Vacation Email #4 - Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

Hello dear friends,

it's that time again, although I don't think that this email will be quite as long. Oh well, maybe that is for the best. Anyway.....
Two days ago me and the rest of the group went our separate ways. My foot was hurting me and I decided to take a day off while everyone else went to Jerusalem. I had a pretty nice day though. After getting some sunscreen and a notebook (which opens from the back since it's Israeli) I went to hang out at a beachside cafe and read - to keep off my foot. It was pretty nice to just people watch and relax. I ordered some iced coffee and a watermelon and lost myself in a Murikami book. I was reading for a little while when I suddenly realized that I was being watched. I turned to look in the direction of my table and saw a black cat sitting on my table next to me and just watching me with those big green eyes. When she saw me looking she started cleaning herself and still chilled on my table for about 15 minutes. She wasn't after my food or drink, so we just hung out. It felt really cool.

I wrote for a bit afterwards and then went back to reading. A little while later two guys sat in front of me. Apparently they went to the beach to conduct a business meeting of sorts. One guy was French and the other was an American I think. They had the weirdest meeting ever. They started off by discussing if they shopped for underwear in Israel and whether or not Israeli underwear was better and cheaper. Eventually they got to business and I tuned them out for a while. Another interesting thing was that the American guy kept getting personal phone calls and taking them right in the middle of everything. Business is definitely more relaxed here. I say that especially since the French guy at one point took most of his clothes off and just chilled in his boxer briefs. At that point they seriously started messing with the general vibe of the place and I left the beach for home. I just had a very relaxing day. I went to bed at around 10:30 and the rest of the group didn't come home till 1 am.

Their trip was of course more exciting. They went into one cigar store in Jerusalem - Ralph is a cigar fan- and talked with the owner. It seems like in the late 90s a suicide bomber went into that very store and blew himself up. The owner happened to be in the states at the time but his brother was there. Fortunately the brother is Ok, the guys saw him too. Another cool thing that happened is while they were all eating they saw a music video being filmed right on the street by where they were. The singer is very famous in Israel. Daniel something. I'm horrible with names so I don't remember his full name. But overall lots of adventures. A good day. since I wasn't with them the guys left the old city and Yod Vashem for another day which was very nice of them. I think they will tell you guys more in their own emails.

Yesterday everyone stayed in Tel Aviv and took it pretty easy which was just fine with me. In the morning we went to an art fair/market type of a place. some of the jewelry there was really pretty, but it was definitely overpriced. We met Olya's coworker Becky and her husband Yael and hung out with them for a while. I also bought some Israeli table cloths at the market, so mom you are all set :-).

We came back from the market and after a little rest went to the beach. Tel Aviv has an insane amount of jellyfish. It’s crazy. It you walk by the shore you just see a crazy amount of them washed up on the shore. I did my whole cafe by the beach thing again since I didn't want to get my foot dirty, but the rest hung out closer to the water. Ralph and Alex got stung by the jellyfish, but they are both fine. We all also played this paddleball game that's really popular here. It's basically like catch, but with wooden paddles. You get pretty into it. Olya got a massage by a creepy beach massage guy. When he started he brushed her off with a bristled brush, which I thought was hilarious. I guess you had to be there. He did it in a very nonchalant manner like he was brushing crumbs off the table.

In the evening we went to a place called the canyon arena. It's on a marina and a pretty posh part of town. The really rich older crowd lives there. While we were eating we saw one of the cutest kitties ever. Ralph had me throw her some of his fish. She loved us. I forgot to mention earlier that there are cats all over Israel, especially Tel Aviv. People just feed them periodically so they survive pretty well on their own. It's nice to see, a lot of them are really sweet and cute. We walked around a bit after dinner, but the place was practically dead by 11 so me went home and prepared for a long day.

Today we went to Jerusalem again, this time I went with, but Ilyusha decided to spend the day with relatives. We started off at Yod Vashem and it took us over 4 hours there. They have rebuilt and added to it since the last time I was there 2 years ago. Overall it was not an easy thing to walk through but I'm glad we did it. It was definitely something that needs to be done when you are in Jerusalem.

After we ate lunch we headed for the old city. We walked around quite a bit before we made it to the Western Wall. We went to our opposite sides and did our thing. On my way from the wall I saw a couple who were getting married close to it. Ralph suggested that we go to the Christian quarter since it was relatively important to him. We went out of a different gate and suddenly everything was a little off. It took us only a few minutes to realize what it was... We accidentally stumbled into the Muslim quarter instead. We hightailed it out of there at the speed of lightning and consulted a map on the safe Jewish side of things.

We went to the Christian quarter through the Jewish one, which was significantly safer. It was nice to walk around the old city. We saw an old synagogue that was blown up by the Arabs in 1948. It was highly massive. Very cool to check out. When we made it to the Christian quarter I bought this holy water cross thing that I promised to one of my coworkers and Ralph bought some rosaries. We also saw the place where Jesus’ tomb was. I think it was on the Greek Orthodox domain. That basically concluded the old city for us. We walked back through the Armenian quarter, so I guess we saw it all.

On the way home we got lost as usual. It's crazy. Maps don't help you. You're on one street and suddenly you look at the miniscule street sign and realize that you are no longer on any place that you see on the map/ It usually takes us 30 minutes to find our house. Today we resorted to randomly shouting for directions to the cars around us on stoplights. It's fine though. Adds a little flavor of adventure to everything. We finished off by having dinner at a Cuban place then going to an internet cafe.

