting is its looking like i will get to have many poeple i know and love and havn't seen in a long time see this one. My last perforance is June 21st and as it looks now my parents and bros might come out, my grandparenats as well, and.....Guy! It will be the first time he will get to see me really perform. I hope it all works out so that all these poeple i love in my life will all get to see me do something i'm proud of.

I finished my camera class this week, i feel like it was a good refresher course. unfortunatly i was pretty stressed with all these shows and rehearsals going on so i don't know if i was really able to take advantage of it as much as i would have liked too but it was great to get infront of a camera again. The teacher was real great and i think she will be a nice contact to have if i need help with anything out here. she knows the area well as well as the bigger markets so it was nice to have met her.

I also finished my voice over coaching, so tomorrow i am recording my demos!! Very exciteing, i can't wait to here what they sound like when they are all done.

lots of things are finishing up, some things are continuing and something havn't even started yet, i have one audition i'm waiting to hear from, a few coming up this weekend and in the enxt couple of weeks. I look forward to finding a project for july and august.

On another note my other half and i will be reunited this coming weekend!!!!! The one and only Berko man for me will be here on Friday. I look forward to exploring yet another city with this kid, chatting and laughing, and getting to watch tv in bed off a laptop. These are the basics of our relationship and we love and cherish these moements. Can't wait! Unfortunatly it will be rainging all weekend so MN won't be showing its true colors off but maybe we can plant seeds to try and convince him that Minneapolis is better than New York, what do you think guys? (i want you to know you all are next....)

ok off to bed for a 6:00 am rude awakening.
love to you all out there
Yours,
me

First Rehearsal!

2009-04-06T20:38:00.001-07:00

Rehearsal was great today. We talked a lot about logistics and set and design and aim and goals and all that lovely stuff.

I met my fellow acting mates. Eliza (pronouned with en A instead of the E) who was so surprised to meet another like her. She is our resident muslim so that's great, cause i wasn't quite sure how i was going to really pull that off. And then Ansa who is a large black man from Gahana (we are quite diverse let me tell you) who is just a wild actor with so much energy its great! And then also the stage manager and the sound guy will be on the road with us. I am excited it seems like it will be a nice little family.

The director seems like he's really got everything under control which is great for a two week reherasal period for a 45 min show. But he still seems like he's real into the colaberative imput stuff which i think will be great to work with.

I was given an extra charachter so thats five meaty roles to memorize in 2 weeks, with at least 2 differant dialects, soccer ball juggleing, valley girl perfecting, and of course learning how to put several different hijabs on a bald manquin. whew i'm tired just thinking about it.

Our little set is also just so clever and simple all at the same time, just perfect for the flexability that is necessary for the show.

I wish you alls could be here to see it, i think i'm gonna be real proud of it when it's all ready to go.

Also just wanted to share that i had my camera acting class tonight and the scene i got for next week is from Coupling!! I asked the teacher if i could be steve instead of susan she said no though.

Night night everybody, got to get up early tomorrow so i can figure out how to get to rehearsal without getting lost for ten minutes. (classic)

Look Ma I'm a Nun!

2009-04-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

So this should be a good post.....
let's make an agenda (this is more for me and less for you but might be fun anyway)
1) Last blogs updates
a) auditions
b) student films
c) whether
2) 24 hour film race
3) Hijab Tube
4) Classes

ooo looks lie we got a long one. well ill try and keep things concise. At least you have this nice outline to help you through.

1a) So as you could read in the title - the nice little Jewish girl has been cast as the saintly nun known as Mother Theresa, this goes to say that i did not get into The Tempest. I was bummed for a bit considering Tempest was the paying more fun sounding, and did i mention paying? job. Trial (The Trial of Mother Theresa, to be exact) will be a good experience also but i just would have liked to play Miranda more i think, that's all. Trial begins rehearsals this month (April 13th) and rehearses in the evenings until May. Shows are (for those interested in knowing specific dates, mom) May29th to June 21st and are Thursday Friday Saturday at 8pm and Sundays at 3pm. It will be a great experience to work on a new piece and i look forward to being apart of that aspect. So that is very exciting and now i am signing up for some auditions for projects after that. Let's see if i can keep this going. It feels good to be a working actor, i have to say.

1b) Students films!! Interesting- the first one i thought was pretty cute and this is the girl that stopped me after i left the auditions to tell me that she had to have me as her lead actress. This has been a fine experience i like the director and aside from shooting in the cold its been a nice script to work on. We haven't done too much a few scenes here and there but tomorrow we have a full day of filming so i see a lot getting done in the next week. The film is called "Looking For Love At All The Wrong Bus Stops" which i just thought was an adorable title for a shot film. The only thing is that this story is basically the directors story so even though she says she's over the asshole boyfriend character i can't help feeling its all a little raw still. She's just kind of a funny director. She uses shakily to discribe lines of mine through out the entire script and at each tunring point of the charachters. I once asked her what "cries while smiling" meant exactly and her responce was "well she's sad cuase she knows he's bad for her but she's glad he came and invited her out but she knows he's never going to show up and nothings changed but she still loves him even though she wishes he would just disappear" yes, nice and clear.

The second film is a little more challenging experiance. The director doesn't exactly know what he's doing and i guess that's what you get with a student film maker he is learning how to do this, and i just need to keep reminding myself of this. It's just that at some point early on i thought you learned that jumping back and forth during a conversation happens becuase od editting not moving the camera a hundred times for one scene. maybe its' just me.
But what is great is that this charachter is almost my dream come truw. She's a hardass private detective who's really good at what she does. This means my trentchcoat and buisness casual and a gun holster. I am enjoying being a kind of version of my favorite literal (from liturature???) heroen, Anita Blake. The differences? No vampires, no quite as amazingly sarcastic, and completly based off of someone else entitely. That's ok she's Anita to me no matter what. I can't wait to see this one.

Also two other gals from the class contacted me about being in their film but when i realised starting the 13th i will have morning rehearsals and evening rehearsals plus 2 student films to be shooting and a monday night class all at the same time i realised there wasn't going to be much time for.....well basically anything, let a lone 2 more student films. So i had to turn them down as much as i would have liked to do at least one of them. And that ones director is basiclly the saving grace of the other troubled director. She's been helping him out and boy has he been needing it.

1c) The whether, if you recall, was described as getting better and better last blog.....this was a lie. I spoke too soon. I have filmed in freezing cold, no toes, no fingers, type of cold, snow fluries and have walked in the pouring rain to auditions since then. So really i have no idea what's going on. The sun has come out a bit but its still way too cold to go sit in it so i sit by the window in hopes to get some rays until the whether stop teasing me. Meanwhile i think my face is going to flake off before then. We shall see but this is really the narliest dry skin ive dealt with.

2) Alright, sit back my freinds! So Minneapolis held a 24 hour film race which they do every year i guess. This is when different groups (i heard about 30 signed up this year) get a theme and key element and these things must be used to create a short film (4 min) in 24 hours. When i first got hear i saw something about it and sent an excited little email out to the interweb saying that i was a new actor in town looking for a group to join. A week ago i got this email from a Mr. Fat Cat, now granted that's not his real name, but surprisingly enough this tall skinny man goes by this name for whatever reason. Him and his interesting band of mates were a group doing this race thing and would love to have an actress on board. Little did i know what i was getting into. I wanted to be apart of the expeiance, ive always wanted to do one of these but i probably just should have made up some story and said i couldn't do it anymore after meeting Grizzley the bull ring sporting big guy , the young mom with tattos and pink hair(Paula, looks exactly like T from JMZ except pink hair), the two melvins, and Karna with 6 kids from Now Then (no joke this town is called Now Then, Minnesota). Actaully i have to say that Grizzley and the tattooed chick(Sarah) ended up being my favorite people. Others who came to join the group for the event were micelaniouse roller durbie chicks.
Our Theme: A second chance
Our element: blowing a bubble
Our story (as created by FatCat the head hancho)
A woman walks into a terot reading. as she gets her cards read the reader sees flash backs of her and her lover hatching a plan to steal the terot readers money box. Seeing that this woman has a bad history pulls a gun on her before she can pull her's and suggests she start over. It ends with the woman racing out a changed lady and her boy coming in a blowing the readers head off.
Where are the bubbles you might ask? At the begining, when the terot reader enters. PS. This terot reader, Ms. Zelda, is played by Grizzly, the real Ms. Zelda was his Aunt and he took over the buisness but didn't feel it necessary to change the name.
How it all went down?
at 10pm Friday the 3rd we got notified of the element and theme. Then waited an hour to hear from FatCat with the story and costume/prop assignements. Everyone was there about midnight or so and we began to dress the terot reading room. This took til about 5am (why i have no idea). Then i slept for about an hour and a half and it was up and adam to start filming.
We didn't do much filming due to FatCats inability to articulate himself really. I'm sure he is a visionary genius but that is hard to work with when you havn't had much sleep. and i am not a writer, i take other peoples words and memories them not put into words the moods and feelings of someone else vision. and i am going to stand by that.
filming took us almost the whole rest of the day with a few breaks here and there. a break for an hour to sleep, a break for food, and cogarette breaks. This was the most frusterating, as soon as we would get some momentum or shoot a really good take, it was time for a cigarette.
this brings me to how much this group of poeple smoke. I think i smelled like smoke down to my soul by the time i left this place. ew gross. this man smokes a cigarette like every ten minuted i swear! Also the house was proabbly the grossest house i have ever seen. just thinking about the house makes me want to take a shower again. this is a proabbly in his 50's year old man who lives by himself with his cat, why should he clean? Whatever i am done, and out of the house for good. i even forgot something as i was finally leaving at 8pm tonight and truned around and went back for it becuase i didn't want to have to ever go back again. at some point we stopped filming and mr. visionary genius went to start editing, but decided i couldn't leave becuase he may need to shoot something else, so i went to sleep for a while, i think like maybe 2 hours. I was the only one there who didn't leave the house at all. Everyone else went home for a second to feed animals or children or to take a shower i was there the whole time. yes i got to sleep like 6 hours over the corse of my time wating for things to happen but really? shoot everything you need and move on. so all in all a good story, a good adventure, and hopfully a good copy of some reel worthy work after 20 hours of hanging out with these interesting individuals.
please don't judge me for judgeing, if you had been there you would have judged too (and probably would have ripped me out of there by the ear with a wagging finger)

3) Hijab Tube is my other show, my first audition here and my first paid job. We start rehearsals on Monday. The calendar of shows is filling up and the script has been worked on a little bit and i think i was given another charachter i'm not sure.
We only have 2 weeks of rehearsal and the stage manager called the other day to tell me that i should get started with the memorising...pah! Unfortunatly this happens to be a busy weekend so let's just say i am going to be doing a lot of work next week. I am quite excited about the show and starting up, i look forward to meeting my cast mates and finally understanding all the logisitcs of this stuff. Also elie is coming to visit towards the end of the month and so he may get to see a performance too which would be fun.

4) My classes are going well. My lesson with the voice over guy tomorrow will be my last coaching session and then we schedule studio time to make my demos. He also said that he is going to hook me up with an agent here which is super exciteing. I am excited about exploring this new part of my skill set. and who knows where it may lead. hopfully ------>$$$
My camera actng class is also filled of some great charachters, the mexican chef from texas, the 4th grade school teacher and mom of 3, the mom from wisconsin who left acting to be a fire fighter and is now returning to her roots, the young bohimian who left home at 16 to study in ny and acts on the side because mom and dad wouldn't approve, along with the other young driven individuals with stories similar to mine, or similar enough anyway. We tape our work each week and then watch it back at home and then talk about it in class a little bit but mostly we get one on one working time with Michelle (the teacher, really knows what shes doing, is straight forward and blunt but also nurturing and a good coach so far) so i am deffiently having fun with it all.

upcoming stuff:
i have some fringe auditions that i am trying to get worked out with shcedules between student films Hijab and Trial and then the Guthrie announced their general auditions and 2009-2010 season as well as some other theaters in the area. so i will be looking into that stuff.

You might be asking yourself why am i still auditioning for fringe stuff? Becuase that guy i mentioned last time i blogged was kind of a jerk. I didn't hear from him all week and finally emailed him to be like "hey havn't heard from you just checking in" and replyed with " oh we went with someone else" anoying. lame. unfortunate. and a big bummer. whatever it was probably going to be stupid anyway ;)

alright i'm done now.
real tired and ready for bed.
All i want to do is cuddle up with my big love monkey that came to me all the way from a special someone in budapest and dream of spring sunshine.

love to all
hope you're well, what ever parts of the world you may be in.

OK short and sweet.....

2009-03-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

or at least i'll try. It's late, late for having to get up at 7am in order to get to cousin's school to help kids get into costumes which most of them have never put on in order to perform their play which they have never performed in said costumes. WOOHOO

OK so whats been going on since last i blogged.
more auditions, tonight were for a Shakespeare in the park type gig (The Tempest) and another new play called The Trial of Mother Theresa. Got called back for the second one so thats pretty exciting, i have no idea for which role though. I thought i was going in for Joan of Arc (not sure how she mixes with the good ol' nun but sure, whatevs) but after reading my the Joan monologue they handed me another one for Theresa.......i'm pretty sure the character break down said ages 30-70 for her. And i'm pretty sure i don't qualify but again, whatevs.

Yes the show at the school, rehearsals last week and this weekend. costuming the musical 100 Years of Kenwood Elementry means period costumes and several costume changes for the 52 youngsters, here's the catch there are no scene changes, tell me how would you get kids to change period costumes while standing on risers on stage the whole time??????
Tomorrow morning should be fun.....i feel coffee will be in order.

I start my camera acting class tomorrow night, real excited for that. Not sure what to expect except the camera classes ive taken before so we'll see. I miss Ann already.

My voice over coaching has been going great so far. I love it. It's fun and the skype thing really does make a lot of sense when you think about. I've done two hours of my four hours of coaching thursday will be the third so soon i will have a demo made and everything.

Whether here is getting better and better, today was rather gloomy but still on the warmer side. Rain is starting to be frequent so i guess that means spring right? april showers bring may flowers? I think i promissed pictures at some point before well i'm just going to continue to promis pictures. Just you wait, they'll be awesome when they get here ;)

The student films (did i tell you there were two? well there is) happen next weekend, nice these kids could work themselves out. One is in the morning, the other is in the aftenoon and evenings, should be a busy weekend but hopefully fun and maybe i'll get mto make new freinds.

Also talked to a director about a fringe project! Finally!! He is also a local film maker which is cool. We talked about the script a little and getting together with the woman who would be playing my mother to see chemistry and how i read the role and stuff. but this guy goodled me after getting my headshot and resume submission, saw my youtube video, and loved it. That's how the meeting came to be and now he just wants to make sure it all works out. I hope so too. I guess at this point i don't care what i get into i just want to be fringing this summer!

Umm i think that's it. Last weekend i went to a progressive neigborhood wine tasting event, this week we had a 13th birthday party, who knows what's next! This house is a busy bee hive, and we all thought these cats lived a relaxed life out here.

excited for the warmth, excited for the new acticities coming up, excited for the prospective events to come.....i'll keep you posted on those.

thanks for reading.
missin you,
Roneet

ps. not so short and sweet eh? will you take quick and dirty? sorry, better update next time around, and those photos!!

Look Ma I'm Muslim!

2009-03-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, I just thought i would update you on what's been going on.
Remember audition #1, for the tour at Mixed Blood Theater, the one that was pending??
Well i finally got official word that i am cast. I met with the director before his flight back to Arizona (where he come's from, where he also teaches acting at the University there). I thought we were just going to meet and talk but it was basically another audition in this lobby of a theater. He had me read a scene and two monologues. I think it was basically to see if he could work with me and if i took direction but it was kind of a shocker at first. So very excited about that, rehearsals start in early April and we rehearse for two weeks (at 9 in the morning) and then 3-4 weeks of performances. I am still trying to get a schedule to find out what exactly is going on with the performances to know if i can maybe find some other project to be working on at the same time. so we'll see.

you know when i started writing this today i thought Mixed Blood was really going to be my big news for the blog but i am glad i waited till later to write it cause today was really busy.

So i ended up going with Mary (The Nannie) to my younger cousins school (Zander's) becuase she's been helping out with the play the school puts on every year. We just sorted and pulled costume we think could be used for the time traveling play (20's - 60's and present day) . It was fun and they need all the help they can get with only a few more reherasals til the perfomrance. Should be fun and something to do for bit until rehearsals start.

I also got an email from audition #2 (the film student projects) The same girl who stopped me after my audition emailed me some more info they are going to be shooting next weekend and ill be getting the script this week. I am very excited about it and i hope we can work it out. The story really does sound so cute and i would love to get in front of a camera again.

I also talked to one of the poeple from audition #3 he was calling to find out about what my goals were, which at first seemed strange but after our talk i sort of got it. We both sort of ended up agreeing it wouldn't be such a productive use of my summer considering i'm really trying to build career up and not just looking for experience. He said by looking at my resume he could tell that ive paid my dues and am really looking for work not just experiance. But we did have a great conversation about what im doing here and the fact that i don't really know many people out here and he said that he would get in contact with me about their theater group that gets together to read stuff and that they are supposed to be having a party before they leave off to maine so he said he'd let me know when that would be so i could meet some people around the area and in the theater community.

