Past Month and Half (Part 2 of 2)

So there are 2 interesting events that took place in recent past worth mentioning:

1 – An Open-House weekend took place a few weeks ago in Tel Aviv. This is an annual event that showcases interesting interior design or architecture, basically anything having to do with design. For a weekend people open up their own condos/houses/offices to the public. Mostly its interior decorators showing off their work (either in their own houses or in their clients'). Of course, for those interested in design or voyarism this is a great opportunity. I was excited for both reasons.

I got a map of all the open houses, figured out the perfect route and schedule and set out on my way. Well… it did not turn out as planned. As it happens, there are a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean HOARDS, of people with the same idea. Upon seeing the first house with a huge line out front I figured let’s skip this one and come back to it later (when it dies down); for the next house I stood in line for 45 minutes under the blazing sun, dying of dehydration, but I made it through! The house was underwhelming.  Don’t get me wrong it would have been perfectly nice, but for 45 minutes in sweltering heat! Not worth it. At this point I was still determined to see what I could.

I moved on to the next place… same thing, and the next place.. same thing. I decided that I would go to the the #1 place on my list and wait it out. Again, I was not the only one with that brilliant idea. The line was by far the longest. I stood in line for about ....1.5 hours after which the organizers came out and said that it would close in 20 min and if you were in line behind a certain cut-off person you were not going to make it, but you were welcome to wait and see. I was behind that cut-off! I was completely disheartened and boiling hot, so I finally gave up :)

I have pics of this on Facebook, there are other pics in there as well, but if  you see one with loads of people that’s probably a line to one of the houses. Here is the link:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=179525&id=661621936&l=6046238311

2 – There is a silent rave (party) that takes place at a café that is around the corner from my house. I have seen it a few times now, its completely bizarre! They set up a DJ station in the middle of the street, at the café, and give out wireless headphones to anyone who wants them, a large crowd gathers and people dance around to the music that only they can hear. They get a little rowdy but its not bad. Its super funny to watch because all you can see is the crowd swaying, some sing along which is even funnier. I have never seen this before anywhere. The pics of this are in the above link.

Other than this I don’t have anything interesting to report. I still go to school everyday, although I seem to have hit a wall of sorts. There is just too much information, we are learning in 5 months what usually people take years to learn, either that or I am dumb or not studying enough, either way it’s a bit discouraging.

Past Month and Half (Part 1 of 2)

Let’s start form most recent events (that are worth mentioning) and work my way back:

One of the benefits of living in Israel (as opposed to US), is that Europe is just a short flight away with almost no time difference. I took advantage of this opportunity last weekend and joined Dima in Geneva.

It is a very beautiful, classy, smallish European city. It was a pleasure to walk and look around, which is pretty much all we did the whole time, with some breaks for food and Museums. It’s a very very expensive place and I think one way they try to make up for it is: the municipal museums are free (very nice) and public transportation for tourists is free as well (comes in very handy). Its an interesting contrast to Tel Aviv: Geneva is very clean, very looked after, and while its much older, it’s in much better shape. Of course not being involved in any wars for the past at least 400 years helps. One other point of note; everything closes very early, which I have become unused to, we tried to go out for food at 10:30pm, it was very difficult to find any restaurant still serving, here 10:30pm is still prime dinner time.

Here are some pics (and comments) from the trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=184954&id=661621936&l=dcb0999de8

Before Geneva, life was as usual. I came back from my whirlwind trip to US. Let me tell you: flying across the world for less than a week is not very smart, because the minute you kind of start getting over the jet-leg you have to fly back and start the process all over again. Of course I got sick as a result, and the fact that I ran around trying to see and spend time with every family member in St Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee did not help.