And here we are my friends, all caught up. You will hear from me in a few days with stories about the Galilee, and the clubbing in Israel. See you next time.

Vacation Email #3 - the end of Eilat, Ein Gedi, and the beginning of Tel Aviv‏

Hope you guys have some time to kill, cause here's the next installment
So the last time I finished writing we were headed to the oceanarium. We drove down and first took in an interactive movie, the kind with the moving seats so that you feel right in the middle of all the action. The movie was in Hebrew, but you could get headphones and plug them in to either the english or russian translation. We all did the english, but for some reason russian sentances could be heard in the background. They were always very satanic and funny. The movie was a little cheesy, but overall very informative and educational. We learned about all sorts of marine life around eilat. After the movie we went on a boat ride with a glass bottom. This was really amazing. Apparently Eilat has an amazing variety of coral and you see all different types growing in the same area. We also saw needle fish and parrot fish and even goldfish. An interesinting little tidbit, in a group of goldfish and parrot fish if there is only one male and he dies the strongest female changes sex to become the alpha male. Weird right? We also checked out the underwater observatory which was very similar to the glass bottom boat but pretty cool overall. I was hurting with the foot so i didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. The guys also went to check out the shark tank, but I stayed back since I was in some pain.
After we came home, everyone slept for a bit and then most people went shopping. Again I slept and rested in my room so that the healing process can begin. The others bought some nice stuff though. I was kind of jealous. The next day we headed to Ein GEdi.

We headed out at about 12:30 or so through the desert in our newly rented Kia. It actually fit us all and our bags pretty comfortably. I think we were all surprised by that fact. On our way to Ein Gedi we stopped by this huge crater that spans something along the lines of 40 km. It was naturally formed, not due to any meteors or anything like that. Just due to the lay of the land. The guys decided to go through the little museum with a movie, but I just hung out outside and enjoyed the view. They highly enjoyed the movie though for two reasons. Reason #1 - The movie starts out in the following way... "The earth is 4.5 billion years old. That's 4.5 BILLION years. WE know that 4.5 billion years is a difficult concept to grasp so we will refer to the earth's life span as 1 day but in reality it's 4.5 BILLION!!!! years old. 4.5. Billion." Reason #2 - quote from the movie - "This land was very rich in culture. The nabateans went through here, the romans, etc and the culture flourished. then the arabs came.... [meaningful silence] then after the creation of israel it is starting to flourish again". Pretty impartial movie huh?
Our next order of business was to see the town of Dimona. It seems that durring the 70s a group of black jews came over to israel and established a colony called Dimona. They brought soul food and music. Now their culture is a mix of chicago and israel. The music is a mix of gospel, reggae, and something alltogether new. They are jews in all traditions, but on top of that they pnly dress in natural fabrics and are vegans. They are known in Israel as the Black Hebrews. When we got to Dimona we were very dissapointed though since we saw no black people there, however we saw an overabundance of Russians. I think the Russians took over Dimona and inched out the blacks. It was around 4 pm in Friday when we got there and the place looked deserted. Almost nothing was open. WE saw a kiosk called "KABKA3" but they were closed and watching the world cup. They told us that we had no chance finding anything to eat there, but that there is a cafe on the way out of town. We drove around some more and got pretty lost. Antonov was sent to a grocery store for some info on restaurants and emerged a few minutes later with a challah. It seems that the girl told him we had no place to go to eat, and gave him the challah so that we could at least have that for Shabbat. We devoured the challah in seconds.

WE finally got out of town and cound a little out of the way cafe. It also sold oversized toys and all sorts of weird stuff. The owner made us basically grilled bread with tomatoes and cheese inside. They were very good. While we were eating Sereja talked with the owner who happened to have some very particular views on the black hebrews. He basically said that they were all criminals who came to israel so that they would not be put in jail. He also said that they are polygamists. Apparently they were not even considered Israeli citizens until about 5 years ago and they do not have to serve in the israeli army. The only ones who serve are volunteers. Also no one has a college education and they live in a very close knit community who survives by playing the music i mentioned earlier. There is a following of it and they make money performing and selling CDs. Basically the guy is not a fan. So I don't know how much of what he said was valid. Now you know what I know.

It was pretty late when we made it to Ein Gedi. We just made it to dinner which was incredible. WE ended up staying in a hotel that was run by a kibbutz. The grounds of the hotel are like a botanical Garden. They have an amazing variety of plants and flowers that are in bloom. The smell is just different there. Since a lot of people where still having stomach flu/food oisoning issues, we decided to hold off on Masada untill our last morinig and mainly relax the next day.

We got up at 7am in order to eat breakfast and make the guided hike of the waterfall. Durring the hike we saw a whole giant group of Ibexes which are like mountain goats. There were families of them and just general groups moving from mountain to mountain. At first there was no water in site, but the higher we went the more water we saw. At one point we stopped for 10 minutes and swam in the spring under the waterfall. WE hiked all the way up to the main waterfall where the kibbuttz gets its water supply from. Again the plants that grew there were absolutely amazing. Here we splintered off from the group and took our time splashing in the spring under the waterfall. the water was great and being under the waterfall was a great feeling.