Speaking of meeting poeple i met some great young individuals over the weekend. Since i got here all the adults/parents of my cousin's freinds that my aunt and uncle have introduced me too have said to me that i just have to meet with Beth (another mom) who is a big involved actress here. They said she could probably help me with all the ins and outs of the area and community and is also just a nice sweet lady and so funny. So saturday night i went to the closing night of the show she was in. Speech and Debate (which is by the way i really great show, they just did a really great production of it i thought) which is basically about high school secorship and the issues that are really going on in highschool but athority doesn't let highschoolers talk about it publicaly. So needless to say the cast was made up of highschool age playing actors. One was two years out of college and an equity member who moved from texas to here another was a girls who had taken a year off after highschool to be in highschool musical and is now a sophmore at The U (ive come to learn this is what everyone who's anyone call the University of Minnesota) and the third is a highschooler soon to graduate who also happens to be looking at MMC as one of his prospective schools (I gave him a pretty honest opinion of how i felt about good ol' MMC i hope i didn't scare him off). Anyhoo we are all facebook friends now so really we're all besties and now i have friends. Just kidding, but we are now fB freinds and so i'm hopeing we can get together sometime, i'd love to ask them questions about what goes on here as well as just hang out with poeple who didn't live through the 60's, no offence.

See its been a week and my blog is almost as long as the last one (Sorry Alice and Guy, I tried).
So thats basically whats been going on. I start voice over coaching this week which i am excited and interested to see how it all works out (one on one coaching over skype) and i also got an email today saying that my deposit came in for my on camera acting class (no one will ever take the place in my hear that belongs to Ann, we'll see how this lady does) It will be a good way to meet people and get some more infront of the camera time and training.

So lots of stuff going on needless to say.

There you go you are all updated and everything.

Miss you all tons in this cold state here.

Dear spring,
Come soon.
Thanks,
Roneet

oh me oh my...

2009-03-02T20:50:00.000-08:00

my dearest blog friends, i am so sorry to have neglected you, i hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me and catch up on what i have been doing.

Let's see where to begin, how bout where i left you last. In a plane, just about to land in london, in the cold and heavy snow.

Ps. Heavy snow in london = nothing close to snow in minnesota

My weekend in Engand was super fun. I had a great time with Shai and Anja and little Alex who is growing so fast i can't keep up. Spending the time with my dad was also nice just before going off to my new adventures in MN.
We enjoyed dinners and coupling and watching Alex swim and home videos and just general time spent together. It was wonderful as always to see them and i will continue to miss them until the next little visit we can work out.

After england - New York. Gosh what a good trip it was. Seeing the freinds, taking care of buisness at the storage unit, it was like pep week to get me psyched to head off to MN. Seeing all my wonerful freinds was not only a jolt of support and confidance building but oh so much fun and inspiring. Watching all my freinds be out there working hard for what they love and surviving just made me feel again that feeling that this is what i went to school for, this is what i've dedicated myself to, and this is where i want to be. That i could never thank them all enough for.
-Shane and I put to the test our meetball recipee making skills as has come to be a tradition
-I got to crash what is one of my top classes taken at MMC (the added perk i didn't have to go anywhere near school to do it woot)
-palled around with my gals which is always great, girl time, laughs, actor therapy, heart to hearts, you name it, it was great
-got to see good ol' Berk always a pleasure
- spent some quality time with Anna and the dog, my favorite dog-owner couple
-got a hair cut by the fabulouse ninja curly hair styalist Jeffery from Malasia (so happy, so much better then the lame one i had when i left cali)
-got locked in my storage unit building, which was dandy, but 2 trips to queens later had everything i came to ny to get.
really a very productive wonderful trip to nyc, a first since i left the place

And now ladies and gentlemen what we have all been waiting for.........MINNESOTA!

So its cold. I was not built for this state. this is my first conclusion.

Being here has been really great so far. My research really helped me hit the ground running once i got here. I landed on a monday and that wednesday i had an audition. I met the artistic director of a theater here called Mixed Blood Theater to audition for an educational tour touring for a month in this general area and performing what i guess you might call a "muslim tollerance" play (there has got to be a more pc way to say that or at least some better phrasing). Anyway its a play about a muslim girl learning about islam in order to know how to counter steryotypes and racist remarks made against muslims via you tube land. It will go to colleges and highschools i believe. Its a pretty good deal and paid. I read the script while i was in NY and called to set up a meeting once i arrived. The audition went well. As far as i know i landed the gig. Rehearsals start early April and i am meeting the director this weekend. i'll keep you posted on the official word, i have my best people working on it.

In my first few days here i set up about 5 auditions today was numbers 2 and 3.
#2 was for the film students at University of Minnesota. These guys couldn't have asked for more from an actor. I handed them a headshot and resume, filled out a talent info sheet (contact info, availability, list of experiance), performed 2 contrasting monologues, did a cold read with a scene from the movie Rushmore (it was that or The Big Labowski), and performed a little improvisation (your in the woods and a bear is about to attack you). REALLY??!! I guess the good thing about all that was as i was leaving a girl came out to tell me that i was perfect for her project and she wanted to tell me about it and let me know that she wants me. the turth is that whether i do this project or not depends on my pending situation with Mixed Blood, the schedule might conflict, so we will have to wait and see about that one.
#3 was for a summer stock internship. The deal: Live in paid-for housing on Mount Desert Island in Maine for the summer june 28th - sept 6th, act in their children's program twice a week and play supporting roles to their 3 or 4 main stages for the summer, do some backstage tech crew work, and get paid $130 a week. Not bad. Actually seems really great. The audition was a little weird though. They had us ten or so applicants sit in a circle and read from the scripts for the season for 2 hours. We read from british farce to agitha christy to 3pigs/3bears/3billy goats gruff meets urban culture. It was really fun, got a ticket for being parked over time in the parking lot (everyone was nice enough ro infrom me about the free street parking after the audition was over) and learned that they are taking 2 females and not just one. Honestly i don't really know if its something i really want to do this summer but it does sound pretty cool and from the 2 hours i think i can honestly say that i was one of few who really had some real classical training (gold star for MMC). I don't think most of them really got british farce. Anyway I look forward to hearing from them this saturday.
tomorrow is number 4. number 5 i am not sure if i am going to go to it even, it might obviousley conflict with #1 so once that is for sure i will decide whether i will be going to #5 but its on the 15th so i have some time.
#4 this is what i know: a play, with roles not really my age range, but it seems they are willing to cast younger. So i'm going. That's about it.

So as you can see things are pretty busy and at the same time i still have kind of all day beucase most of these have been in the evenings. Once i have a schedule from something set i will work on the rest of my day.

I also went on a lovely ski trip with my uncle and cousins. It was a great bonding experaince with all three boys i think. My cousins and i spent a lot of time bonding over the snow and my uncle and i had some nice chat time in the car. It was great to hit the slopes it had been 2 years since i had been on a snow sport item. My body is brusied and soar and happy. There was also reconfirmation of my first conclusion about MN. I do have a cold to show for it.

well i guess everyone is all cought up.
I do hope this post finds everyone well and happy don't hesitate to drop me a line, let me know how you all are doing.

Yours,
me

On the road again....well I guess the wind really...

2009-02-13T04:32:00.001-08:00

I am writing to you from the plane. On my way to England. Not too bad a flight when you have 3 beautifuly empty seats to yourself. I was sitting in my aisl seat with all my pillows and yarn, and other random things I decided must be out and about for me to get through the flight, just waiting for people to come by and make me menuver myself so they could get to their seats when I noticed that no one was walking up and down the asiles anymore. I felt pretty silly when I realized how much space I had for all shit in my lap and quickly made myself at home. I took a nap of luxsurie and then decided I wanted to watch a movie. Unfortunatly all of them were already significantly into themselves. This was a bummer becuase several of them were on my list. I watched vicky christina barcalona which conveniantly is narrated through out. An easy movie to come in the middle. I very much enjoyed it. I like scarlet. I think recently I've gotten into such a movie kick but it is so hard to keep up. There are so many all the time and so many actors I am interested in watching. I think after my little taste of film making movies and film is intreguing me more and more.

On a more relevant note the past few days have been nice. I slept and spent time with my dad and aunt. It was relaxing a little boring but mostly enjoyable. I saw a friend that I used to play with all the time when I was little and in israel. I hadn't seen her in like 8 years until the summer. Both in the summer and this time our time together was short and last minute due to extenuating circumstances but none the less wonderful. It's funny how with some people you can get together and it's as if time had never passed. Or more than that, it's as if you've been best friends all your life. I mean just how close could we have been at age 9 or whatever? our most intimate conversations couldn't have been anything so intense right? We spent a couple of hours at coffee together talking about boyfriends and school and careers and friends and music. It was really great. It's bizarr what bonds people. When your a kid it's about having the same shoes or wearing your hair the same or really your just friends becuase you happen to be the same age and your parents know eachother for some reason. I'm pretty sure I don't know how our fathers are connected.....hmmm.....

Anyway guy was so kind as to burn many movies on discs for me so I watched a lot of those and saw family friends. Today my dad took me back to the sabich place before heading to the airport. I tried to order by myself and it didn't go so well. I forgot to mention that the place is covered in photos of people in all kinds of places in the world holding up a sign that says "ovad's sabich is the best meal in the universe". You've got people eating food by the roman callisium holding this sign or some naked guys strateigicly holding a sign that says "even in the forests ovad's is the best meal in the universe" so I don't know if this guy started it or his fans did but at the end of my order as he handed me my sandwich he prompted me with the sentance. Now everyone comes there for the food but also the show. To watch him put it all together like a soccer game with all the puns and how he jokes around with everyone. So I'm not just standing here alone there's like a crowd and of course at this time my hebrew starts to fail me. Not only is universe a word I don't really know but I miss understood the sentance and when mr. Ovad asked me "the best meal in..." I said "uhh here". Ovad's eyes went wide and my dad yells "universe,universe" to me from the casheir. No worries the sabich was still just as yummy. I will miss you Israeli food but my scale won't and neither will my pants once they fit again.

Well we should be coming to land soon. Hopfuly. The captain just informed us there is heavy snow and we may need a jumper when we get outside (whatever that means, crazy Brits). Wish me warm thoughts it's been a while. I'm pretty sure I don't remember what cold feels like. Until next time folks.

blog shmog...

2009-02-09T01:54:00.000-08:00

oh.... hello...i'm roneet. nice to meet you.
sorry i have been sort of MIA for a while. I guess this means you get a long post read. take it easy, feel free to take stretch breaks if you need them, and don't over do yourself ok? death by blog is the worst kind....

So here i am not at my aunts house with my dad enjoying my last few days in Israel, Guy is already safley away in Hungary getting ready for his upcoming semester of cell molecular bio and cutting up bodies in anatomy. yeesh. I am very excited for him though because he starts to learn real doctor stuff this semester.

Goodbye was hard as always and as expected but we had a really nice past week just enjoying each others company, taking walks, talking, and of course watching movies. I think we really out did ourselves this time, we watched so many movies, in theaters and out. But i think in general saying goodbye might be getting easier.

lets see where did i leave you.......oh yes sunday....
sunday was supposed to be my second anneversary surprise (it was actually moved to monday but no big deal) and it was exactly what i though it wouldn't be: a massage! My present for my birthday over the summer was couple massages so i figured he wasn't going to do that again. but he did. It was a wonderful private massage done by this very nice blind man. He did a wonderful job. really got in there and told me about all the tension i had and why i had it. it was so relaxing and exactly what i needed.

We went to Haifa as i said we were going to. We had a lovely time visiting some friends of my family up there. We saw the new apartment and caught up. It was very nice. On the way home Guy and i went to this rock climbing place. Guy happen to have a freind from the army there so we got a really good deal and spent the evening climbing walls. Guy did really well, he climbed like 5 or 6 walls, i climbed like 3 or 2 really (two halfs and one almost whole so we'll just round up). My hands hurt so bad from the ropes and holding Guys weight and then the rocks on the wall weren't exactly smooth and gentle on the skin. complain complain complain, no we really had a nice time, it was super fun and a unique experiance to share with each other.

we went to a tapeing of a tv show. Its one of those political satire shows that happens every week. kind of like a saturday night live or a daily show except with more people. Its a good thing tv and stuff like that interests me because i didn't get any of the jokes (they were all about the elections and the candadits) and the hebrew was super fast. But we had a good time anyway watching the cameras and equiptment and the actors doing there thing. i was so close to it all. lets hope one day i will be even closer.

We also went to go see a play. At Gesher Theater. I've come to learn that they are a Russian company. The play was about Russian Holocost survivors living in New York. Apparently it was based on a book written by an american author......i didn't recognize either the name of the writer or the play's title. Enemies: Love Story. Anyway it was a very interesting set, dark and dirty, they used video here and there, really interesting. I probably understood 70% it was all in hebrew with thick russian accents there were super titles but they were hebrew and russian so not amaxingly helpful for me. But i enjoyed it none the less. Guy was very sweet to take me to it even though he hates shows.

One of our nights that we ventured out to the movie theater we saw Valkyrie. Pretty good, interesting story and pretty good acting, star cast. Bill Nye looked nothing like himself but i saw those crazy hands and i was glad to see him in another movie. Anyway the reason i bring this particular movie night up is because we went as VIP. What does this mean? Well in israel for a lot more money you can pay to show up 40 minutes early for an all you can eat buffet. The buffet wasn't something huge, there was breads and spreads, pretsles, cheeses, dip and vegetables. But also you get all you want of the drinks from soda to beer and wine and the deserts were yummy. 4 different flavors of musses and cookies and ben and jerry's ice cream cones. And then when the movie is about to start you get as much popcorn as you want and you can take any of the food into the theater. In the theater they had like 30 lazyboy chairs in three rows and you are above the rest of the audiance (the less fortunate movie patrons) We had the best seats, smack dab in the middle of the second row. it was great. no heads to see around, private clean bathrooms. The only thing is that its pretty darn expensive. We had a 2for deal so we went 2 for the price of 1. We decided that if you have that discount its totally worth it, especially if you see a long movie where there is an intermission (for movies longer than 2 hours they do that here) all in all with out the discount it about 35$ we got in for 20$
pretty good if you ask me and you get to feel like royalty. Super fun, ate so much popcorn!

We also spent an afternoon with Guy's cousin who lives in Jerusalem, part of being as we may all be able to understand is missing out on the growing up of the younger ones. I was away from my younger bro for 4 years he's changed some since i left the house and think my older brother left when the younger one was just 10. Guy is leaving his younger sibling (15 and 12) for 6 years so he is going to miss alot of their growing up same with the children of all his older cousins, so we went to visit a 6 week old baby and a 3 1/2 year old little boy. The kids were adorable, i got to have lots of baby holding time, every time guy tried to hold her she started to cry and the little boy was such a little dude he was so cute. Guy had a nice time too :) Guy also mentioned the story of his cousin, a real beautiful story i think. She never really found someone to marry and make a family (a little sad becuase she is a wonderful women and quite a talented artist too) with and i guess she was feeling her clock tick, so she and a gay friend of hers decided to have children and raise them together, they live seperatly but both are very involved in the raising of their two children. I am just super impressed by it. I just think its beautiful. (Gives me hope if this whole hungarian med student thing dosen't work out.)

i think thats it, i think you are all cought up.
Today i spent the day with my aunt and my cousins wife. We all (plus my dad and my cousins mother in law) went to eat sushi (very interesting to read a japanese food menu in hebrew, a little more complicated than i would have expected it to be) and then we went shopping for my cousins kids (i guess my second cousins???) and to sit and have coffee. It was a very nice relaxing day really.

last night we went to eat Sabich, this i must tell you about. Sabich is a middle eastern food. you've got pitta with fried egplant, salad, pickles, hard boiled egg, hummus and tahina basically. But this guy Ovad turned it into this whole sports thing. When you order you talk in terms of a soccer game. So if you want all the salad things in side, onion, pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsely, you say run the feild and the two spicy sauces that you can have are in the two colors of the bigges teams here in israel so you have to give him a score, for instance 2 to 1 maccabi means that you are going to get 2 spoon fulls of the yellow mango based hot sauce and one of the red pepper based hot sauce. Its really fun, there are more words that i don't even understand how they are all connected to soccer but there's a bunch of play on words and things like that. Either way, whether you like soccer, don't like soccer, understand what the hell is going on as your order, or not, its still yummy!!

Other then that i have been doing lots of research on theaters in the twin cities in order to be ready to land and hit the ground running in minnisota. I am excited to start being a working actress as apposed to just telling everyone i am and at the same time i am nervouse to be a strange person in a strange land, i don't really know what i am getting myself into, but i think the fact that i will have my family to lean on will be really great. I'm looking forward to it ultimatly so that's good.

until next time freinds!

!שלום לכם

2009-01-24T05:25:00.000-08:00

hello everyone!
So verdict is in, I am a total loser to the jet lag powers that be. Well really i just never bothered to change my sleep schedual and Guy has been just fine with reinforcing it. We are basically on a sleep til 1 or 2 and go to bed around 5 kind of regiment. What can you do?

So in our slightly vimpireistic (is that a word? elie? randi? anyone?) life style we have actually been doing a lot. Over the past week we celebrated our one year of being.... in touch, i guess, technically ; ). I gave Guy my gift (a bday/anneversary combined gift) of an engraved stethescope an a pair of scrubs with his name embroidered on it. I told him either this means he really has to finish or now he has a very authentic costume for Purim (for those who don't know, that's a dressing-up jewish holiday, kind of like holloween, except jewish). He liked them very much, the scrubs fit, and he was even able to hear my low blood pressured heart beat. (This one time in 5th grade when we were doing a unit on god knows what (measurements maybe?) we had to check our pulse, i failed, reggie and i decided i was dead (remember reg?)) He even showed off the gifts at his bday celebration last night, everyone was impressed, enjoyed the stethescope and his school friends were jealouse (they didn't exactly say so, but i could tell).