Since we had such a stressfull morning we decided to go to the Ein Gedi Spa next. We made massage appointments as soon as we got in and then relaxed a little bit by swimming in the Dead sea and covering ourselves in the dead sea mud. I put a bag on my leg and it worked for a while, until I really swam away from the shore.. and then ..... AAAAHHHHHHHHHH the pain, the horrible searing pain. Sereja had to tow me to shore. it was not fun, but we have pictures that capture that lovely moment. My massage was a piece of heaven. I didn't even feel fully conscious. Only the part that was being worked on felt alive. 1 hour full body massage fealt awfully nice. We finished off the day by chilling by the pool and waiting for everyone to get their massage. It was wonderful except for the Russians that were there. They were the most uncivilized people i have ever met. If you are standing in line they just invade your personal space and then plainly just push you out of the way. It's lots of fun. But other than that the experience was wonderful.

When we got back to the hotel we went to sleep pretty quickly since we had to get up at 4 am for the masada. Even though that is the time we got up we did not make it out till after 4:30 and did not get to the masada until about 5. The sun rise was at 5:35 and the hike was said to take about 45 minutes. We hauled ass up those stairs. I think we all almost died on our way up. I made it one minute before the sunrise but we made it non the less. That sunrise was absolutely breathtaking. WE also ran into Nir, the soldier that was on mine and Olya's birthright trip 2 years ago. We also saw Varshavsky and some gy who i totally don't remember but who went to Champaign - younger generation of the Makaron group. We tagged along with the russian birthright group for a while and listened to a lecture about the Masada and then tood another 45 mnutes to hike down. We saw people basically not feeling well and turning back on our way down.

We made it to our hotel with just enough time to each breakfast and check out. We were told by our tel aviv guy that he will only be available at 2:30 so we did not have a lot of time to waste. After we passed Jerusalem however we finally stopped at a pharmach and loaded up on PeptoBismo, Aloe and Neosporin. When we got to our Tel aviv appartment we were floored. It's amazing and only a block from the beach. We basically settled in, did laundry and food shopping and then just walked on the beach for a bit.

That's all folks, thanks for your patience and you will be getting more emails soon

love, Katya

Vacation email #2 Eilat and Jordan‏

HI everyone.

So the last time I ended with the fact that we will go and snorkel with the dolphins. That was a wonderful experience. We were split into groups of 4 so the Shafies were separate from us which was a bit unfortunate, but we didn't really look at each other much anyway during this activity. We were first told not to touch the dolphins. They will touch us if they want to. We were also given wetsuits to keep our body temp up and to help us float. being in one of those things feels like being in a sausage casing. It was definitely different. We snorkeled with our guide for a half an hour. The dolphins were only a few feet away from us at times, swimming around us and under us. We were warned that they were feisty since there were 8 females and the alpha make died a few days ago. This was really sad because dolphins are in heat this time of the year. The only male there is a 10 month old baby and dolphins don't sexually mature until they are about ten. There was also a dolphin named Luna :-). While we were swimming one of the dolphins touched Ralph. Overall it was wonderful. We had a short 10 minute video made of the experience. When we were done we just hung out at the beach for a few hours. None of us burned which was pretty amazing. We were able to swim up really close to the dolphin enclosure and almost got to touch a dolphin that came by for a friendly chat. Very cool stuff. The only bad part was that there were coral reefs right where we were swimming and I cut my foot on one of them. I didn't think much of it while I was swimming, but it really started bleeding when I got out of the water. Don't worry, I will walk again soon. :-).

After a while, we decided to head back home. We changed and showered and walked along the boardwalk going into little shops. We were told of a club called Touch that we should visit. We also ate some good Israeli food. On the way back to the hotel we bought the nastiest alcohol I have ever tasted called Kiglevich so that we could pre-drink. I decided to skip the club since I didn't want to irritate my foot more than it was but I drank along with everyone anyway. EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWW. Yuck is all i have to say. I do not think Sereja will ever be put in charge of alcohol again. Ech. After the pre-drinking I went to bed but the others partied it up at Touch. They said that there was a whole mass of girls in tank tops and mini skirts with M-16s clubbing. I love night clubs and guns in Israel. Olya and Antonov made it back pretty early, but the rest of the boys must have partied it up until 3 in the morning. I don't think they had a great morning.

Thankfully were were only picked up to go to the Jordanian border at 11. For some reason the road to the border is probably the worst road in Eilat. We needed to be in a Jeep just to get there. It took us about a half an hour to get through the border and we were had to walk through no man's land unescorted. It was a little freaky, especially since there were "Danger Mines" signs on either side of us. Also as we got closer to the Jordan side we saw a sign that said, literally "Welcome You". We thought is was funny that they even wrote with an accent. Once we got through border patrol we were met by one of our many Jordanian guides, Mohammad (3 out of 4 guides there were named Mohammad). He drove us to Aqaba to the travel agency. We got there at around 12:30. We were told that it was too hot to go to the desert now and we will take off at 4 pm, which meant that we had some time to walk around and chill with the locals.

For some reason there were very few people out - maybe it was because it was around 40 degrees Celsius!! We went to a market/strip mall type of place and some of us bought stuff. Then we came into another store that made sand bottles with designs in them. Inside it was decorated with signs such as "Ded Sea" and another one that was freakily spelled. The group decided to get some bottles - like 10 for different friends. We were offered coffee while we waited. We also got to talk to one of the locals. He was an electrician who had 12 kids. He told us that he personally doesn't have anything against us because we are Americans, since we are not the ones killing innocent children in Iraq, but not everyone feels like him. He told us that they show Americans killing children almost every day on the TV. Over all he was pretty friendly and even got us a deal on water to save us some money. We hung out with him until our souvenirs were ready. We left and walked to a restaurant that was recommended to us by our Jordanian guide called Ali Baba. The first thing Olya and I noticed when we walked in, was that we were the only women. Later on we found out that all of the women were on a different floor which made us a bit uncomfortable. We got over it when other Jordanian non religious couples came together and sat in our section. I guess the really weird thing in Jordan is that even though a lot of people are really hard core Muslims, a lot are not, and no one pushes their beliefs on others. Our food was heavenly and the waiters were really nice. They saw that some of us were not feeling great and gave us special teas to settle the stomach. We were very happy with everything.

When we got back we piled in to 2 Toyota trucks and headed towards Wadi Rum which means Valley of sand. While on the highway I noticed that the mountains were striped. I guess they are made of sedimentary rock, so that they have layers of black, green, red and tan. At one point we got off the highway and went off-roading through the desert. It was amazing, though seriously bumpy ride. Our truck got stuck on some railroad tracks, but once the driver engaged the four wheel drive we were fine. At one point we came to a patch of flatrock and the driver put the car in Neutral and got out. We have pictures of us riding in a car with the driver walking next to it and smoking a cigarette. We also opened the doors and stood on the foot-ledges so that we could see everything. Very cool experience. We started driving again and slowly the terrain went from rocky to sandy. There were sand dunes and ralph actually slid down one on his stomach at one point. Lots and lots of fun. We drove around some more taking in the breathtaking views. I am not joking, there are no words to describe how beautiful everything is. After 10 more minutes the drivers pulled over next to some mountains. We got out and took some pictures. We were told that room service would be by shortly with tea. We thought it was a joke until another truck got out with another guide (Mohammad #2) and 3 french people. In the back of the truck there was a big kettle with tea. The guides started a fire and pretty soon we were drinking one of the 100s of cups of tea that we would have throughout the day. our main guide also told us a story while we were drinking.

A long time ago there lived a king. One time he was riding through the desert when he stopped at an oasis and saw the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He fell for her immediately and decided to marry her. He found out who her parents were and went to ask them for her hand in marriage. The parents were ecstatic that they had the honor of being asked and said that there would be no problem if their daughter agrees.The daughter however said no. The king saw her at the oasis again and asked her why she refused him. "well," she said, "you are a bad kind, your people don't respect or love you and i see myself as a queen. I would not want to marry an unworthy king like you" "what can I do to change your mind?" the king asked in desperation. "you need to find yourself a wise man." the girl replied,"and have him follow you everywhere and teach you how to behave. If you change yur ways and I start hearing good things about you from the people, then I will be happy to marry you" And that is exactly what the king did. He had his staff find him the wisest wise man and bring him over to his castle. A week went by and one day the king was very irritable and excited and slipped down the stairs breaking his arm. Upon seeing this the wise man said "Thank god!" The king was furious with such a response and had his guards through the wise man in jail. "Thank god" the wise man said once more when he heard of the kings order. After a month the kings arm healed and he went riding in the desert again. He rode through a mirage and his body guards lost sight of him. Shortly he cam to a group of people that cheered when they saw him and got him of his horse. They told him that they were very happy that he cams since according to their religion once a year they sit in the desert and wait for the first man to ride by. When they find such a man they sacrifice him to their god and can leave the desert. "but you can't sacrifice me the king screamed, I am the king" The people didn't care who he was. They were going to sacrifice him no matter what, king or no king. Eventually he resigned and started taking his clothes off. When the people saw the king's healed arm they told him to get dressed again. He was not whole and not a good enough sacrifice to their god. Relieved the king went back to his body guards. He sent for his wise man and asked him: "why did you say thank god when i broke my arm, and again when i put you in jail?" "well," the wise man said, "you were so nasty that I knew one day you would be riding through the desert and not wait for your body guards and meet this group of people. Once they saw you they would want to sacrifice you and your broken arm would save your life. And if you didn't throw me in jail I would be riding alongside you and then I would be killed" "you are a wise man indeed" said the king. He started listening to the wise man's advice and pretty soon he was loved and reveared by his people. He was able to marry the girl and lived happily ever after.