Guy's present was taking me to what is a called a tzimmer (it was supposed to be a surprise but he eventually told me that we were going, bully for him i still had no idea what a tzimmer was till i got there) Its baiscally like a little romantic cabin. Some people go away to them as a family vacation but they are generally for romantic get aways. It was very nice, jacoozy in our cabin with a small kitchen area and nice big bed and tv. We slept, we enjoyed, we watched movies (pictures will be on facebook soon) and there was a beautiful view of the Kineret (The sea of galillee) and we were right across the water from the city of Tiberius (i think thats how its spelled in english) so at night all the lights were bright and shining. We had a lovely two night stay at the place. I do have to mention the part you won't get to experiance from the pictures is the lovely aroma from the cows on the kibbutz next door. It only smelled some of the time and once you lit the insense and closed all the doors and windows it was really no big deal (classic guy and roneet situation if i do say so myself).

We also spent some time visiting his friends and some tourist attractions. We went to Rosh Hanikra: one of those natural phenominon/historical/beautiful look-out points kind of places. It is the tip of the land that marks the boarder between israel and lebenon. The water there has carved out these beautiful grottos out of the mountain and when the british ruled they built a train that connected israel and lebenon (latter the haganah blew up the bridges over the grottoes to prevent weapons getting to lebanon as the country of israel was being born). So we're nerds, so sue us. It was very interesting, very beautiful, and if i ever get married in israel you are all invited to my rosh hanikra wedding. (pictures coming soon, to a facebook profile near you)

We also went to Hamat Gader, one of those hot medicinal spring water batheing places. There were crocodiles too but we came too late at night to see them. oops. we enjoyed the warm waters and then went to eat at the restaurant there, super yummy meal deal kind of things at this Thai reaturant serving chinese food with israeli music playing (misrachi music), a little strange but still enjoyable. We also ate at this other retaurant which i loved Guy didn't get enough to eat but i think that's becuase we hadn't eaten all day so i finished my food. That dinner was so good deffinetly worth sharing even though this post is getting long (getting?).
It was on a kibbuts Gesher (we went to the old kibbuts gesher last time i was here if you remember, we made fuccacia bread.....no? ok never mind). The waitress was really sweet and nice and made great suggestions. The place is kind of hard to describe. Small and quaint with dark wood furniture. Our meal was the following: Appetiser: Creamy potato and leak soup, calamari filled with goat cheese with salsa Main course: G: rice with beef stu kind of thing with muchrooms R: rice with white sea fish with a creamy lemon basil sauce (so good) Dessert: crem brulee with fresh berries (really really good) and i had a lovely glass of white wine. Did i meantion how good it was?

That's basically it since our trip. We have been watching movies, seeing friends, and other such activities. Guy had freinds over to celebrate his birthday last night. I was hear exactly a year ago almost to the day really becuase last year he had his party on the 24th and this year it happened on the 23rd. But this time i knew almost everyone........... and simon wasn't with us. And like i said Guy showed off hoe great a girlfriend i am, so we had a good night.

Next up: Something is going on on sunday, my other surprise (has anyone figured out this kid loves surprises yet?) so more on that later. We plan on visiting some freinds in Haifa, maybe going to Jerusalem, a couple of day trips here and there, I'm going to visit with my aunt (guy has been accupying all my time so far).........

So ill let you all know how that goes.
Thanks for reading.
Miss you all
Take care.
r

Shalom once again!

2009-01-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Hello all. I made it. Safe and sound. Here i am in Israel once more.
So far i have been doing a whole lot of nothing. Really. I got in about 5:30 am came home to guy's house and passed out. We slept til 5pm. He didn't sleep before picking me up. Woke up ate some dinner went for a walk and then i fell asleep again and he went to go see some friends from school.
Today, i slept till 2pm....so getting better. We sat at the beach with a couple of his guy freinds and now are back at the house and i am exauhsted. I just feel like sleeping so i thought to keep my self occupied online so i am not a totall loser to the jetlag powers that be.

Chicago was great. Elie Paula and i spent the whole week getting fat. What do i mean by this? We drank, we ate, we sat and watched things, and we slept. We also took cabs to every one of these events. IT WAS GREAT! We trully learned the meaning of freindship regardless of activity or location. We spent one night bar hopping and closing bars out, such a great time reminising and gettting pretty tipsey. We saw Grease and Wicked, Paula saw Dirty Dancing, i opted not to join her for a second round of the 3 hour classis story on stage. Paula and I also watched some movies here and there. We watched Knocked Up and Elf and of course (Paula just couldn't get enough) Dirty Dancing (the classis story on film). I got to see two good freinds from my birthright trip, which was super. And we took Paula to the bean! We also spent lots of time getting to know the backstage area and elie's lovely office (the nice wood shed, at least it was warm) at Dirty Dancing. We even helped out carrying merchandise up and down stairs. Basically we had a blast. It was so nice to just be together. A true vacation!!!

So that's that. Hope everyone is warm where ever they are, israel is a nice change from chicago ;)

Yours,
R

alright blog readers....

2009-01-14T07:39:00.000-08:00

after quite the sleepless flight of 6 hours, i have made it to my first foreign destination. I am here in england. i will go and enjoy some time iwth my family here before returning to the airport tonight for my next flight which will take me to Israel. I feel like i am in the olden days where the fast transit of today didn't exist, its taking me two days almost to get from chicago to israel. what was it like before the technologies of the here and now? Ok i'm a spoiled 21st centuary raised person, i will admit traveling to israel by boat or camel or whatever would be worse but i am tired and cranky and the girl next to me slept far more comfortably than i did. I hate her. Hate is a strong word. i know.

Talk to you from the holy land.

chokay... so -

2008-12-31T01:21:00.000-08:00

I have not disappeared off the face of the planet. I promise.
I am here. alive and well and have been enjoying california for the past two months.
Its almost 2009 so i figured i should write to you all. I'm lame, please forgive me.

Quick update:
Movie. Was great. Phenomenal learning experience form every angle possible. I learned so much about myself, acting, my acting, making a movie, and that there is only so many nights in a row you can eat pizza and sill crave the stuff. Believe it. I will miss the cast, the experiance, everything really. I can't wait to see it!!!

Acting. not so much has been happening of that since i finished the movie. Maybe it was because i wasn't supposed to stay after the movie so this whole time i wasn't really putting my all into it. i guess i didn't want to get into any long term commitments that would conflict with my plans.

which brings me to ..... my plans. what's next? More nomadic life style. Yes i am hitting the road again and i am taking the show with me. First, with my greatest honeymoon sweet heart, Paula, i will be in chicago for a week to visit the one and only Elie. From there i fly back to Israel. for a month. Yes, Guy has survived first semester of Hungarian med school (passed with flying colors i might add, i am so proud of him) and will be in Israel for his winter break. I will be with him until he has to go back to Hungary for round two. I will then have a weekend in England with family there on the way back to the states. I will land in NY, be there for a week, see all the lovely faces i miss so much, get to my winter clothes in storage (which will be oh so neccessairy for the final destination of my travels (for now (of course))) Minneapolis!!! I will be living for a time with my uncle aunt and cousins who live there. Hopefully be apart of some great theater and projects and meet a lot of great people who will help me to the next phase of my carreer. I know what your thinking, minnisota? but its so cold.....all i have to say to that is: Yes. it is. (I did buy uggs though....)

In the meantime, what have i been doing? Working. Babysitting, searving beers and burgers, you know. making some money which has been nice. But also seeing freinds family and the likes. It has been great being home and back to my old shinanigans with my girls. The holiday season has been full of wonderful bump ins with dear old friends. It has been nice and warm (internally, it can be very cold here) and cozy.

That's basically it for the "quick" update. I leave in less than 10 days and am already having anxiety dreams about packing. I am excited and nervouse and tired and wired all at the same time. I am reflective and pensive and confused and wondering.......

2008 has been such an up and down kind of year, i heard about so many engagements or weddings and happiness as well as so many deaths and saddneess.
for me there was love (can you believe it? Jan will be 1 year after Guy and I met) and travel and exploration as well as success and home and comfort but there has also been saddness and anger and unfairness. I can't say 2008 was all bad but i will not be sad to see it go (don't let the door hit you on the way out bitch!)
It seems like with all the news about israel, 2008 is really trying to go out with a bang (sorry for the saddly literal pun)

So here is to 2009, may it be filled with more happiness than saddness, with success, with reunion, with peace of mind and calm heart as well as peace on earth and quelled rancor between all.

Love, happiness, and health to you all.
Happy New Year.

Long time no write.......

2008-10-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry about that, i guess i got caught up with being home. Ive been doing so much of nothing i just haven't had the energy to sit in front of the computer and type. Bizarre i know. I think maybe i kept waiting for something exciting to happen before i wrote again, but then nothing did.

OK Let's see. So got home, i've caught up on tv, spent time with the family, seen my girls, looked for jobs.....thats basically what i have been up to. Family time is nice. My father came back from cambodia the day i arrived here, my mom picked us both up at the airport together. then he left again 5 days later. He is now still in Cambodia, not sure when he's getting back really. Hanging out with my girls has been a blast and a half. Back in action and reeking havoc on palo alto. We have been to Tapas bars (say tapas bar real fast to someone they'll think your saying topless bar, its fun) and ice skating, gotten our nails done, taken walks, gone to yoga, and talked to strangers till wee hours of the night. Basically back to all our old shinanigans!

Looking for a job has been harder than i thought, well i guess the looking part is not hard its the finding part really. I have signed up with at least 3 different babysitting sites, posted on craigs list twice, and submited myself to all kinds of crazy random posts. I almost cocktail waitressed a holloween party in costume for $100 and tips but the party got canceled. I have found that many amature photographers are in need of natural women modles with good skin, none have been interested in me, yet. And i have emailed my headshots to countless email addresses and have heard nothing back. Accept a compariosn to Andy Macdowel. Its been fun. Oh and i finished my book.

That was the past two weeks.
As of today i found a woman who will let me take care of her hyper active child for 15$ an hour yay!! My worst fear is that i will be trapped and have to listen to the mother tell me more stories of how she learns languages really quickly, like the time she learned danish in 4 months.........
whatever, its work, beggers can't be choosers, and the kid seems cute.

On the film side of things reherasals have started, shooting has not. We have read through the script did some basic blocking with space that we have (we are not in the house we will be filiming in yet becuase the family that lives there is still there) and talked about wardrobe and things like that. Its been fun and exciteing, the cast seems great. I think it will be fun and we will get some great work on film. I am excited for shooting to start but i still need to memorize my lines. I know i said i was planing on doing it about a million posts ago, but then i had to wait for the finalized script, and then i had to reorganize it, and now i have to put it in a bigger binder..........i know i know, i started going through it today.

I also went to a general call for John Casablancas Modeling and Career Center. This was fun. I was encouraged to go by my mother, who so many years ago refused to take me to these things as a kid. I figured i had nothing else to do so why the heck not? it would be a nice break from the tv and craigslist surfing. I got all dressed up and took my self to San Jose for this general audition.

First i must share with you the email i got from them to inform me about the general call. (For all you that have heard the story already here it is in black and white)

Subj: Appointment Scheduled Email

Congratulations on your interest in the John Casablancas Modeling & Career Center ! We look forward to meeting with you and discussing your potential along with specifics about the modeling and acting industry.

We have listed some important reminders about your first meeting with us:

Please arrive 15 minutes prior to your appointment time.
Please bring a recent photo of yourself. It does not have to be a professional photo - a snapshot will work just fine. If you do not have a recent photo, that's okay too!
If you are under the age of 18 years old (or still in high school), you must have a parent present for your appointment. Sorry - no exceptions!

The dress code:
No Jeans
No Sneakers
Solid top, any color except white so that your photos stand out for the photoshoot.
Be Camera Ready!!

ADDRESS:
1090 Lincoln Ave, Suite 1
San Jose, CA 95125
Phone: 408-947-8222

We are located in downtown Willow Glen of San Jose. The cross street is Willow Street.

Note: Please do not reply to this email. Please use the above contact phone number if you need to reach us. Thank you!

Sincerely,
The John Casablancas Team
John Casablancas Modeling & Career Center

"It's In You.We Just Help Bring It Out!"

To learn more about John Casablancas, we invite you to visit
www.jcasablancas.com and www.johncasablancastestimonials.com

In the end there was also a voice mail to clear up all the confusion created by this email.
(How do you congratulate someone on their interest in something? this was unfortunatly not cleared up by the phone call)

When i got there i got the chance to meet such interesting characters. A young man probably somewhere around my age who i witnessed go back to his car in order to retrive his forgotten sunglasses at 6:30pm headed to an indoor event, a young blond little girl shy as can be, a 10 year old girl who knew her shit, an older black lady getting back into the buisness, another girl probably about my age who seemed seriouse about her modeling career, and of course the blond haired big boobed tight assed pencil skirt and high heels wearing young lady who was just so excited to be there. i wish it had a been a mocumentary that i was watching in a movie theater and not apart of. (Honestly i am really not this judgemental) After reading some commercial copy for the camera and hearing the history and misson of John Casablanas Modeling and Career Center we then (and this is my favorite part) walked. the. runway. Yes my freinds, Roneet struted her stuff, i did my little turn on that catwalk, i showed them what i was made of with a soundtrack of Biance's latest and greatest. The 10 year old put us all to shame.
After each individual fashion show we were asked to rate ourselves as an A a B or a C. C means no one likes you and your buttugly and you shouldn't be here (no one in their right mind is going to come to one of these things and rate themselves "not what we're looking for at this time") B means you have the drive and the passion but you lack the skill set or headshots to really be able to market yourself (so give us $2400 a year for training and we'll make you star!) and A means you are working talent and have a head shot and resume. Thats me! I told them i was an A and they told me to come back next week. Today was next week.
I walked in and met with the director of the place, she explained to me how their acting management company works gave me contracts and info pages. Then she set me up with the casting website they have a relationship with and I am supposed to get them 10-20 of my head shots that they can give out. They get 20% of any paid work i book through them, that being said they are not binding and non exclusive. Sounds good right? Well i figured from the begining that i would follow through until they asked for my money, they havn't yet so i guess this means i have an agent in the bay area? I havn't signed anything yet, i have some questions i want to ask, see if i can find that catch somewhere, but if they can get me on some commercial gigs over the course of the next month, i have no complaints. Oh and as i was leaving the 10 year old was coming in with her mom.

I hope babysitting goes well tomorrow and the rest of this week and i really hope this mom can set me up with some other moms for the upcoming weeks, we'll see.
Still no holloween plans, i guess i'll figure it out when i get there.
Hope you are all well where ever you may be.

What's new pussycat? Woah oo woahoowoah oo

2008-10-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

nothing....really......

i just realized thanks to my marymount or theater or whatever it is due to training, i wasn't planing on memorizing lines before rehearsals but i just realized i have two days between rehearsals and shooting....ack. so i guess i have a lot to do before i get on that plane.

I took advantage of the lovely 25th floor here, compleate with pool and sauna, locker rooms, gym, and laundry room. I went swimming today in the indoor pool. fun! and elie and i are doing laundry as i type. more fun!

i also discovered that people don't really walk here in Chicago. i found myself 1.3 miles (thanks google maps) away from the apt and just wanted to double check i was walking in the right direction, so i asked an off duty traffic cop on a bike if i was walking the right way and he said "you gonna walk?"
"uh yeah?"
"yeah, you're going the right way, good luck"
"thanks?"
silly chicagoans....the wind has really gotten to them i think ; )

Anyway like i said nothing really new here.

I did do some research for Elie and my's next day of Chicago adventure. I looked up where that chocolate factory sells their chocolate and Andersonville, which is a super cool neighborhood that i have been to a couple of times now with various people. This reasearch was all made possible by the super duper cool Chicago Transit Association website, my love of which was made possable by the wonderful Betsy....she makes my life so simple and easy and gives in to my simple minded lazyness so well. ; )

CTA is really cool beuase it gives step by step directions on how to get to where you wanna go. You put in starting point and destination like any directions giver and then it gives you 3 possible public transportation routs you could take. I love it! We are happy together.

Also i signed up on JaJah. if anyone reading this has JaJah, let's talk!!

Also i am searching for a job in california. if anyone reading this has one for me, let's talk!!

I have been posting on craigs list and filling out profiles on sitter sites and answering emails left and right! NO ONE wants to hire a sitter for just a month and a half, lame beucase there are all these little children that i could be speaking hebrew with and none of them are going to get to be graced with my presence. sad i know. I'm thinking of joining a temp agency......sigh

I would like to take a moment now to remember an old friend of mine: Mother and her circus animal cookies
I always loved the little white ones better than the pink ones, for some reason i always thought there a difference, but the frosted circus animal cookie is a good friend from childhood and i was very sad to learn that Mother's Cookies has gone under......A fellow frosted circus animal lover could not have put this loss any better:
"They had Mother's to comfort them through the First Depression...how are we supposed to survive this one?"
Thanks, Anna, for that.

To leave on a less tragic note: I also discovered (again because of super Betsy) a cool aprtment finder company. They are totally free, and offer really customer friendly service to find you the best apartment for you. I'm thinking i will call them today and find out all about them for when i get back. But as i understand it they take you around in their company cars to go see aprtments. How great is that? We'll see how that goes. The problem is ill need a some what furnished place so that might make it difficult but i am going to call and ask.

Alright....thats really it, i don't think i could squeez out anything else even if i was doing something with my self ; )

Hope you are all doing well out there!
Yours,
R

ok so....