It was so cool to lay in the sand drinking tea and listening to that story. Eventually we got up and started driving again. The shadows made the mountains look amazing. Off-roading was a blast again. We rode until some mountains close to the Bedouin tents and climbed up to see the sun setting. Olya, Ralph and I went climbing for a little bit. It was a lot of fun and gave us a completely breathtaking view of everything. The desert stretched out as far as the eye could see in all directions. I know I keep saying amazing a lot in this email, but it's just because there really are no words to describe the feeling of being surrounded by something so huge and permanent. you start thinking of time in a completely different way. We climbed down and walked to the bedouin camp. We relaxed a bit as our food was prepared. It was all very simple food, rice potatoes, hummus. there was also chicken, but Olya was the only one who really ate a bit of it - something that she would later regret. After dinner our original guide left and we were left with Mohammad # 2 who offered to take us star gazing into the desert. We all eagerly agreed. We danced with some of the locals for a while and then the seven of us piled into the toyota truck designed to hold 4 people. The shafrans, antonov and Ilyusha were in the back and Ralph and I sat in the front with the driver. I got to sit on the arm rest between the two seats half leaning back so that I wouldn't hit my head on the ceiling. all i have to say is "thank you Bally's for my ab workouts". We rode out for about ten minutes and got out of the truck. We turned off the car and looked up. I have never seen so many stars. The sky was completely riddled with them. There were shooting stars and all the constellations we could think of. Our eyes couldn't even concentrate on anything there were so many. we just all layed on our backs and looked up in silence for a while. All of us were blown away. Eventually we went back to camp. Mohammad #2 drove us back and showed us that he could find the way even if he turned off the lights. We told him we believed him, but he demonstrated for us several times anyway.

At camp most of us went to sleep pretty soon after that. I got a marriage proposal from Mohammad #2 and of course refused. It was definitely a strange experience. We had originally chosen to sleep outside but we were being eaten alive by the mosquitoes so eventually we went into the tents. None of us really slept that much that night anyway. too much excitement and mosquitoes do not make for a restful night. This really sucked since Petra, where we were going the next day was going to be closed starting at noon because it was hosting a huge party for all Nobel prize winners (past and current) We ended up getting up at 5:30 in the morning in order to see Petra on time.

Our next guide (Mohammad 3) picked us up at around 6:30. olya was not feeling well so the ride was not a pleasant one for her. I would say that we got to Petra at about 9:30. The people who lived in Petra were there since 1000 bc. Their culture was amazing. They controlled the caravan routes and learned from all of the people that went by. The basically had a plumbing system with ceramic and diverted water around their city so that they would not get flooded. They lived in caves whose facades they chiseled out into beautiful arches and columns. They believed in life after death and buried the dead in the houses that they lived in with all of their possessions. They also believed in 3 gods. Their main one was the god of Rock. They had a whole city with an amphitheater, treasury, altars, and markets. The amphitheater was originally built to hold 3000 people, but was later expanded to hold 7000. It's absolutely insane how advanced these people were. Eventually though they fell to the Roman Empire. The Romans built on top of their city putting in their own sewer system (an open one vs. the closed off pipes that were already there. The Romans also paved their roads and some of that survived to this day. After the Romans it was the Byzantines that took over. The merely added a few walls and etched crosses at the tops of some buildings. Petra has been a secret from Europe until the 1800s when an explorer heard about it and investigated on his own. 85% of Petra is still under ground. Even now its absolutely enormous. We were done with our tour at noon, ate some lunch and waited for a shuttle that was supposed to pick us up. At first we were told that the shuttle would be there in 15 minutes, but ended up having to wait for an hour and a half in the heat and the sun. People kept coming and there was almost a riot when the shuttle bus finally came. I thought that we would get trampled. Our guide, however pushed everyone aside, and we were almost the first people who made it on to the shuttle.

We got to our van at about 2:30 and then rode for 2 hours to the border. This time around the Israelis searched us, and our bags and absolutely everything we had. They didn't care when we were going to Jordan, but thy cared a lot when we came back. Sereja got the most thorough inspection, but eventually we were let through. As soon as we got back everyone went to sleep. I was woken up at 9:30 by sereja and we went to have dinner. Some of us walked around a bit afterward, but my foot really hurt so I went back to the room. Our plan for today is to go to the oceanarium which is underwater and supposedly THE attraction in Eilat, jet-ski for a little bit and relax at the beach. We are still a bit exhausted from Jordan. We all agree that Jordan was the experience of a lifetime, but we are glad to be back "home" in Israel anyway. I will write you guys another novel shortly. Thanks for your patience with my insane emails.

love you all!!

Vacation part 1 rome and arrival to Tel Aviv

Hi Everyone.

Wow, I can't believe how much has happened already and it's only the beginning. First of all, If any of you would like to know our itinerary or any random info such as Olya and Alex's cell phones and our hotel numbers they are all on wiki.jenya.ws/Israel. Ok so let's start at the very beginning. The Shafrans and I made it to the airport at about 1:30pm. The line for Alitalia was huge. We were sure that Ilyusha would have already gone through it and was worried about us but he showed up about 15 minutes later (covered in mango juice which we found hilarious due to his mango adventures in South America) we all went to check in together and were told that there is a 5 kilo limit (10lbs) on our carry on suitcases. The lady told us we could try out luck at the gate,but that it was impossible to have more than 10 kilos and make it. We were all at about 15 kilos. We took out 1 fold-able duffel bag and threw in our heaviest and least favorite possessions in there to check in, taking the rest of our stuff with us. The flight was about 8 hours to Milan and then about 1 hour to Rome. We made it on time. changed and ate. Ralph's plane was delayed by about 2 hours so we sat in that airport for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng time. When he finally got to Rome we checked his stuff in with him and then hauled some major ass to the Vatican City.

We basically RAN through the Vatican museum. Thankfully Ralph and Sereja took art history in Rome and they managed to narrate the whole adventure for us. The only two places we slowed down were the Raphael room and the Sistine Chapel. They blew me away. The Chapel was completely restored so no scaffolding or covered walls. It was incredible. Since we were already in the area, we decided to make a short, yet powerful visit to St. Peter's basilica. We got a great view of the plaza, but the line into the basilica was INSANE so we unanimously voted against it.

Our next move was to cab it across town to the coliseum. The cab actually dropped us off quite a distance away but we didn't mind. We walked by the coliseum, and went in to an outdoors cafe with a nice view of it where we devoured some pizza and drank a bit of wine. (I was gone for the next 30 minutes) After paying, we walked around the ruins by the coliseum for a little bit and saw the arc that the Romans built to commemorate their victory after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (synchronicity? i think not). We continued to make a slow paced walk around and hiked up to see the she wolf and Remus and Romulus statue. It was actually pretty small in comparison to every other statue and fountain in Rome.

Our next course of action was to walk towards the Panthenon and maybe get some gelate. We stopped off at a statue of an elephant ant took some fun pictures. Everyone also stopped off at a small cafe for some risotto balls (risotto deep fried with melted mozzerella in the middle - I was not interested) Here is an interesting fact many of you may not have known. 3 years ago when I was going to travel through Europe Rome was originally on my agenda. The shaffies were going to Rome before me and we thought it would be really cool if they hid clues around Rome for me and then made a map so that I could find the clues while seeing all the really worthy sites. Kind of like a tourist treasure hunt. Well, my plans changed and I didn't make it to rome after all, but the clues and the map remained. Olya remembered this on our way and told me that even though the map was forgotten at home she remembers that they hid one clue in a gelate/candy store right by the panetheum. I looked for it but could not find it. However, it was still really cool to be able to stand in the same place where they were 3 years prior leaving me a message. We got our unbelievable, out of this world ice cream and sat on the Pantheum steps for a while people watching. (By this time Olya and my feet were on fire) After we rested for a little bit we decided to go to a large fountain the name of which escapes me at the moment.

Here is where we had our first experience with the street flower vendors. A guy came up to me handing me some flowers. I said i wasn't interested, but he insisted telling me they were free. Finally to get rid of him i took them. Then he started asking Sereja for money. I quickly gave the flowers back and we walked off from the fountain. Sereja wanted to buy some cheese and wine and sit on the Spanish steps. We made it to the grocery store and the wine store just fine but then got a little bit lost. This was quite unfortunate since olya and I could barely walk by this time. Poor olya got blisters on her feet that were just killing her. I was just sore from the standing and the walking. We ended up making a pretty large circle before finding the steps. We pretty much fell on them and the skies opened and the angels sang. We were so tired that we just sat in silence for about 15 minutes. Drinking our wine and eating our cheese. The streets were not really crowded since the World cup match of Italy vs. the US was on. We were slightly nervous about the outcome. Olya needed to do something about her feet so we performed a mcGyver type of medical procedure. She used the wetnaps from the airplane to disinfect her feet. I took one of her pins and held the tip over a lit lighter. then she did her thing with the blisters and covered then with a band aid. The operation was a success. This is also the place where the same flower vendor came up to us every five minutes trying to sell us flowers AGAIN. he got so annoying that we developed an immunity to vendors of all types in a half an hour. Some of the people on the steps had guitars so they TRIED playing gypsy kings songs and hotel California. They were not very good but the people around sang along anyway. After a little while of relaxing on the steps we went to a nearby cafe for dinner. The kitchen was closing at 11 so we had 10 minutes to order. We all had incredibly delicious food. and a lot of fun talking and relaxing. We basically closed out the cafe.

We still had about 8 hours before we had to be back at the airport so we went to the Piazza Novana in hopes of finding a bar that was open late. There were a bunch of street vendors and artists. We were just deciding where to sit down when we heard a guy playing electric guitar. He was amazing. There are no other words to describe him. Olya and I went over and the boys followed. We could have stood there and listened to him all night. He had a recordings of himself on an acoustic guitar prerecorded and he would just play them and play lead electric guitar over them. We heard The Wall and Stairway to heaven. Also a Hotel California. It was now after 1 in the morning so I guess it was not a big surprise that the cops came and gave him a ticket for being loud. He stayed and plyed more after abut 15 minutes of being quiet. We sat at a cafe and could still hear him. The cops came again around two and made him leave. It was pretty unfortunate.

It was quiet on the piazza for about 10 minutes and then we heard LOUD drumming and whistle blowing. It was in the style of marching band meets carnivale. There were some Brazilian kids playing and dancing although it was not capoera it was still cool to watch. They were so energetic (on crack) that they pumped us back up. WE watched them for a little while and then decided to walk to the Camp del furi. It was after 2 in the morning so all the bars were closing. When we got there and saw a lot of cops just standing there ready to contain whatever drunken brawl they saw and a bunch of kids/college drinking and hanging out. The boys spent the last of their cash on some beers and stood around drinking for a little bit. The crowd was a bit rowdy and Olya and I would have probably been scared if the boys were not there. We made our way back to the Piazza Novana and sat at a closed cafe for a bit more. The streets were slowly becoming empty and we figured that we needed to find a cab before they disappeared all together. It took us a while to track one down and we only made it to the airport by 4 am. Sleeping was our only real option at that point so we slept on our bags for about 2/3 hours. Then we were woken up by the noise of the airport.