2008-10-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

As Elie and I walked ourselves to the synagogue to repent our sins before the end of our day of fasting and atonement, we happened to walk by a lovely Chicago tour bus where we over heard the kind and enthusiastic tour guide telling his bus full of tourists about the GIANT CHOCOLATE FACTORY ABOUT A MILE AWAY.
we both stopped dead in our tracks and did one of those slow head turns in the direction of the tour guide.

our home made chocolate chip cookie smell mystery has been solved.

i know you were all on the edge of your seats......

Just thought i would share...

2008-10-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight Elie and I remarked once again about how strangely Chicago smells like cookies at night. Its like someone is baking home made chocolate chip cookies on every block, or maybe every single person on every block is baking the home made chocolate chip cookies, or maybe there are just a million Mrs. Fields shops that feel the need to follow us around the city.......

which ever it is, it is weird. And we are not looking forward to walking around in that smell durring our day of fasting.

I would also like to share that my Live Traffic Feed thing on my blog page, is a little confused as to where i am from. I noticed some time ago that every time i logged on to my blog it stated that [insert forgotten city name here], Maryland had just arrived, i decided not to worry too much about it because i had just recently changed my computer system from talking to me in Hebrew so i figured i shouldn't push it. Anyway, after signing on to Elie's blog post just now to read the latest and greatest i noticed that someone from Dallas, Texas has been visiting Elie's blog. Who does Elie know in Texas, you might ask? It's me........Thanks Live Traffic Feed.......maybe i am a super hero after all......

Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been?

2008-10-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

Was my mother the only one who recited this poem to me?

Anyway i feel like i keep disappearing. In truth i am still here, lying in this lovely pillow filled bed in Chicago. What have i been doing in the past week? This is a very good question.

bullet points might be sufficient here:

Contemporary Photography Museum

Rather small but really interesting pictures. In the very familiar style of the photography documenting the great depression and the great migration to California during the dust bowl. I saw some really familiar pictures as well as other similar styled nice photography.

The Bean

When we went to go find the bean (which you can see some pictures by going to Elie's blog Photallity365) we also happned by a tech fair. With really interesting gadgets and gismos by a bunch of different companys. Xerox had a no waste printer with ink cartridges that didn't need cartridges. Think crayons. And paper that over a couple of days the ink wipes clean and it is totally reusable. There was also robots and electric cars. It was pretty neat.

Movie

Elie and i have been watching movies at night, we saw Sex and the City the other night, we still have to finish Lars and the Real girl, i watched both Step Up and Step Up 2 The Streets tonight which i don't really recomend to anyone, and we have also watched a lot of Heros, well i have. I cuaght up on all of last season which a missed and got ourselves up to date with season 3 whata crazy amazing tv show.

Character research

My good freind Betsy and a couple of her friends from school who were intown visiting decided it was time for me to get some character research for my film so they took me out a Lesbian bar in Andersonville. We had a blast, i was mistaken for Betsy's girlfriend, got a free glass of wine, and played an embarassing game of pool. So much fun.

Those are the highlights. Not much else is going on. It rained all day today. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur. I look forward to going to sunny California. I think thats all i got. I've started rereading the script and taking notes and thats the work i've given myself to do before i leave here. I have more time on my hands than i really know what to do with so i figure i should get a good few reads in there before the flight west. S

See not super exciteing or thrilling. So i guess its ok to be weekly updateing. See you in a week?

many exciteing things today......

2008-10-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

So today i woke up............
thats pretty much all i did till about 2 or 3
at around this time i got a lovely phone call telling me i got a part in the film i auditioned for in California!!!! Woo hoo. i will be playing a lesbian for the next couple of months. California and lesbian lover here i come!

I am actually very excited. Unfortunately it does means that i must leave lovely Chicago and my dearest friend Elie behind. We have had such a great week together! (I don't think its even over yet) We went shopping, cooked, had dinner guests, explored the city a little and plan on doing some more tomorrow. It has been absolutely wonderful to be back with my other half, this is what we finally determined cut it(well close enough anyway) as a description for our relationship.
It was Rosh Hashanah the Jewish new year this week and so we went to synygogue and had guests over for Rosh Hashanah dinner. We cooked a very large expeiramental meal and it all came out pretty darn good if i do say so myself. (pictures to come)
We had all the essentials for a Rosh Hashanah seder, the symbolic foods: beats, apples and honey, green beans (soacked in basalmic vinigar and garlic (thanks Shane), round challah, squash (spaghetti squash backed with some olive oil and topped with some brown sugar (thanks Riva), leek, dates, pomagranit, and a fish head (a cat toy fish that we found in the grocery store, i said symbolic). The rest of the menu included: Chicken cooked in the oven with some broth and potatoes, carrots, onions, leek and some apricot jam. Came out deliciouse and sweet. Salad and wine and a dessert made by me! I tried to make Alfajores for the 3rd time and as it did the 2nd time, the dough came out too dry so instead of making bad cookies i decided to make something a little different, i put a layer of dough on the bottom with a layer of raspberry jam, sprinkled some powdered sugar and then crumbled the rest of the dough on top and sprinkled powder sugar once more. Also came out real tasty. We are all very impressed with Elie and my cooking skills. All in all a lovely dinner.
The other night we enjoyed some freshley backed toll house chocolate chip cookies and milk and have enjoyed endless amounts of chit chatting and laughing and catching up.

It is safe to say i will miss my oportunity to live with him but it will be ok, we all got to do what we got to do. Thats what this career is about......

Tomorrow we are going to explore the fun things of the city like the bean that many of you might remember when Guy and I were here visiting. I look forward to it. Unfortunatly i can't find my battery charger so i can't charge my batteries for camera.

Today i spent a few hours walking in and out of shops, didn't buy anything, got lost more than once, and got a ride from a police man to Elie's theater so we could have dinner together. I got to see the inside of the theater and Elie's make shift office/storage space. It was a fun eventful exciteing day all in all.
Once home we watched this great TV show........wow i finally have time to write about silly mundane things as TV shows about a family with a pair of twins and a set of sextuplets(!!!!!) yes sextuplets.....and they are all half asian, i mean if you are going to populate the world you might as well populate the world with half asian children, they are all so cute.

And......
what you have all be waiting for
I have finally put all my pictures into albums on facebook
(I reserve the right to create another album should some other pictures resurface, just putting it out there)
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029115&l=9efc5&id=27100103
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029277&l=55f06&id=27100103
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029284&l=93729&id=27100103
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029313&l=458c0&id=27100103
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029869&l=8f460&id=27100103
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029870&l=1eab8&id=27100103

i know there is a lot, peruse at your leisure

All right talk to you all later.
Hope this post finds you well where ever you are.

i forgot to mention

2008-09-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

I also hung out with Anna and met her really adorably ugly little pooch. We had a great time. I love Anna.

I would like to thank the acadamy....

2008-09-27T09:55:00.001-07:00

I would like to thank the academy for my lovely week in New York.
I would like to thank the city for having some really great whether during my stay
I would like to thank the people at At&t for fixing my phone issues giving me a new sim card and finding out how to make my old complicated phone get my voice mail
I would like to thank the people of West Harlem for their kind compliments about how beautiful i am as i walked down the street, something i did not miss while i was in israel
I would like to thank shane for his hospitality and for carrying my suite cases up and down his four flights of stairs at early hours of the morning
I would like to thank super shuttle for not filling the shuttle up so much that people were sitting in each others laps and for getting me to the airport so god damn early so i can write this to you
I would like to thank the man out side the terminal who was so deceivingly kind to help me with my many bags and then ask for money i was not aware i had to pay him
I would like to thank Jet blue for making this messy new terminal situation as convenient and organized as possible
I would also like to thank jet blue for this wonderul wi fi
and i reserve my last thank you to the stupid lady who made my burrito, who with impecable customer service judged the shit out of me for wanting meat and vegitables as well as rice in my burrito.
Really every one, it has been great and i thank you all.

While some of those thank yous were rather sarcastic i do thank all my friends for their hospitalilty and nice catch up sessions.
I spent the week hopping couches but mostly at Shanes place on the upper and i mean upper west side. I stayed with my girls Katie and Norrell that was a lovely girls night of stories. I visited with my darling Steph and ate some yummy wholefoods. I shot a video audition for the movie in california and spent some time in Long Island althought too short as always it seems to be.

oooo i have to board!
I'll finish later

ok since i don't feel ike restructuring this post i will continue from here.

So now i am in chicago. I got to elie's amazing apartment. Quite hotelly but livable. The bed was super comfy and this couch that i am sitting is not making me complain either.
His view is redicoulouse, right in the middle of the busy city of chicago.

Last night we got to enjoy some of the more relaxed homy parts of chicago. I enjoy those parts much more. We, being my and my sister love Betsy, went to be a aprt of the first american audiance ever to see Dirty Dancing the musical. It was fun, something i am glad i didnt pay for, but fun. Then elie and I being starving took the bus wth Betsy back to her area and we went to this real cute hippy diner place, it felt like something out of Santa Cruize. Very yummer grilled cheese sandwhich and milk shake. then saw betsys new digs. Gorgeouse apartment that she has really made into a beautiful home, and she was right, the best part was the rough top. Really great place.
And them home again home again jiggity jig.
To the comfy plush pillows and bedding awaiting us.
I slept in and enjoyed relaxing and am now here on the computere.
The whether was absolutly gorgeous yesterday sunny and warm and today it has gone to cold and gray. I think i might go buy a rain coat.
Oh! I forgot to mention, due to sad complications that can only happen in the city, i do not have any winter clothes with me here is this city we like to call the windy city. I will deal, i am just hoping that the winter i will be experiancing this year is a californian one, so by comparison virtually no winter. I have a couple of long shirts and my long pj pants and jeans but that is about it. I was kicking myself in the butt for packing it for israel but now it seems that life has once agian worked out the way that it should have. see its not always smart to pack light my ferinds (Guy).

anyway i have nothing to do today. Elie is at work till probably late afternoon. so i am home alone. I figureed i might go grocery shopping and organize some of elies stuff here. but thats pretty much it.

Rosh Hashanah is right around the coner, shanah tova to everyone. Elie and i will be having a lovely dinner here. I am planing on making him do brachot which my family does every year but i don't think he has ever done them. I look forward to it. Once again life has turned out how it should, becuase if i weren't here probably elie would be ringing in the jewish new year on his own. this is best.
The Dynamic Duo is together again and are once again complete.

Israeli Weddings, Cambodians, and The Flight

2008-09-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

SO i know it has been a long time since i wrote. Things have been busy and not so busy so i didn't feel it so necessary to update.

My parents got here, it was nice to see them and even thought our time together was short and i had to share them with all kinds of people it was still nice to see them.

Guy and i have been talking every day since i got back. It talk to eachother before bed. There are days that are still harder than others but being able to talk so easily while i have been here and in the same time zone as him is something i am not looking forward to leaving. I have every internet chatting program downloaded to computer and am looking into israeli telephone lines over the internet so it think i am as prepared as possible to return to the states from that stand point.

From another stand point returning is kind of hard. Leaving this country where i have really gotten the hang of living here and entering a new world full of unknowns and decision to make is not as inviteing as one may think. I don't even know where i will be a week from now.....
But i am hanging in there, breathing deep, and trying to stay calm, i think thats all that can be expected of me. I will keep you posted once the powers that be let me in on the plans.

So the past few days and my first encounter with cambodians.
My dads buisness partners from Cambodia (not the tree people the island people) came for the wedding of my dad's buisness partner and very good friend's daughter (did you guys catch all that?). So since my dad's friend was busy giving his daughter away and all that entails we were incharge of showing them a good time in Israel. We took them all over. The first day we took them to this place in the middle of the desert where they grow cherry tomatoes, raise turkeys, keep bees, and make wine. This place wasn't so amazing but it was cool to see how all this can be in the middle and i mean absolutly in the middle of nowhere in the desert. What was cooler was the story of how they got there. The woman that showed us around told us the stroy of how she was a young early 20's idealist she and a few other like her moved out to the Sanai Desert when it still belonged to Israel to start a new living. After the the peace agreement with Eygpt they were moved back in to Israeli teritory. For whatever reasons they still wanted to live by themseves there. There were maybe a few families and they started seeing what they could do for a living, somehow they got to cherry tomatoes, and built greenhoueses and got the government to help build a desalinization(?) plant to remove salt from the only water source they had (a huge saltwater spring under the ground) and now they have grown to about 100 families they bring in workers from thailand and vietnam and they seriousley live there in the middle of nowhere. I don't know if i told the whole story right but i hope you guys got it.

That night we went to what is a Moracan wedding tradition called a Cheena party. Cheena in hebrew means Hena. Basically they have a big party with really sweet pastries and candies and everyone wheres fun traditional marocan clothing and then they put hena in the palm of the bride and guests for luck. it was a lot of fun with everyone danceing to crazy israeli music and just going wild (the open bar helped). Now i have a lovely little orange mark to bring me luck to show or it.

The next day we took the cambodians to the dead sea to float, Masada to see some historical excavation and learn some jewish history, and to a chinese restaurant (They are actually chinese camboadians so they were missing "normal" food) where we met a chinese man who spoke hebrew. (That was very interesting i have never met a hebrew speaking chinese man let a lone a chinese zionist).

The next day was the wedding. Also impressive, so much food and open bar from 12-8 when we finally decided we needed to leave even though the dancing and the drinking was still going. The caremony was simple and short (Israeli). The rabbai sang the whole time and made jokes between the blessings. After that we ate and then because the wedding was on a friday and shabbat starts friday night they needed to close up the play at around 4. So they said we have to close here but if you go to the other side of the fence there is more food and drinks and dancing. The brides friends were absolutly crazy, she was already sitting on the side having a cigerette and her frineds were still dancing to the wee hours of the morning as i understand it.
The place was absolutly gorgeouse and along the beach. We watched a beautiful sunset and had a great time. It was really beautiful and the simple casualness of the israeli wedding lacked in nothing. The bride was absolutly beautiful in her 20's evoking ensamble.

All in all i am glad i stayed to meet the cambodians, be there for the wedding, and spend a little time with my parents.

I am not totally ready to go back yet but what can you do, there comes a time when we all have to face the music and my dad is playing it very loudly right now in the oter room.

So heres to a nice long flight hope i will sleep through, and i will see on the other side of the planet.

see you soon.

2008-09-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

ok so i'm not sure how much time i have right now to write but i figured i should because i havn't written all week.

Let's see where to start. I've been back here for almost a week now but feels like way longer. The goodbyes in the airport were as coupld be imagined tearful. It took me a while to get a grip on myself and calm down once i got back too. But each day has been different, a little better for the most part, and i am doing alright.

I spent a night by myself when i first got here just to have some silent time and then joined Guy's family at his house, i won't so the first night was easy, but i think it was the better choice in the end. I am probably am doing the same things i would be doing if i were alone at my aunts but instead there are people around me. This is good. I've also been out with a couple of Guy's freinds since i got back and that was nice as well.

Today i am going to Natanya to spend the shabbat with some old family freinds. Me and the eldest sone used to be bosom buddies around the ages of 9 and 10 and i now havn't seen him for about 5 years. really thats it? feels longer.....anyway they left for israel when right after daniel had his bar mitzvah and now he's 18 so that means about 5 years. thank you for joining me on that wonderful mathamatical journey. So that should be nice. I don't remember the last time i really and trully kept the shabbat no electricity, praying, and the whole megilah. So should be an interesting weekend but i look forward to it.

In other news i am getting back into contact with poeple in the states sending those emails i didn't really want to spend time sending before becuase Guy was around as well as making plans for when i land. I have a coupel of plans sort of in the works. One is flying to NY and a week later in time to spend rosh hashanah with my dear friends elie (i wanted to amke a label but i have no idea how....you will have to show me one of these days) and betsy, i will be flying to chicago. That is the most solid plan. In a less solid itinerary i am returning to NY sending an audition tape to California and hoping that i will get cast in an indie film. I would fly out to california be home for a bit and then return to the original plan and go to chicago after thanksgiving. We will see, I am learning very quickly just how flexable one has to be in feild. Bizarre but i am hanging in there.

Other then that not much else is going on. My parents arrive in a few days and then i get to spend time with them, my fathers cambodian buisness partners, and others. The plan is to show the cambodian buisness partners the highlights of israel in 2 days. Not sure what my parents have planned as this is quite a large country for only 2 days, i mean its small but not that small. So far it sounds like Birthright round 2: in the summer, without Guy, and a lot shorter. We shall see how that goes. I think i will miss the layers and just barely uncomfortable but none the elss unhappy and constant cold of january. who knew it was possable?

Well i guess thats it not that exciting this one.....i guess thats why havn't posted in week, its been relaxing shall we say, sounds better than lazy no?
I did, however, get to posting one album on line of pictures from the trip.

You can see it here:
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029115&l=9efc5&id=27100103

And i also got a chance to add some nifty gagdets to this cool blog page (thank you elie). Hope you noticed.

Alright well thats it for now. More after the weekend/when the rents get to town.

Goodbye

2008-09-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

Goodbye to the land of strange fashion sense where the language can give you a head ache and all the work men look like they are part of the Mario family.

Two lovely weeks of shopping for groceries without having any clue as to what i'm really buying, of searching a small city for its rarely phenominal sites, of sitting and watching CNN and learning all about the stuff i never bothered to pay attention too, of time spent in the kitchen with metric units and "boardom suprises" that come out rather tasty in the end, and of running through vocab words in a language i can't begin to understand how anyone could speak it. But most of all these past two weeks have been filled with cuddles and kisses and laughing and adventures with someone holding my hand.

I can't say that it doesn't hurt to go. With another 29 hours to be together we are just saying thanks for the chance to have had our past 3 months and 1 week together.