We slowly got out stuff out of storage, changed, ate breakfast and got on the plane. We were so tired that we slept right through everything - even the food :-). The flight was a little over 3 hours to Israel so we actually got energized by our nap. The airport has really been fixed up since the last time we were here. We didn't even need a shuttle from the plane anymore. It was pretty nice to see. At customs we stood in line and right before it was our turn we were told that the line is closed and were moved to a different line. Sereja was a little nervous about customs so we alll just waited. The couple in font of me were Russian who didn't speak any Hebrew or English. The customs officer asked if anyone could translate and I quickly volunteered. I interrogated the crap out of the couple - well she did and I translated but they made it through just fine. We were up next and we all went together. The customs officer was so happy that she could interrogate the couple easily that she almost didn't ask us any questions and Sereja came in to Israel on his US Passport with no problems. We all breathed a sigh of relief, found our shuttle driver and waited for Antonov, whose flight was only delayed by 4 minutes - damn Swiss. His pilot's name was Captain Schnitzel of Swiss Air so it's no wonder the plane landed on time. Antonov got interrogated hard core so we had to wait for him for a while but he finally came out and we could start our trip.

Our driver was very knowledgeable and helpful. He stopped and bough us some fresh dates from a highway vendor and told us some interesting touristy stuff about Jerusalem/ein gedi/etc. When we were driving though the desert we saw a Bedouin riding a donkey and texting. We all thought that it was really cool. Also we passed by the mountain that was entirely made of salt (Lot's wife from the story of Lot). The trip was really hard on us since the elevation kept changing and the road was a mountain road. I thought that I would not make it, but then we all passed out and slept a lot. We made it to Eilat a little after 9, changed and walked around the board walk. We had a great time talking and drinking. Our waitress spoke Russian so we had no problem talking with her. At 2 in the morning we decided that it was time to sleep and that we would meet up for breakfast at 10 am downstairs. I can tell you that at least my whole room did not wake up until an angry Shafran phone call at 11:30. Now we will go to snorkel with the dolphins. Stay tuned for more fun news from me and the gang.

I miss you all!!!

The trip back from South America

Our trip to Washington DC was pretty uneventful. Everyone managed to sleep including me (thanks to the miracle of sleeping pills). In the morning we were given breakfast and arrived to the Washington airport. WE all heaved a sigh of relief to be on American soil thinking that from now on we were in full control of our destinies. That thought was a bit premature. Masha sat in front of all of us by about 10 rows so she left with most of the passengers. The rest of us were in the second to last rows of the plane and were almost the last people to disembark. When we got out of the plane, the crowd of passengers already left but we followed the signs for transfers and arrived at a shuttle.

Olya asked the attendant if we could get to customs and baggage claim on the shuttle since we just got in from Argentina. The attendant told us to get in to the shuttle and she will take us to the right terminal. She even called someone to double-check her information. As soon as we arrived to terminal C the United Staff told us to go back. We took the Shuttle again and the attendant walked us to the Customer Service area of United. She kept telling us to walk faster, which was a problem for me since my foot really hurt. Once we got to the counter and the attendant told the staff that we were from Argentina and didn’t go through customs yet they flipped out. One started frantically paging her supervisor to come to the service desk “immediately” which I guess translates into 20 minutes. She was also angry with us and asked how we managed to make it through without going through customs. Olya inquired about our luggage and was told that our bags were “the least of [our] problems”.

Finally the supervisor came and escorted us through the entire terminal to a different shuttle. She was also freaking out and talking on her cell phone the whole time. She must have asked us if we were the last passengers about 3 times and we kept telling her no. She must not have been paying attention though because when someone else asked her she told them that we WERE the last people. Olya didn’t let that slide though because by that time she was pretty pissed, as were all of us.

We took the shuttle and found our bags. My bag’s tag had a red substance that looked like blood on it. I was trying to figure out what it was when the baggage people started hurrying me up again. I told them that I will not touch blood. Thankfully the substance turned out to be something else, so I was able to continue and check my bags in. After going through customs we had to check in again and they made us all take our shoes of and made us feel right at home. They stopped Ilyusha (because carrying 2 pairs of women’s tango shoes is a little suspect) finally after getting 2 different gate numbers from 2 different employees we proceeded to take yet another shuttle (our 4^th) to the gate. It was smooth sailing all the way from there :)

Buenos Aires, Argentina Days 11 and 12

Man,

We’re in the last hours of Argentina, it was a lot of fun but I think we are all pretty tired and beat up from the trip. On Thursday we ended up eating at a nearby cafe/diner type of an establishment and then going right to sleep since we knew that Friday was going to be a long hard day(of shopping) The morning was gloomy and guess what? It rained again. I swear I do not remember seeing this much rain on any other vacation.

We decided that we will hit the leather district instead of sight seeing since the weather was not on our side. The shopping here is nothing short of wonderful. Between all of us we bought 5 pairs of shoes/boots, 3 purses, 3 coats, 2 wallets, and a belt. The boys thought that they were in the last circle of hell since we got to the leather shops at around 11:30 and left at around 6:30. Before you get horrified and feel sorry for them I will add that we had to spend about 1.5 hours for lunch due to the fact that a soup we ordered wasn't ready and had to be cooked from scratch. Also let me add that Sereja got a wallet and Ilyusha got himself some shoes and a nice winter leather jacket, so it wasn’t just us girls shopping.