The past few days i spent a lot of time in the house. I was working on a gift for guy most of the time. Putting together a digital photo frame with pictures of us and his freinds/family from home. I also finally found my tree! It wasn't that exciteing and it turned out i had passed it at least once before and hadn't thought twice about it. I made a cheese cake from a box with instructions in Hungarain, it came out really good and quite beautiful if i do say so myself. We did laundry and cleaned the apartment (its fun to watch boys cook and clean ; ) ) Today I met guy at school and we went to the Thermal Baths. Several mineral water baths that differ in temperatures. They were in celcius so i will spare you but they got hotter and hotter as we went and then we went into a suana that was really hot, pretty unbareable actually, with some sort of herbal stuff in the air, kind of hard to breathe, and then we jumped in to a really cold bath....it was nice....relaxing....i don't think guy would ever have done it if i hadn't gone with him. Also it was less than $10 for this lovely place. Soooooooooooo many old people everywhere. Funny how all the old hungarian women look exactly the same. Quite round with little legs.....oh Hungary. I also lost track of the days this week, on wednesday i could have sworn it was tuesday still. And i also got a ticket on the train. SUPER LAME. Apparently when you buy a weekly or monthly pass you are supposed to carry your passport with you as well. They told us to put our passport number on it but failed to mentione that it was invalid if the passport was not on us, when we bought the thing. So i was on my way to meet guy at school and the checker guy came on. he came to me and asked for my ticket and i happily gave it to him. Last week i think i took some 4 or 5 rides and bought only one ticket so i was feeling pretty good that here i was with nothing to fear. Thank god a man who knew english came over to help. The checker man took us both off the train, with me protesting paying the fine of 5000 Forint and stateing that i had no idea i was supposed to have the passport with me. The nice man who knew english was on my side, i think he was trying to get the man to give me a break but nope i ended up paying the stupid money. At the risk of repeating myself, LAME. We can't even complain becuase no one would understand us anyway. Whats also frusterating is all last week i carried my passport in my purse and for some reason i decided to take it out. SUPER LAME. (ps. 5000 forint is less than $40 but its the principal of the matter!) Anyway thats kind of it. I don't think i did much else in the past few days but some grocery shopping and other house wifey stuff....all im missing are the perls.

Tomorrow we are going into Budapest early in the morning so we can spend the day there and do something fun before my flight at 11pm. I need to start packing and really don't have the emotional energy for it. At somepoint i realised i am not looking forward to going back to Israel. sometimes i think it might have been a bad choice to add the extra month. I mean i am going back to Isreal without Guy. All his freind and family have extended warm invitations to hang out or stay at his house with his family but i just don't know if i want to take them up on it. I mean it will be weird no matter what without him, but i don't know............I have a few freinds that i havn't gotten the chance to see yet so i will probably hit them up and get together and really its only about a week until my parents get there so no biggie i guess. Guy says there are no right or wrong decisions just different outcomes.....maybe hes right. Well we'll see i guess. At least in Israel i will be able to call him for cheap.

I am looking forward to Chicago and going back and seeing people in NY. Looking forward to living just me and elie it will be nice. I like the two person life style, these past two weeks i've been like a fly on the wall here, observing 2 roomate living. And i am looking forward to getting my life started, new adventures are ahead of me and the research i have been doing on theaters in the area has gotten me excited so thats good.

Really i am ok, everything will be ok, and i know it. I just have to keep telling myself that and everything will be fine. Guy and I have had our moment in the sun and it has been out of this world and now it is time to see where our lives and dreams lead us. And if its back together in 6 or 7 years, i won't be pissed, that's all i'm saying.

Hungarian Adventures #3, 4, 5, 6, etc........

2008-08-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ok so I've lost count.
I gavn't posted in a while because i really havn't been doing much.
I have to admit i never left to go check out that tree and really i basically spent the last few days in the house. I would like to say i cleaned things or reorganized Guy's shit or invented new house hold luxerys and crochetted Guy some slippers or something......but i didn't. I sat and watched CNN for almost two days, come on CNN was on Democratic National Convention watch like 24/7. I kept wanting to turn off the tv and leave the house but then good ol' Barak would start talking again or his wife or his running mate or his former rival.......Anyway now that i am comletely cought up on world politics, the election, african headlines, and world sports.....i am ready to return to you with some interesting stuff to update on.

We've pushed my flight back by one day....let's see how much more we can delay Guy's and my good bye, no unfortunatly this will be as far back as it gets pushed. Guy has a test the day i fly and i would have to leave the night before at 8 or 9 to get to the airport for a 9am flight meaning i would be sitting in the airport for 8 or 9 hours on my own waiting for the flight. Basically that would suck. so we changed the flight 1 day later not that much more time together but at least we can say goodbye in a more relaxed manner.

As Guy gets used to life in a christian world...with classes on friday and the first day of the workign week being monday and not sunday anymore...we have been studying hungarian like maniacs, i think i might be learning more than i expected to just by helping guy but we are working hard for his first test which is on monday. We have been grocery shopping, went to a lovely shabbat dinner at the some of the friends that Guy came here with, it was a wonderful potluck shabbat dinner.

After having spent the day studying yesterday we decided to go out to a restaurant. We went to Palma over by where his school is. The restaurant was very nice. Wanting to order something special i skipped over the mexican food and the sandwhiches and the italian food and chose the rabbit leg dinner. Yes rabbit leg....i wasn't to keen on the idea of eating rabbit but it was the only thing i found that was really different and wasn't some weird discription like knuckle of ham ragut....no thank you. Guy ordered a spaghetti with meat suace zucchini and black olives. The rabbit was so good. I mean the first bite we said hmm tastes like chicken but the texture and the meat in side was so tasty and.....i didn't get a head ache ; ) The spaghetti was also really good. The we ordered a desert. Also wanting something a little different we ordered sweet gnocchi with some sort of jam in vanilla sauce....also suprisingly tasty. By the end of the evening we were ready to pop and just guess how much all of that cost.....you will not belive it....i didn't even realise how much it was until later when we were home and i was thinking about the price. in Forint it was 4915 about 5000 Forint basically that equals a whopping $30.38 yes my freinds and that includes tip. Let's all go to Hungary for our next meal out what do you think?

Also one day last week on my way back to the apartment (ok the only day last week that i left the apartment) I noticed a salon a couple of door down from Guy's building. I thought i would go in and see if i caould get anyone to understand me. Luckily there was a woman who spoke very good english in fact. I asked if they do waxing here and they did. So i also went and got waxed this weekend. Another adventure although one i had braved before. Anyway the nice lady did a lovely job and that and if we're coming here to eat out we might as well wait to get our next waxing done here too. It cost $13.30 after giving her a 10% tip too. It doesn't matter what i got waxed that is frigin cheap! (what i had done would probably have cost something like $60 in NY)

We also saw a couple of movies while we have been here. I havn't been keeping you all updated on the movies ive been watching my time away but needless to say a lot, some i've heard of and just never got around to watching and some i have never heard of but Guy wanted to see. Guy is a movie downloading guru so it has been quite nice. Since getting to hungary we watched Good Luck Chuck - cute but not Dane Cook at his best. The Bank Job - good british film. Batman (the first one) - fun to watch, old but nicholson is a stellar Joker. Last night we, well i poor Guy fell asleep, saw Definetly Maybe - never heard of it but a really cute chick flick that i think Guy would have enjoyed had he not slept through it and it has some pretty good not so known actors.
Interms of the must see list from the movies we watched in Israel Persuit of Happiness, Stranger than Fiction are at the top of the list. Both movies i hadn't seen yet and was really impressed with them. Big and Groundhogs Day were both better as nastalgia movies and no necessary to watch again. Guy also burned me some movies to watch while i am back in Israel with no boyfreind and nothing to do til my parents get there. i'll let you know how those go.

Other then all that I am doing well, not looking forward to going to back to Isreal to be on my own but there are friends there that i have not really been in tough with becuase of wanting to spend as much time with Guy as possible so i will probably see them in my week alone. Also Guy's family and freinds have invited me to hang with them whenever i want which was very nice and appreciated and will probably take them up on it as well. So far i havn't really missed the US since i've been away, the people in it are a different story, but i think i am starting to feel the need to get out there and start my life. I think its kind of time and as my parents said the traveling fund is running low. Basically i had a dream last night that kind of freaked me out. I was going up for some sort of audition or jury presentation infront of the faculty (thank you Marymount for the education and the nightmares) so of course Kevin was there (god love him) Liz and David are the faces i remember and right as i was put on deck i saw the list that itamized what i was supposed to have prepared. I nothing from the list prepared, i had a resume but no picture, i wasn't dressed apropriatly, i realised i had not prepared any material and had no idea what i was that was supposed to have prepared. Quickly i figured i could pull some old monologues out of my proverbial back pocket but even those weren't sitting well in my memory. And then i had to go infront of them all and tell them that no one informed me of the things that were asked of the actors and that i also didn't have a head shot from them. It was very embarrasing and pretty aweful to wake up from. Its like those showing up the cafeteria of your highschool naked dreams. Needless to say i think its time to go over my monologues and get my audition kit bag together. So i don't have a lack of things to do while i'm in israel on my own for a week or two.

As a last note, i think i have told most poeple over the past weeks, but i wanted to let everyone know that i have made the decision to go to Chicago to join Elie once i get back to the states. Not right away or anything i'll probably spend a week or so in NY before heading to the windy city. But i think its just the right time for me to give a different city a try. I have no obligations in NY as of now just a storage room filled with stuff so now is as good a time as any to go see what a different city has to offer me. The amount of time i will be there for or be with Elie for is still unknown i think i will just leave it open. I know what i want to do with myself just not where quite yet. So i figure i'll do a little exploring before i can't anymore. Just thought i would give the heads up.

Anyway thats really all i got here. Monday i will be enjoying another adventure, the boys have a meeting to go to after class so i will be the one wating at home for the internet guy to come and instal it. I look forward to haveing to deal with someone who doesn't speak a lick of english and i don't think my new found knawledge of hungarian words like colors and adjecives will really help in this case. I'll let you know how that goes.....

Yours no matter what country or state i'm in,
me

Yesterady's Hungarian Adventures (aka #2)

2008-08-28T01:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a far more productive day than i have ever spent Hungary (6 days all together now). I wanted to get up early and see everything i circled in my handy dandy tourist brochure but instead slept till 11, sat on the computer for an hour or so, ate something, blah blah blah......
Either way i decided i was getting out of the house even if it was for just an hour so (baby steps right?) So i left the house around noon.
I walked out side in with plans to find the theater. Instead i took my time wandering down different streets and into interesting looking shops. I never realised how much i love doing that until i got to new york and found myself with nothing to do in union square once a week. I forgot i love this until yesterday why didn't i think of it sooner? Anyway i found some clothes shopps with traditional hungarian garb, i found a beautiful little imported things shop (no idea what else to call it) with masks from venice little faries from Angol (which i later discvered meant england) and other such little gnomes and bears and sparkly things. I found a joke shop, and bought some fruite at a grocery store, a church, and eventaullay the theater as well.
I learned that people really do say what sounds like "see ya!" and really means "good day!" when they greet someone. The man in the pretty store confused me a little. I walked in he said "See ya" and when i walked out he said "Ha-lo" either i'm confused or this place is a little backwards hmmmm........
The grocery store was also an interesting experiance. we were out of fruite at home so i figured why not buy some. Guy taught me the numbers to ten the night before so i knew to ask for 3 and i figured i would just point to the peaches and nectarines. The lady i'm sure thought i was stupid. She looked at me and i followed my plan: pointing to the fruites and saying "Harom?" and showing 3 fingers. Of course i did not think any further than that and when she asked me something in fast hungarian i just kept smiling and pointing to the frute and saying "harom?" I'm sure the lady was thinking something a long the lines of ..."you stupid foreginer. great! you can say 3! what? you want a cookie or something?" The fruite was supposed to cost 521 forent i pulled 520 and she didn't bother about the last forent (nevermind the fact its not worth a goddamn thing, the price is about 2$). Your the ones who can't speak english! don't you be snooty with me! (i'm really not that elitest and intolerant of others)
The church was a random find. I was walking down a pedestrian street and saw above the trees these two yellow clock towers they were quite beautiful so i took a picture of them. As i walked closer i saw that they were connected to a church which was also rather gorgeouse inside. I took some pictures but had to jet out when i phone started to ring. of course.
The theater was also rather beautiful at first i couldn't figure out if it was a church or the theater, the outside was adorned with statutes, after reading my handy dandy tourist brochure i foud out that they are statues of the theater and dance muses (none that i have ever heard of mind you perhapse they are hungarian). I was excited to go inside and take pictures of this old theaters house but unfortunatly it wasn't open ot the public because there were people rehearsing in there. I thought maybe i would pull the American acting student card but that didn't work either. For about a second i thought maybe i would see a show but then the season doesn't start until september 19th. Oh well.
After that i figured i would go home. I didn't even get lost once!!!
Later in the afternoon after the boys came home a amn came by he we learned was from the internet company (this internet is stolen shhhh). We weren't exactly sure what he wanted and the fact that he didn't speak a lick of english didn't help him him explain himself. In the end he checked a couple of things after going back and forth from the car about 4 times, Guy signed something and he left. We learned that maybe we should be more careful about things we sign. anyway that was pretty much the day. I helped guy study his hungarian a little and then we went to sleep.

Today i plan to go out again, there is a tree listed in the handy dandy tourist brochure and i have no idea why, so i thought maybe i would check out what is just so fantastic about this tree. Also Guy's teacher mentioned that there is a Jewish music festival going on in Budapest so we might go there over the weekend.

Well i guess i will head out. I'll let you know how it goes.

Hungarian Adventure #1

2008-08-26T05:10:00.001-07:00

Siya! (hungarian salutation)
So yesterday was an exciteing day. Having had the weekend to get settled and get the new apartment in order, after having said good bye to the variouse parents who had come to help Guy and his flat mate move in, and after having gotten used to what life might be like here for the boys it was time to leave the apartment and take care of some of the other arrangements the boys had to get settled in the city. The first order of buissness was to go to the school to register. Thinking this was only going to take about a half hour or so all three of us decided to take the Villamush (i have no idea if that is right or not) the hungarian electric trolly to the school and from there we would enjoy the day exploring the city.

We got there and stood with all the other students waiting to register as well. We stood around for about 20 minutes, no one having any idea how this all works. We chit chatted about new apartments and things with the other israelis Guy had taken his premed class with back in Israel when all of a sudden a bunch of teachers came out of the building. They collected 20 kids at a time and took them inside. We figured it wouldn't be right for me to take someone's spot in the group so we decided i would sit on the bench outside and wait for Guy to be done with registration.

So i sat down and pulled out my phone and began to play solitare. I turned around and there was Guy "so aparently we start hungarian classes today" Guy gave me his keys, a 5000 forent (hungarian currency) bill (equal to less than 40$) and said ill call you when we get out.

And so this was my first adventure in hungary. On my own i had to find my way back to the apartment. We all know how great i am with trains so you can understand my concern. What i was not aware of was that there is only one train that runs through the city, and i only realised this after trying to ask several hungarians which direction i need. My kind of city don't you think?

After getting on the train i tried to pay for my 250 forent ticket and my money was too large so i got off at one of the stops where i saw a bank out the window. I went inside and again proceeded to talk to non english speaking hungarians. they were rather patient and in the end i got the money changed and got back on the train. I wasn't sure what stop to get off at so the first thing i recognized i got off. Then the rest of my walk home consisted of me saying the name of the street i was looking for with some upward inflection in hope that people would point me in the right direction. I started to feel rather confident in my self once i realised i was on the right street so i started to enjoy the sun and the beauty of the city. I took some pictures, enjoyed a tasty pastry and succeeded in buying a bottle of water and finding the tourist info center. There i got a map and some brochures of what to do in the city. and there they spoke english!

Debrecen is quite the beautiful city really. Its so old and european so its really neat to see the old meat the modern. While i was on the trolly i saw an older woman who was carring her groceries in a wooden basket. Quaint things like that are all around....the old buildigns or old churches sitting right next to the electic trolly tracks and just in site from the mall. Some of the buildings have these elegent fronts and some just look like modern office buildings. I also got to take some pictures of the school before getting back on the train. So green and tree filled. Also there, old buildings that look like something out of hogwarts out door campus next to the sicence labs building. i'll load the pictures soon.

I got home and spent the rest of the day inside. I have also had a couple of cooking adventures here too. Remember the condensed milk i was trying to buy in the store? Well i tryed to make dulce du leche by caramilizing it in the oven. It didn't exactly come out how i wanted it too, kind of runny and leaky all over the place. and the cookies didn't come out as tasty as when i made them in israel, but in the end they weren't all that bad. I also decided to make something yesterday - i still have no idea what it was or what to call it. I took some plain yogurt added sugar and a little bit of flour and egg whites. I put that on top of crushed chocolate waffer cookie crumbs and then put some fruite on top and cookied it in the oven. It came out as this kind of cream meringue pie thing. surprisingly tasty.

Today i thought i would go out and explore the sites of the city but instead stayed home and cought up on my democratic convention news. CNN is the only channel in english here. And also update the blog, of course.

The only other thing i want to mention about strange livings in strange lands is the toilet. The toilets here are quite bizzarre. There is a large bowl with a little whole where the water sits so basically your buisness sits in the bowl until the water pushes it down the whole. That my friends is the ultimate adventure. Guy and I can not get over it.

Hungary Anyone?

2008-08-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

I would say hello in hungarian if i knew how, but i don't, not yet. this place is crazy, excuse me for being totally steryotypically american but.....no one, and i mean no one, can speak english here, its insane! we went grocery shopping, to the bank in the mall, ate at a restaurant where in true rahamim fashion i learned some vegitables
slonka = ham (thats always the first)
gomba = mushroom
viz = water
sajt = cheese (that one also some how always ends up on the list too)

anyway i am here and safe so all is well. in the next two weeks i look forward to organizing guys life for him while he is at his orientation crash course to learn some hungarian and making alfajores for him as well. we bought what we think are the ingrediants for the cookies. yay fun adventures in a land that seems to have a language that is not connected to any other what so ever! It is quite hard to guess here. it looks like german with long words and umlouts everywhere but there is no connection to any german i know, not saying i know a lot but really.....also the money here is so week its like 160 forent to 1 doller. so like lets say i want to buy something and its 20bucks i am looking at 3000 forent......its just so bizzare you can't even comprihend what the hell your trying to buy.....maybe this is a good place for me. I walked up to a pair of shoes and the price was like 9956 i got so overwhelmed i just walked away. also in the grocery store we were looking for certain foods we know the boys like and it was so complicated to figure out what the things said on them we gave up.....i said maybe this is a good place for a diet. eventually we started just going by pictures and looking for clear packaging. the hardest i spent looking doe something was for the dulce du leche for the alfojores cookies. First i found nuttella so i looked in that area and where the jams were to find maybe just some in a jar like a spread- they have that in israel- nope. Then i decided maybe i would be able to find condensed milk so i looked in the cooking section and the canned goods section - nope. then i took a break. finally i started asking a few people if they spoke english - also nope. took another break. then i decided to check the same aisles i had been to again, maybe i just wasn't looking hard enough you know? when i felt i had trully exauhsted that angle and decided i wasn't going to get any where with out help i started asking for english speakers again. one couple - nope - random guy -also nope - another couple - nope as well.....then i decided i had nothing to lose and i was going to try and get what i want any way. I picked up the caramel syrup i found and a jar of chocolate spread and pointed them. The couple confired for a moment and then started searching the jams. still nothing. then i said ok lets try something else. We learned earlier that milk was tej when we were trying to buy some. so i took a can pointed to it and milk - tej. they confired, quite the think-before-you-do kind of couple. and then they walked up to their friend that worked there (???wtf???) and then finally they walked down this aisle and pointed to whipping cream. that was written in english - great. i said thank you to them for the help, which by the way is very similar to the slang word that mean pussy (excuse my language) in hebrew, and then noticed what seemed like condensed milk in a tube! woo hoo! i'll let you know how the cookies come out.

The end
more on Hungary later

wow am i behind....

2008-08-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Ok lots to tell here, i sort of got backed up i have to admit.

So lets make a little to do list:
water skiing (last weekend)
my birthday
my last week of work
parties and other such nonsence

WATER SKIING (two weekends ago now, i am behind)
So we didn't end up going repelling, the trip got cancled, but since i didn't know anything about it, i don't really know what i've missed, so no big deal really.....

Water skiing was fun. It wasn't like i pictured as i assume all of you are picturing. With a boat in a beautiful blue body of water......nope, no boat, and the water was not even close to blue. We really did have a lot of fun, but the place we were at was really a rather small lake in the middle of a large park. Grassy hills and stuff, kind of reminds me of shorline park. The lake was sort of this milky brown color, mmm mmm good, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves so we said why not. it was really ok in the end, except now i have a little cold so i think there might have been something israeli in that water that i am not immune to but everyone else is. this is the third time i am sick in israel in the past 6 months....hmmm...those israelis and their viruses. Anyway, instead of a boat that pulls you they has this machine-pully system, and in the water there were ramps and jumps and things (kind of like a stunt park for water skiiing). Very smart really because that means many people could be in the water at the same time, but it also mean that when you fall you get out of the water and wait another pully to pully you out to the water. So basically it most of the hour we paid for was spent standing in line but we still got a good amount of chances to get out there.
When we got there we watched a pretty lame breifing video and then chose between wake boarding or water skiing. We decided why don't we try the wake board. I figured i switched to snow board a long time ago, so i could probably handel this......i tried it once couldn't get past the loading station and decided to brave their "i told you so" faces and switch to the skies. In the end a good choice. Guy - this being his second time - was able to get out there pretty quickly going off in the distance where once he met the first turn he swiming for shore. Me on the other hand had a harder time of it. It took me a few trys to be able to think about all the different things your supposed to do at once. Hold your arms out, don't lean on the pully, stay squated as long as you can, don't stretch your legs out too soon.........once i was starting to get the hang of it, classic roneet, i fall over and hit my head on of the skiies and quickly grow a tumor like growth on the side of my fourhead. i have come to the conclusion that i can not do anything with out getting hurt quite stupidly or getting sick afterwards, here i did both. three cheers for me!
all is ok now, a week later, you can't even tell, the scab from the scratch is gone the bruse only hurts teeny tiny bit if you push on it. No worries, in the end i was eventually able to get all the way to the first bend. But they told us that we needed to pass between two bouies there and if we see that its not going to happen to let go. As i was coming up to the bend i was looking for the bouies but of course with out my glasses i realised too late that i was significantly far away from the bouies so i let go. Doesn't really matter i am still proud of my self and we had fun and that's the most important part. Also just inc ase your were worries, there are some pretty sweet pictures and funny videos to document the event so you can enjoy the experiance as well.

MY BIRTHDAY

My birthday was really the ebst birthday i could have asked for away from all those i love and hold dear to my heart. It was hard not getting to celebrate with everyone. And i didn't realize just how hard it would be becuase normally i am without half of my freinds (living on two coasts is not easy sometimes) but as hard as it is i always make do. But here i am without any of you!

Guy really tried to make up for me being so far away from home. At midnight i got several calls from his freinds that i have met over time here. I asked him later if he told his freinds to call me he said no that he simply gave out my cell phone number.....either way it was cute and nice to know i'm being thought of.

I took the day off from work so i wouldn't have to deal with snotty nosed kids on my special day. That being said i had no idea what i was taking the day off for. I knew that Guy had some secret plans but he was very good about keeping them that way. I knew we were going to some where for breakfast and then we had evening plans.

I woke up on my day and Guy and i got ready to go. We got to quite the deserted dump of an area. Dirt road, dumpsters on the side of the parking area, and it seemed like we were passing the back enterances of a restaurant strip. I wasn't totally sure about the area but i just put my trust in Guy and hoped for the best. Once we got to the place, it still seemed like we were coming in the back enterance, there was an elevator that wasn't working and stairs. As we took the stairs i saw the words written on the glass doors. LUXOR SPA. We walked through the doors and immediatly we were zen-ififed. Insence and music and the sounds of trickling water. it was easy to forget how gross it was outside. Anyway we had our own private room for 3 hours. The room had a jacousi, a sauna, a little pattio with table and chairs, a couch area, of course zen music and insense, and a bed room with a nice big bead covered in flower petals. We were given robes and slippers, a 50 minute massage, breakfast with wine, and leasure time. it was so relaxing and great, we really had fun. that was the first surprise of the day.

The second surprise of the day was that i got to sit at home for a good 6 or 7 hours while Guy finished all the arrangments for the evening. ; ) Actually i came home to a room filled with ballons and a big Happy Birthday Roneet sign. Funded by him and excuted by his younger brother and sister

At about 10pm Guy came to get me. he took me to the beach near his house but to a much more secluded area than we had been. we walked up to like this gate and when i passed through the door there were candles in the sand lighting the way to a blanket laid out by the water. We sat and enjoyed dinner together, Guy had spent the whole day learning how to make mushroom rizotto, and he brought my favorite kind of ice cream. We enjoyed ourselves eating, laying under the stars, and even a little night swimming. It was really great.

AND IT DOESN'T STOP THERE......

Once we got home there was also my present waiting for me. AFTER ALL THAT THERE WAS STILL A PRESENT. The gift was a video of all our pictures put together in a slide show, the pictures from the states, pictures from our time and travels here, and also a Happy Birthday video he put together with videos from freinds and family from home (as some of you may already know....thanks!) It was a perfect birthday away from home.

Now there will be an easy way to show you all what my last 3 months have been like.

LAST WEEK OF WORK

Work is fine, kind of lame, basically babysitting and making sure no one kills anybody else. The kids eat, and play, and then eat, and then play some more, then they have a snack and play until their parents come. Sometimes people come and do little presentations for them or shows or activities but basically thats the schedule. So as you may be able to tell i am not really fullfilling my full potential at the moment but it is something to do. And i am finishing two days early. So tomorrow will be my last day. The kids are cute and the poeple i work with are really nice, so its not terrible all day long, they even got me a gift for my birthday it was very sweet of them. Also i only work 4 hours a day but feels like so, so much more.

PARTIES AND OTHER SUCH NONSENSE
This week has also been Guys last week in Israel. He threw a get together for all his freinds to come by and spend some time with him and say good bye. His parents also held an evening for all of the family freinds to come and say good bye. And tomorrow he is haveing one last bbq at the beach for all of his closest freinds. I remember what is was like leaving home and getting to new york and feeling all alone. Guy is going with a couple of freinds as well as living with a good freind from the army so i hope that will help. But it is hard to watch someone go through all of this. I wonder what our parents felt like watching us say goodbye. I mean its different in the states where we all kind of leave at the same time. Guy is leaving and the majority of his life is staying right where its been the whole time, where as mine left to go on its own adventures as well. And even though the east coast is like another country, they actually speak english there so thats also not the same. I do hear that Hungary has McDonalds though, right by Guys apartment too. i am truly happy for Guy that he is starting his life and hitting the ground running really. Its about time i start mine too i guess.....I am also excited to go to Hungary it will be another cool adventure to add to my list, its the leaving Hungary part that i am not too excited to check off.

More Israeli children and somehow i am still standing.

2008-08-05T16:44:00.001-07:00

Three days in on the second job, and I am still alive.

Its actually really simple, not like the first one. These kids are younger so its more like babysitting really. I don't do much but repeatedly tell children that if someone hits them on the head by accident it is not the end of the world. I forgot how rough it is to be a child.

The kids come at 8 and hang out and play until either an activity is set up or someone comes to do a presentation. The first day a man came to do a little play about the Mefoozar mi cfar azar which means something like the messy person from messy town but it sounds much better in hebrew. Anyway the kids loved it. Second day the head lady did an "art project" with them. I put it in quotes becuase the kids were given neon colored circular stickers, a sheet of black construction paper, and scissors. Not too complicated, nothing like the kind of stuff we did with the kids at the Jr. Museum i can say that for sure. And today Bruce Willice's Isreali twin brother came in with some fish and a guitar and talked to the kids about the ocean. Then the kids eat breakfast, go out to play till lunch, come in and eat (and this is real food too, their parents must pay alot: Day 1: Schnitzel (breaded chicken breast) and spaghetti, Day 2: a sort of pasta rice and rosted chicken, Day 3: cous cous and meat balls with vegitables), and then play some more until the end of the day. Camp ends at 1:00 and then 1-4 there is day care. They also eat during day care, chocolate spread sadwhiches and cookies. SO pretty much i am eating, cleaning up after kids who don't know how to eat yet, and watching kids play all day long. It is quite the long day 8-4 but i have only done that once so far. Basically all the Israeli woman who work there told me i shouldn't let people walk all over me and that as a volunteer i don't owe anyone anything and to only come 4 or 5 hours a day. So now i am working from 10-2 which is less hours than the other camp. Tomorrow one woman will be missing the whole day (her son is joining the army) so one of the other girls who works only during the day care is coming to replace her, thus leaving her by herself durring day care hours so i am going in from 12-4 tomorrow. No biggie. The kids are rather cute and cuddley, some of them have some behavior problems and i am quickly learning how to deal with them the Israeli way.

My second day, there was a boy, Elad, who generally has a behavioral problem (calling kids retarded and stupid all the time, useing his body instead of his words and other basic bully type behavior) was kicking another boy in the back. I asked him why he was doing that and Elad said because the other boy was sitting in the chair and wouldn't let him pass. I told Elad that chairs are for sitting in and not for playing on and that the boy had every right to sit in the chair. Elad didn't like this very much so he stood on the chair. I told him to get down several times, he wasn't listening, i asked him if he needed me to take him down, he still didn't budge, and so i picked him up off the chair told him that he needed to listen and went about my busness. All of a sudden i turn around and he is up on the chair again, so i tell him to get down and he doesn't so i tell him maybe he needs to sit in the corner, this was the mistake. I picked him up and took him over to a bench against the wall and he flipped out, screaming crying hitting scratching kicking.....someone else came over to see what was the problem i expleained the story, and the others dealt with him. I asked later if i did something or said something wrong and learned that in israel you are not aloud, there is a law within the school system, that you are not aloud to put a child in time out. The other woman said that you use other words like "you need to go over there and think about your behavior" things like that, but you don't say the words "go sit in the corner" that is like a punishment and as i learned does not go very well with the kids.

I am gaining worlds of life experiance here.

In general its a little symple but the people i work with are quite nice and the kids can be cute so no big deal.

Today we went to a place called Mini Israel. Apparently there is also Mini Holland and Mini England and perhaps others. Basically its a bunch of models of places in Israel, cities, mountains, tourist attractions, governmental buildigs, factories, everything really. Rather cute, kind of boring, nice to see once. I'll post some pictures when i get a chance. Guy said the size ratio is like 1/150 or something. Interesting, nice, nothing more.

Then we stoped by the place that Guy used to take his soldiers to do practices with the dogs becuase they happen to be having one tonight. Basically its a big forest, the soldiers hide things or send someone out on a trail and then they hide in a tree or something and the dog and his or her soldier has to go on the trail and find it. Pretty darn cool, also pretty darn scary in the dark. The dogs wear a vest with a glow stick in it. We saw two practices where the dog was on the leash. The dog was looking for something called a Puppy Roll, basically a stuffed peice of fire fighter's hose. The dog started going on the trail through a dirt feild and we walked, briscally, behind the soldier and his comandors. Then the dog really cought on and started to move a little faster, this time up a hill in the woods. So Guy grabs my hand and we start racing through bushes, over rocks, through tall grass, and that nasty plant with all the spirs on it, in the dark. I was sure I was going to break an ankle or something. Thank god one of Guy's soldiers lent me an extra pair of uniform pants, smelly as they were I was glad to be wearing them. Then we watched a dog go off and kind of lose the trail, they had quite a hard time with her actually. Guy said that sometimes they can just get lost with all the smells and the signals from the soldiers can be confusing as well. Also at one point they told us that we were standing rather close to the Puppy Roll, so we moved over. Basically the dogs are trained to attack anything that isn't wearing a uniform, this meant us. I asked Guy what we should do if the dog starts to come at us. He of course said the heroic, and correct, answer, "i would push you aside and bring the dog to me becuase i know how to recive them, I'd rather the dog bite me than you" It was all really interesting and i got the full army experince because i also enjoyed some army style coffee and cake with the boys. It was a pretty fun evening.

Thats basically all thats new. This weekend we are going to go water skiing and what they call here snapling, we call it spelunking or repelling i believe. I am looking forward to it and will tell you those stories once they happen.

Miss you all lots. Hope all is well.

We embark on our last trip before i start work again...

2008-08-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

We decided to go visit the north. In the North there are many nice things. The Kineret, a lot of Kibbutzim, Haifa, The Joradan River and many ruins and other interesting things to see. The North, if i am correct in remembering all of the fantistic history i learned while i was here on taglit, is where the first bits and peices of the land are that the Jews were given to live in by the arabs in the begining. The Kineret is special because basically its a big lake where Israel gets most of its water from. Also, FIF, (Fun Israel Fact) because of how preciouse water is here in this giant state of desert there are a lot of advertisements to remind Israelis to concerve water, they are quite dramatic. In big red and blck letters the ominouse message is written "Israel is moving from red to black!" Anyway back to our trip.......

So we left today, Guy and I found ourselves once again, in a car just us, the open road, the radio, and some frosted flakes we packed for the ride. Except this time the music was in Hebrew, the car belonged to us, and the frosted flakes were a little less frosted than we Americans are used to. Also (FIF) the ride cross country here would only take about 3 hours, maybe less. And for kicks, let's say we are talking north to south. about 7 hours, maybe less. Not in anyway close to the 312 hours we took to cross the USA.

So, first stop was some roman ruins in Bet She'an. There was a roman theater, a little brush-up on my theater history knowledge, some bath houses, a main street, a street named after Guy (he eventually told me that his name means valley in Hebrew and so Guy Street was in truth Valley Street. Go figure it was between two mountains....), a market place, and temple, etc. Even though it was rather deathly hot it was quite nice and rather beautiful, those romans were quite genius i would have to say. The latrine in the bathhouse, absolutely remarkable, with a sewage system and a wall with wooden slats that stuck out with space between for your bottom.....(i am sure you can imagine yourselves how it all worked out)

Second stop, i was a little skeptical of at first.
Roneet: Guy where are we going now?
Guy: to Gesher Hayashan (the old bridge)
Roneet: what are we going to do there?
Guy: I'm not really sure, there's like a tour and then we make fuccacia bread and its like 3 hours....

A little vague, but in the end rather accurate. But there was much more to it than that.
Gesher Hayashan used to be the only place called Gesher. There was a kibbutz ((FIF) Kibbutz: is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The kibbutz is a form of communal living that combines socialism and Zionism but most of them have stopped functioning in the way they were originally started) , a transportation center (the last stop in Israel before traveling to Jordan, when the two countries were at peace of course), and a huge electricity dam. This was all before Israel became a state. (Please note i learned about all these things in Hebrew so if the wording sounds a little awkward please forgive my English as i do believe it is getting worse and worse as the days pass.)
This place is literally right on the border of Jordan and Israel. So we learned all about the people living there and how they came to live there and how they came to be evacuated during the war of independence. We learned about the dam and its builder and how during the British mandate it powered 90% of Israel. We learned about the bridges built by the Romans and the British giving the place its name. And we also learned how to make fuccacia bread, as was promised by Guy from the beginning. All in all quite the family attraction but we had a nice time anyway. When the people who were evacuated during various wars and open fire, decided to finally return home they decided to rebuild their Kibbutz a little farther from the border and thus it is called Old Gesher, across the street from New Gesher.

From there we moved on to Guy's friends dorm room in a kibbutz next to the Kineret. The room was basically a small room with kitchen and bathroom, large enough, nice really. We went out with some friends of Guy's from the army and then slept the night there. The next day we went swimming in the Jordan River visited Guy's friend that we stayed with in Vegas and ate a wonderful lunch by him. Then it was off to Haifa to visit the Technion exchange students that stayed in my house for the past few summers. We had a nice time with them, a nice dinner, a night walk on campus to a hill where we sat, drank wine and looked out over the city. It was totally beautiful with all the lights, it looked exactly like the emerald city or something accept bright white or silver. Too bad all the lights are from a plant and glow so beautifully because of all the pollution in the air.

The next day we met with another student who, since her stay with my family, has graduated. Then we went to some view points in a Druz city (i have no idea how to say that, where Druz (the religion? this may not even be the name in english) live). An Arabic area anyway, not dangerous though, no worries.

And that was it, we headed home.

I would like you all to know that i no longer have my iphone, yes i have sold my baby. It was a sad moment but the kid with the lame Mohawk-like hair-cut and shaved shapes on the side of his head seemed very happy, and i got the 1550 shekels for it. so if i wait until the dollar goes down again it will equal close to $500. The dollar is now at 3.5 shekels/$ so its just under $450. Not bad.

Anyway thats the exciting life that i have been leading, and tomorrow i go back to Israeli children and bus rides. I am interested to see what tomorrow will be like, what the kids will be like, and what the hell i will be doing there. We shall see.

Hope this blog post finds you well.
Good night Lilah Tov לילה טוב

Hello hello......

2008-07-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

Eilat was great!

Our hotel was a little shabby but we got a really great price, super cheap for a family room. There was a pull out couch a refirgerator and seperate bed room. We had a little trouble with the management at first. Quite a silly story really. We took a bus at 6:30am from Rishon (where guy lives) to Eilat - about a 5 hour ride (of course i slept the whole time). We got in at around 11am and went to check in, they said the rooms weren't ready but we could leave our stuff there and come back later, great. We went to the beach, sat in the sun, swam in the cool water (cold water compaired to the rest of the Israeli waters), enjoyed some Israeli Pizza Hut with sesamee and Za'atar on it, yum yum, and basically relaxed. When we came back to the Hotel at 3:40pm to get the rooms we went up to the desk said we had reservations and wanted rooms now. They said we don't have any rooms for you. We said no we checked in earlier they told us to come back after 3 so here we are. She said rooms weren't ready you are welcome to have a seat and wait. We being sticky and salty were a little put off by this so we began to ask questions and things, the manager comes out and just starts at us with it doesn't interest me what time you got here or when you made the reservations, read the sign, we will give you rooms when we have them availble. So of course after reading the sign carefully Guy decides to point out that the sign says rooms are given out after three, so the man says yes thats exactly what is written there after three we will start giving out the rooms (in hebrew things are a little more confusing, it was all up to interpretation really (BS)) Anyway this is when Guy decided to step back and let the other guy we were with take care me and the other girl were all ready sitting on of the couches in lobby at this point. Anyway in the end 20 min later they gave us one room. And what a room it was. This was the nice big room i mentioned above. It doesn't stop there. We get in, we look around, not bad, we turn on the water in the tub BROWN. ok ok sometimes, old hotels, takes a minute cause the pipes are old, whatever......25 MIN LATER still brown. The fixer dude came up to take a look, and even he said it was a crappy hotel and managers are in and out all the time there. Interesting to say the least. In the end after the other couple moved through 2 different rooms (one had no air conditioner, one was on a floor with a bunch of loud high school kids) all in all it wasn't so bad a stay. The hotel was realy close to the Mall there and the boardwalk and the beach, so it was ok really, just funny.

We enjoyed a lot of time on the beach, the taxless shopping (tax in israel is 15.5% and for some reason Eilat has none), and other fun things.
Casa Do Brazil is a restaurant i think they have in Las Vegas and maybe some other places but this place is phenominal! Its an all you can eat meatery (i guess). You pay a fixed price for some simple salades on the table, potatoes, salad, chili, bread....and waiters come around with fresh off the grill meat. We ate steak, veal, lamb, liver, chicken, chicken hearts (so yummy), sausege etc.......I decided i've eaten enough meat for the rest of my life i can go vegitarian now and it wouldn't make a difference. We also ordered wine a dessert of course. And becuase Guy doesn't really drink wine and didn't like either of the ones we got i had two glasses of wine. Needless to say it was a fun night.

The next day Guy and i went to the place called King's City. Its kind of a weird place and hard to describe. His parents told us we should go and baught us the tickets. We asked what is it. They said it was hard to describe but its nice. When we were done we also couldn't describe it, but it was nice. Here check it out for yourself http://www.kingscity.co.il/en/index.asp. This will give you the best idea of what it was without actually taking you there. Even better, this way you won't have to deal with all the crazy Israelis ; )

The two night and three day trip was really great, short and sweet. I bought a couple of dresses in the shuk (israeli market) there and in the mall i bought some Sabon prouducts for like 20 bucks sweet deal huh?

Once we got back we went to another hard to describe place with Guy's family. Its like a natural water park i guess, they have a couple of water slides that you can ride for a sheckel but mostly its like a big river i guess with water falls and narrow water passages, really beautiful, cool refreshing fresh water with little fish that come and nibble your toes......we had a nice time and i am super tan ; )

Thats pretty much the update.....
-I am trying to sell my old iphone here so i can get a new one when i get back. We put in add in the Israeli Ebay site just to see what would happen, with 20 minutes we had 4 calls about it, sweet huh? My dad might sell it for more in cambodia, fun.
-I saw batman, Heath was great just as everyone said, Isreali movie theaters are weird, there is an intermition in the middle of any movie more than 2 hours long, popcorn crunching and loud whispering can be heard through out the movie, but eventually you learn to ignore it. Oh and seeing a movie in the theater is just as expensive here as it is there.

and thats really it.
one more week and then i start camp again, i'm hoping it will be ok, the younger ones will be less able to understand me i think and less flexible about bad hebrew so this will be interesting.

ok i think i should go find Guy now and let his siblings to get to their computer ; )
TTFN
xoxo

ok....

2008-07-20T02:11:00.000-07:00

So here we go.

Camp: the kids were adorable and really figured out how to focus at least half as much as was really neccessary in the end. so they were quiet for whole scenes sometimes!! No really the kids were great the costumes and sets really came together in the end. i was pretty impressed. Also when the guy in charge stood up to thank people he was saying names and stuff and then all the kids said and roneet and then they all clapped and cheered for me. which was really nice. they also gave me a present (some bath stuff) and the camp director asked me if i would want to to work there with a group at somepoint. I honestly didn't really know what she meant, like diuring the year? for the next month or two? for pay? i don't know i was kind of taken a back by the offer at the time but it was nice to have it happen. Also a few of the kids told me to come back next year and gave me notes saying you were a really great counselor and i wish you luck and happyness in the future and i love you. super cute!

Shlomo Artsy: the concert was really cool even though i only knew 2 of the songs out of a 2 hour concert. it was in an amphatheater right by the sea so pretty beautiful area with a nice breese from the water. When we got there they had free food and drinks, little keychain lights, cushions to sit on the stone seats with, and bottles of water. neat! the food was pretty good and once the concert started poeple started using their key chain lights as lighters it was really pretty. everyone had a really good time and the music was really fun even though i couldn't really understand it.

6th months: We had a really special night planned by Guy, in a very quite far away from everything spot. Quite romantic and beautiful. We ate dinner cooked by Guy himself and then came home and watched a movie (no love movie or anything we saw The Bubble, very very good israeli film). It was the perfect way to celebrate.

Zohan: i refuse to give that movie any more time and energy.

Other than all that everything continues to be really great. We had quite the relaxing weekend, caught up on sleep, watched a good handful of movies, and just relaxed. Monday is Eilat so i am a-ok with taking the time to rest and not do anything. We are going to take a bus there so we don't have to deal with gas or parking or anything. I think its about a 4 hour ride, no big deal from me but probably a big deal for the israelis ; ) We are going to stay at the Red Hotel (Malon Adumah) and even though Guy and I still have no idea what it is, it has been recomended to go The City of Kings (Ir ha melachim). I'll let you know what it is when we get back!

OK thats it for now. Take care all, until next time.

not a lot of time right now but......

2008-07-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

highlights: (more later)

Camp ended: glad to be done but quite a nice experiance in the end

2 and 1/2 week break: looking forward to sleeping and traveling in israel

The Zohan: Guy and I just watched, it was all we could do to not fall asleep.
Quite bad, could not have been any less authentic. Thumbs down on this one Adam.

Monday: Eilat for 2 nights and three days with another couple, some kids guy went to highschool with, looking forward to it. Either i have never been there or i went once when i was very little.

More later, hopfully before we leave.

Hope you are well. Miss you tons.

2008-07-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

week two

2008-07-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

hey all,
I can't believe that i am only starting my second week here. it feels like it has been a month already, don't get me wrong, i am not complaining.

Camp is ending this week but i think the break will be welcomed with open arms. The kids have warmed up to my by now, which is good but does not in anyway mean they listen to me or do what i say. Being with a group of 12-16 young girls for an hour each morning and having to speak hebrew after only 5 or 6 hours sleep can be very difficult. I am kind of tense while i am there but by the end of the day it is all well and good and fun. so i duno.

The show is on thursday which is sort of a pain in my ass. The city is half an hour to an hour away from where i live by bus so camp ending at 1:30-2:00 and call being at 4:00 doesn't really give me anytime to go home and rest a bit. uhhhg. thats ok.

the show is coming together, these kids have no understanding of focusing and how things work in rehearsal/backs stage. its pretty phenominal how much we actors take for granted sometimes. it has been an interesting rehearsal process needless to say. but the scenes are starting to look really cute, and kids are starting to get the importance of speaking up when you are on stage. ha kosem mi eretz utz or the wizard of oz or הקוסם מי ערץ וץ (i have no idea if that is spelled right) will be ok at least, and if not i told guy the best thing about doing theater with children is 1) there parents don't care how bad it is becuase its their kid and 2) it doesn't matter how bad they are, the parents won't blame us because 9 year olds arn't supposed to be great actors anyway. so i feel pretty good.

Other than camp guy and i have been visiting his friends and seeing poeple from our birthright trip. We went to a bbq at the beautiful tel aviv apartment of his soon to be roomate and had an israeli bbq with all the kids he took his pre med class with and is going to be going to school with for the next 6 years. We hung out with freinds from high school, went to La Triviata in the park in Tel Aviv (not quite like sleeping in central park for shakes in park tickets but i got my quota i think), tonight we are going to a Shlomo Artzy (also have no idea how to spell that) concert (big famouse older musician singer here), spent an afternoon at the beach and went to a free Monica Sex (israeli band who i happened to know before hand) on the boardwalk, and ate lots and lots of israeli frozen yogert.

in other words life is pretty fun.

i am still tired come the afternoons but i think that comes from screaming at isreali children and trying to understand them when they scream back for 5 hours each day and then staying out late at night. oh well sleep is for the weak as guy keeps reminding me. i just wich my cold would go away.

after camp is done i have about a teo week break before i start the second camp. we plan to go to the north maybe camp or spend a weekend in a freinds apartment by the Kineret, go to Eilat (israel's vacation spot) for two nights and three days with another couple

also we weren't sure for a while how everything was going to be when guy goes to hungary for school, but we figured out since i have nothing to do once the second camp is over i am going to be in hungary with guy for 2 weeks before my parents come to israel, i am really looking for
ward to the adventure that will be hungary and getting those extra two weeks with him

also guy and i decided to have a 6th month celebration july would be our 6 months if we had a real date to go off of so we decided this weekend will be our 6 months(i have no idea what to get him) if you have any suggestions email me!!d

anyway i think thats it, this was kind of a blaby post sorry about that, hopefully after some travels i will have some good stories

hope all are well and healthy and happy

yours,

Roneet

ps sorry about the punctuation some how the computer got into hebrew mode and i can't get it back to english again so punctuation is not working well not that i use it correctly anyway but forgive me this once this i know is a little as we say in hebrew dafuk ;)d

Shalom!

2008-07-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

So i am in israel now, things are busy, and it all ready feels like i have been here for a week. I keep asking Guy what day it is, i'm totally messed up not only because im in a different time zone but their week is totally different here. I realised today when i was talking to someone about sunday, i am going to have to go to work on sunday. the weekend here starts on friday so at least no camp day after tomorrow.

the theater camp is going well, but it has been hard to ignore the jetlag. I have been taking naps in the afternoon and falling asleep on the bus ride home. not a great idea considering i have no idea where i am but so far i havn't missed my stop yet.

The kids here are quite different from the kids in america i find. They really make their athority work for their respect and quiet. Its been interesting to say the least. the first day or so i moslty shadowed and then since then i have been given groups of my own and treated as one of the teachers is quite nice. I spent some time working on physical character ecercises (al a Shelby styke) with one group of kids and today i did some projection excersisses ( al a Jeff Morrison and the angery raisins style) with some older kids. All in all at the end of the day its fun so i am not worried about being driven too crazy by the kids, and i say if i can help or fix on kids issues on the stage a day thats good enough for me, and so far i am two for two if i do say so myself.

I miss you all in good ol' USA a lot. Guy is starting to think about saying good bye to his friends and family here to head off to school (we all know what that was like) so it reminds me of all of you in my life back home.

I hope you all had a good 4th of July, Guy and i celebrated our country's independance on the plane. I kept expecting someone to say "oh, and happy 4th of july" but no one did. We did however get to watch fire works from the plane. While waiting to taxi in the plane we saw about 5 or 6 different set of fire along one horizon and then as we took off it was like new york was exploding all over the place. it was quite beautiful even without the noises and stuff.

Since we've landed we've been spending time with his family and its been my turn to meet all his friends.

I have been enjoying time with my aunt even though we don't get to see eachother too much, such is life with flat mates as i am all too familiar, and i am still working on finding myself some yoga and starting my arabic lessons.

so far sooooo happy
and my hebrew is getting better i do believe, its fun to impress poeple, the kids keep asking me if i was born in israel. ;)

anyway love you all hope you are all well and happy.

peace in the middle east,
Roneet

I can finally post pictures!!!!

2008-06-28T07:05:00.001-07:00

Here are some bits and pieces of the trip. More later of course!!
Can anyone say slide show!!!!

we are oot and aboot in Canada eh?

2008-06-28T06:26:00.000-07:00

for real, they talk like that, no joke!

Anyway yes we made it to Canada who knew it would happen, we sure didn't.

First Minnesota.

Minnesota was quite nice! It was nice to eat some food that wasn't cooked over a fire, nice sleep on something that doesn't collect due in the morning, and nice to take a shower!!

It was wonderful to get to see my family! I hadn't been to there home in about 10 years or so and it was really nice to see them even though it was a short visit.

Also i would like to add that i am posting from my resurrected computer! Thanks to relatives from both sides of the family the computer has come back to us.

Although this does not mean that all our machinery are in working order, no no, that would be too easy. We discovered that our car is losing oil quite quickly. Apparently thats just what old cars do. So we bought 4qrts of oil to join us on the rest of our trip and we have just been refilling the oil every time we stop.

At this point it is all starting to get a little ridiculous don't you think??

Second Chicago.

Chi-town, as i do believe its fans lovingly call it, is a really great city. We really enjoyed our time there. We got to see our good friend Betsy who was also on our birthright trip with us. We had such a good time just walking around Chicago and seeing the different areas of the city. We met up with our trip leader for coffee as well. All in all it was just relaxing and enjoyable. Really great to see Betsy. Thanks again sister love for the hospitality. i miss you tons already!

Oh Canada, Oh Canada,

the trip starts with crossing the border. Oh yes, why would crossing the border be easy, there is no fun in that. Let me set the scene for you,

Two young kids, one american, on foreign, drive a rather beat up old car filled, and i mean filled, with suite cases, pillows empty, water bottles, clothes, sleeping bags, sleeping matts, food, etc....
They are asked where are you coming from? California
Where are you going? New York
Where are you stopping in Canada? London Ontarioa and Niagra falls
Is this your car? No (uh oh)
Whos car is this? Jeffery Skollers?
Who is jeffery skoller
and the questions continue......

needless to say we made the canadians very confused. I mean i get it, we borrowed a mans car, who we don't really know and met on line, who is asking us to transport it across the united states. I get it, it sounds weird.

Half an hour later after they pulled everything out of the car, searched all the bags, the cooler, the hood(???), put things through an xray machine (including our dirty clothes), through away our fire wood........they told us to pack the car back up and we are free to go to immigration.
Thanks for the memories Canada border patrol.

Anyway we are in niagra falls after spending our last camping in London Ontario, by the way those Canadians are just bitter they don't live in England, the whole town is fashioned after London, England. Silly Canadians.

We got in to Niagra falls and decided to enjoy our last night in Canada. We went out for a nice dinner, got a nice hotel room, watched fire works from a big tall viewing tower, enjoyed the jecoozy tub in our room, all in all it was a nice romantic evening.

The dinner was great. We were walking by the falls, and these girls came to us and asked if we had a place for dinner yet and gave us a ten dollers off cupon for their restaurant they also made us a reservation by the window so we could see the falls as we dined (too bad they didn't cut the trees down that day) and gave a free desert on top of the 10 dollers off the meal. It was expensive but really nice and good food and service.
The fire works were a little lame but its ok we will forgive the Canadians.

ok so now today, we are going to enjoy the sites of niagra falls before heading to Long Island and then Manhattan!!!!

The trip has been really great, challenging, adventurous, an experience like no other, and very short feeling at this point, it really did fly by.

I guess this will be one of my last posts in the US.

Signing off for now.
See you in Israel.

On the road again....

2008-06-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

Things we take for granted:
Flush toilettes
Showers
Warm water

After 7 nights of camping in a row we could definetly use some
civilization. A city with a higher population than 311 people at least.

Its been 4 days since our last shower and I am only admitting this
because we are on our way to my uncles where I know there will be a
nice shower just waiting to clean me.

We are leaving South Dakota now and heading to Minnisota. We noticed
in the past few days just how differnt each state looks from the next.
Its pretty wild. Utah was red and sandy.. Colorado had huge mountains
with snow on the rockys and everything. Wyoming hilly and green. And
now South Dakota is almost totally flat as we drive through. Its
pretty cool to see the drastic changes along the highway. It is also
quite a trip to drive through time zones.

Our time in the rockys was pretty cool. We thought we would
Take the hiking easy but ended up doing 7 miles again. It was nice.
we saw a couple of beautiful water falls and lakes. We also hiked
through some snow which was quite a highlight for Guy. We had a lovely
dinner of pasta and chicken and some baby corn while we watched Ranger
Sue give quite the presentation on squerls, chipmunks, and marmates.

Last night, our first night in South Dakota, we stayed in a very
remote campground that almost no one knew the location of. We spent 2
hours last night looking for the damn place waisting miles in the
darkness of the Black Hills of South Dakota. When we finally found it
we found our selves in the most primitive campground yet. No flushing
toilettes (we are well aquainted i might say with your toilettes
micaela), no showers, and the only running water was freezing and came
from a push-with-one-hand-and-rinse-the-other faucette (have no idea
what they are actually called) which happen to have a nicely written
sign saying Please do not: wash dishes, hair, or brush teeth. WTF is
the water for then???!!! Anyway we made do (ignored the sign
completly) and plan on giving recreation.gov a peice of our minds for
suggesting we book the place without telling us what we were getting
ourselves into.

Dinner was good! We had stopped at a grocery store in the town at the
bottom of the mountain and picked up some real meat! NY steaks and hot
dogs. At first we were kicking ourselves for buying the steaks but in
then end they came out really good.

The next day we hit Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Honestly, for all
you future travelers, if you thought the four leaders of our country
carved in to the side of a mountain would be impressive, the American
Indians have got us beat by far. We made our first itinerary mistake.
We gave ourselves too much time at Mt. R and waisted time (and miles i
might add) we could have spent at Crazy Horse when we decided to eat
at this really aweful german restaurant in town. Last time we take
advice from an old man playing some really lame mini golf in the
middle of nowhere (lesson #4). We got to Crazy Horese too late to take
the bus to the base of the sculpture and missed all the natives making
crafts in the museum. What we did get to see was these two Indians do
some traditional Lakota dances and the "Leagends In Light" show. As
silly as it sounds it was pretty cool. A laser and light show
projected on Crazy Horse Mountain. Let me take a moment to note: the
figure of Crazy Horse is even less done than the presedsnts, just a
face and the outline of a horse head, and we wished we had spent more
time there. Oh well. Next time.

To top off our entire South Dakota experience we slept in our tent as
some pretty rageing thunder lightning and rain stormed outside. Kind
of scary at the time but looking back on it, pretty cool. We got up
this morning to a strangely dry campground (minus the car and tent)
cooked some breakfast and hit the road.

On to Minnisota, Chicago and then our next big adventure, Canada!!

The Colorado sunset as we drive through Denver

2008-06-19T19:39:00.000-07:00

That A is exagerating a whole lot.

2008-06-19T19:21:00.000-07:00

We're going on an adventure Charlie!

2008-06-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

> I just hope no one removes our spleens.... If u don't get the
> reference search "Charlie the unicorn" on u tube.
>
> So the past few days have been one nerve racking yet exciteing
> adventure after another. We are continualy learning about our crises
> resolution skills. And I have to say so far we have bot been beaten
> (please where ever you are give some wood a knock for us. Thanks)
>
> Day 1: Palo Alto to Vegas-545 mil.
>
> A long drive.
>
> We had a lot of fun actually dispite the fact that we learned our
> first hard lesson. #1 Gas guages are not great indicators of how
> much gas you really have. We found our selves on one of those
> stretches of freeway with no services for quite sometime. We were
> switching to nutral in downward slopes, driveing without air
> conditioning, driving at 45 mph with the flashers on, and avoiding
> the gas peddle at all costs.
>
> We finally made it to a gas station before having to use our rocking
> back and forth skills we were worried would be the next step. Guy
> opened the gas tank and you could hear the last of the fumes we were
> running on escape.
>
> Oh and I almost forgot my ipod died shortly after. :( < that was the
> face it was making. So we also had no music. We tried to play the
> aphabet game. That was a little hard for Guy.
>
> Road vs. Guy and Roneet
> Road: 0 G&R: 1
>
> Vegas was great. We stayed with a friend of Guy's from the army. It
> was really nice to see him with his friend for a change and it was a
> really nice evening. We walked around a bit amongst the casinos. Guy
> finally gambled for the first time leagally and won $5!!
>
> Day 2: Vegas to Zion Park-166 mil.
>
> A far shorter drive.
>
> Since this drive was shorter we figured we could spend some time in
> the morning with Guy's friend. Guy was really excited to go bungee
> jumping off a tower at Circus Circus but we found out as we drove by
> that it has been closed for few years now. So no bungee jumping we
> are working on it but so far Colorado and Utah both don't have
> bungee jumping. I thought Wisconsin sounded kind of wild so I'll try
> there next.
>
> The chalange of the day was to find a place to camp the night. We
> knew that the park itself was full so we figured either we would
> find a place to camp near by or we would spend the night in a motel.
> We weren't worried. The first campground we came to we went in to
> ask. Not only did they have availability buy they also had showers
> and flush toilettes, laundry facility, pool and hot tub, and
> wireless Internet. Yes this was an outside camping site. We were
> shocked. We set up camp on our river front property and spent some
> time relaxing in the hot tub before starting dinner. This is where
> it gets rough. All ready to cook ourselves a yummy meal we pull out
> our gas stove that we brought from my house. Guess what was missing?
> Not the three canisters of gas or three burner stove but the tube
> that connects the gas to the stove. So we had to make our mac and
> cheese on an open fire in the dark. That was an experince. As gross
> as craft mac and cheese with canned chicken sounds it wasn't that
> bad. The meal was topped off with some classic s'mores (totally
> foreign to Guy).

The next thing that happened brings me to why I am updateing from my
phone and why I am updateing 4 days at once. It was quite ironic to
have found a place with wireless becuase as soon as I opened my laptop
I got the blue screen of death.

The iPod eventually came back to life but can't say as much I'd the
laptop or the GPS which has also decided to check out in us. Thank god
for my cell phone and nice people in the middle of nowhere, USA (knock
on wood again please)

Day 3: Zion to Bryce Canyon-83 mil.

FYI Bryce-more awesome than Zion but smaller and dustier.

Day 3 was the day we learned another hard lesson.

#2 If the GPS suggests you take an unknown road for 12 miles. Don't do
it!

We got so lost! That's when our GPS first lost reception. We were
driving on a gravel dusty for probably close to 20 miles. But hey we
got up close and personal with Dixie National Forest! Which I found
out later reminded the early Mormon settlers of the south and that's
how it got its name. Great huh!? (sigh)

We finally found our way back to civilization and ended up stopping at
an RV park that was willing to give us a place before night fall for
not too much money. They had a restaurant there so we said screw it
and got ourselves some burgers. And went to bed.

Our second meal attempted over an open fire was not as successful as
the first. Our batch of undercooked rice mixed with scrambled egg
didn't really hit the spot to say the least. But the day got better
from there. I mean really where else could it go....

We got to Bryce got ourselves a camping spot. Hiked amongst the
beautiful rock formations in Bryce Canyon and hit 14 miles of hiking
in two days. After the long hike we came back to camp made dinner of
spaghetti and french fries and sealed the deal again with some
s'mores. All in all day 4 was a pretty good success. Lesson for the
day while not as heavy important none the less.

#3 Do not leave your car doors open in a forest or squerls will eat
your sandwiches.

Day 5: Bryce to Rocky Mountain National Park-640 mil.

So far ok. We woke up to catch the sunrise. Beautiful but not the best
sunrise either of us have seen too be honest. We planned on packing up
and heading out but instead went back to sleep for another hour and
half.

On the way we have learned a few things.
1) Why Starvin' Arvin' is starving.
2) 640 miles is too long a drive.
3) The Dinosaur Museum in Fruita Colorado-not that exciteing but a
nice leg stretch.

Ok well I guess that makes you all caught up now.

Now that I set up the phone I will be updateing whenever I have
reception.

Oh and also "Israel" called to tell me that I will be working at a
theater camp for kids 7-11 in June. Sounds really cool the kids have
yoga in the mornings and then dance and choir and rehearsals for an
abridged version of The Wizard of Oz. In august I will be working for
another camp not sure on those detail yet.

Ok that's really it!
Miss you all tons.

This is a test

2008-06-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

If you can read this it means I figured out how to update from my
phone. Woot.

HEY ALLLLLLLL

2008-06-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

So i know it's been a while.

The Update:

Everything is going great. Things have been really busy visiting friends doing American/Californian things, and just spending time together.

Seeing friends has been really nice and its been great having everyone meet Guy as overwhelming as it my be. We went played minigolf, enjoyed a long day of fun in San Francisco, saw fish and animals in Monterey and visited tide pools in Half Moon Bay, Raging Waters was a blast (sorry Anna you win), and today we went white water rafting on the American River. It has been a busy fun filled past few days.

The Plan:

We are spending the next couple of days making sure we have everything in order to start our drive east. We are planing out the days and stops along the way, making sure we have all the camping gear we need, and i need to make some phone calls to Israel to make sure all is in order so Guy can have a little bit of peace from me during the day while we are there together

; )

anyway that's kind of it really, in a nutshell, those of you who we will be seeing along the way will be hearing from us soon with dates and stuff, we just have some finalizing to do with dates and milage and stuff. Can't wait to start the trip. I am really excited about it, and i think Guy is too ; )

More soon.....before we hit the road for sure....i promise...

Left you hanging for a bit huh?

2008-06-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

Helloooo hello.

SO Guy arrived and i picked him up on time, on the correct date, at the correct airport, in the correct terminal. We spent the day with my family in Orange County which was nice but i am sure pretty over whelming for him, poor pup...but what a trooper...

The next day was spent in LA. We went to the Le Brea Tar Pits park and Museum (Guy officially deemed me a nerd), the LA Automotive Museum- two floors of many different kinds of transportation that all had to do with LA history....interesting....pretty cars, a walk on Hollywood Blvd. - got to see the hand prints, the stars, and the Chinese theater, took Guy to Cold Stone and showed him Build a Bear (because it was there). And then we went to dinner at Benihana's with my cousins. A lot of fun and packed couple of days. Guy surprisingly has had no problem with jet-lag.

Then it was on to Santa Barbara. We visited with my girls (LOVE YOU) , sat on the beach, introduced Guy to American bagels, and ate at a lovely restaurant on the harbor.
It was a lot of fun, wonderful to see the girls, and great have them meet the boy.

Dinner with the fam went well.

Today was a baseball game and tale gate party. The game was surprisingly fun, we won 10-2 GO A's! Guy and I even picked up on how the game is played ; )

So all in all in things are good, great even.....lots of fun. : D

Miss you all tons!!!

Guy arrives when???

2008-05-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

I spent the past couple of days in lovely Santa Barbara......the sun.....the friends.....the beach air....the empty beer cans and couches on the lawn......ahhh the college life of UCSB.....

I had a wonderful time with my girls. We relaxed and watched the season finale of Lost.....the season i have not seen a single episode, yet hadn't really miss much....

All was going quite well until after dinner i thought i would check Guy's flight info. Just for fun......becuase he arrives on June 1st (as i feel i have mentioned to world so many times it must be ingrained in their minds by now). As i check the email Guy sent me on May 13th...i noticed something interesting.....in bright red letters, very plainly, it reads: "Arrival 31st May". Funny, I thought, becuase Guy is arriving on June 1st.....as several moments flashed through my mind of Guy mentioning how he was arrving "Saturday", "on the 31st", "i changed my flight to the 31st so we have an extra day"........the red flag went up, the sirens went off.....i realised Guy comes tomorrow morning!! As i quickley gathered my stuff in SB and drove to LA to sleep the night....i thought to myself, how lucky i am, how lucky i am to have some sort of higher being to watch over me and help me in my moments of complete and uter brain fart.....

So there you have it, I still got it, once again, i have not failed to live my live life to its full oblivious potential....

Gooooooooood thing i checked huh??

Anyway i am now in LA, all is well, definetly could have been worse, no doubt about that, and i will be headed to bed after i finish this update inorder to wake up early and pick up my boy at the airport.......I guess it was meant to be......

Final thought for the evening: you get what you wish for. i wished Guy would just get here already.....and well.....here he is.....

Update

2008-05-28T23:02:00.001-07:00

ok. so things are starting to get finalized....
tomorrow i leave for Santa Barbara to spend some time with my high school girls going to school there. then i will continue on down to LA where i will stay with my cousins and see my family in the OC, and pick up GUY!!!! Then we will probably spend some time seeing the LA sites ( i don't think i have ever done this to tell the truth) and then one more night in SB before heading back up to the Bay Area.

We will be in Palo Alto until the 15th of June....this is when the dude (Berkley Proffessor) letting us drive his car to NY for him will let us have the car.
So far our plans from June 3rd-15th
4th- Baseball game
11th-river rafting
14th-Maya's birthday fun

thats kind of it. We will do San Fran some where in there, as well as Santa Cruise, a day at Raging Waters, a visit to Cold Stone, and many a dinner and visit with family and friends......
I'm sure we will figure out many more things to do over the week as we take our 5 hour drive from Santa Barbara back to Palo Alto.

The Cross Country Drive:
We figured out details today.....
We agreed to take the car on the 15th and we will probably be arriving in NY on the 28th or 29th of June.

Still not positive about the route and exact stops but our lists of possabilities are:
Crater Lake
Mount St. Helen's
Mount Rushmore
Yellowstone
Zion Park
Bryce Canyon
Minniapolis (to stay with my uncle)
Mount Olympus (a water park in Wisconsin anyone familiar??)
Chicago (Betsy and Rachel (yay) I need to call you!!)
Niagra Falls

Not all of these are on the same route, these are probably two different routes or at least two different 1st halfs of the route.

If anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear them.....
BTW AAA is an amzing asset, you should all know.....

I had a long day of cleaning my old room and getting things ready for Guy.....can you tell my post is a little less organized?
Bikram tomorrow morning....i am so excited....
and then the prius, the open road, my ipod, and me!

Hope all are well where ever you are......nighty-night.

California

2008-05-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

FEW.....i made it. so the past week had been full of packing and logisitics and a lot, a lot, of dust. who knew you could accumulate so much dust and crap over 2 years.

anyway it is all packed away in boxes and bags and in storage. the unfortunate part is i will have to go through all of it all over again in about 4 months or so.....sigh.....such is life.

Now i am home in Palo Alto and as happy as can be.

For those of you who don't know, Guy, my partner in travels/crime/existance for the next 3 months (chose what you like) (this is the boy refered to in my title) has been studying for the past 3-4 months to get into medschool in Hungary. Today was the day we have all been wating for: the day which determened whether our trip across the USA was actually happening, the day which determened his general future and my possible vacation fututre........the day of the test.
And guess what .......he passsed!!!!!!!!!!
YAY GUY! i knew he could do it......
So that is the exciteing news of the day.
His email letting me know the verdict looked like this:

Sorry sweety, you will have to suffer me for three months!

I figured this meant he passed and that he was coming to the USA, making our time together three months instead of just the two in Israel, but i confirmed later too to be sure.

anyway thats about it for now. My parents get home tomorrow and then it is plan plan plan until i leave to go get Guy in LA via Santa Barbara.

Hope all are well......I will be back to keep you posted on travel plans for the cross country treck!

Early days....

2008-05-19T10:33:00.001-07:00

OK.
So here we are a week away from the very first stop of my post-college-career life.
This week will be filled with packing my new york life away into boxes and storage units, last minute hang outs and things i kept saying i would have time for later, and bikram yoga. Then its off to California for some good 'ol Palo Alto air and quiet.

i can't promise i will blog every day, i've never been good at that, but hopefully i will keep up with this often enough that it will be worth having it ; )

Things are so not solidly planned for the next month this will be a good place hopefully for all of you to keep track of changes in direction, itinerary, and over all existence as soon as they occur.

Lets just hope i have some pretty consistent internet access as i venture out into the unknown of our country for 2 weeks.

I hope everyone is as excited about this thing as i am. ; )
(We all know how long winded my stories tend to get so feel free to skim, skip over, read selectively, or ignore entirely as you so choose)

ps. I love comments