After we finally got back to the hotel all we had time for was to change and catch a quick breath before catching another cab and going to our last dinner in Argentina. We went to Las Lillas, which was an insanely posh restaurant recommended by Shar. We all had fillet mignon and it was amazing. Our dinner lasted for about 2.5 hours. And we had a great time. Might I add that we could call it FND since the Chicago FND was canceled due to lack of participants? :-).

After the dinner we went to Cafe Torttoni - another recommendation by Shar. We had a table that was touching the stage. It was amazing. The show consisted of intervals of Tango dancing, and singing. Not everyone liked the singer, but I thought she was ok. At one point the dancers went into the audience to dance with them and the woman picked Ilyusha. He did the right steps and looked amazing. We cheered him on and took lots of pictures of course. The singer also went into the crowd and started asking people where they were from. Most patrons seemed to be tourists from other South American countries. When she got to us and we said that we were from the US the room had very sparse applause. We figured that as long as they didn't boo us we were doing fine. Our original plan was to go out for drinks after the show, but we were so tired that we just caught a cab back to the hotel and fell into blissful oblivion.

This morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, ate breakfast and packed. After we dropped off our suitcases by the front desk we went to the tango district, because Ilyusha needed to buy some tango shoes as presents. There were other people in the store and when they found out we were from the US they actually acted excited and started jumping up and down. One of them actually came up to me and Olya and asked if we knew any celebrities like Richard Gere. We told him that we didn’t but it still felt nice to not be hated by the locals.

Feeling celebrity like ourselves we made our way to Palermo Soho (the final recommendation of Shar). It was a great little neighborhood. There was an art/craft fair and little shops with really different fashionable clothes. It was very pleasant to walk around there and we were very sorry we didn’t have more time to spend there. This is the part of Buenos Aires I found to be nice and friendly. It had a really good vibe. Unfortunately we had to go because we reserved a tour of the Teatro Colon.

The tour spanned about 7 floors. The theater is amazing and we got to see the ballet practice for Romeo and Juliet. We also saw the prop workshop, shoe makers, costume rooms and sat in box seats. Everything was beautiful. I was really glad that we saved the tour for last. Now we are just waiting by the hotel to be picked up and taken to the airport. We will have coffee with Shar and that will be the end of our wonderful trip. WE are really not looking forward to the plane ride. Unless we have something happen to us at the airport, this is the last of our vacation emails. I apologize for not answering your emails individually, but then I would be at the INTERNET cafe all day and would have nothing to write about. Thanks for your emails and I appreciate the patience it must take to even skim my long novel like letters. See you all back home!

Buenos Aires, Argentina/ Montevideo, Uruguay Days 8,9 and 10

Wow,

I am kind of sorry I waited this long to write but we had a very hectic schedule. Our last night in Chile was wonderful. We had a wonderful meal at the Isla Negra that our guide recommended, and we can’t get over how cheap everything is. If I was a student again, I would do study abroad in Chile and could probably live for 20 or 30 dollars a day including a place to stay. Ok, so everyone decided to do some last minute shopping in the morning except me (I slept in) and surprisingly we all made our flight at everything was smooth.

Argentina started off great. There were no airport adventures of any kind. We have a better arrangement here. Instead of Masha, me and Ilyusha sharing a triple, Masha and I are rooming, and Ilyusha has a single. The first day we decided to walk around right after we got in, and we did, to the point that I couldn’t feel my legs!! We were absolutely exhausted when we made it into what turned out to be a very high end restaurant.

They served us complementary champagne and hors d'oeuvres, and offered us chocolates after our meal. I have to say that the whole meal ended up costing us about 10 dollars, so again pretty amazing. We had the restaurant call us a cab, but the cabbie wouldn’t take the five of us. We decided to walk. First of all, the restaurant was VERY far from our hotel, and second we started out on our insane journey after midnight. I have to say, we were all scarred. The only people on the streets were the homeless picking through garbage and all sorts of shady characters which I have named ´tenistye´. Also, earlier in the day we saw a lot of anti-US graffiti the funnies of which translates as such: ¨for USA :( picture of a penis) ¨ even though that particular one is funny, the knowledge that we are not liked added to our fears. It took us 35 minutes of intense walking where to reach our hotel. We walked so fast that we took all unnecessary clothing such as jackets and sweaters. It was definitely an experience!

Unfortunately our next day here wasn’t quite as eventful. We had a city tour, but our bus was filled to the brim. It took us about 2 hours to pick up all of the tourists from different hotels and the tour was in 2 languages. Most people in our group fell asleep. I left the tour in the middle because I had a stomachache, but the guys said that the rest of it was about the same. (I was sad that I missed the La Boca neighborhood but we can’t go back because it is VERY shady and tourists do not go there without guides).

I was also trying to get in touch with a friend of a friend whose name is Shar Khan every time I say that name Sereja erupts in maniacal laughter. Actually one time we were waiting in line in a store and Sereja started laughing for no reason, but very loudly. When we asked him what was so funny, all he could say as he was wiping tears from his eyes was ¨Shar goluboi¨.

Anyways the guys called me when they were done with the tour and I met them in downtown. We shopped around for a while and then went to a Brahms concert in the famous Colon Opera house. The piece was ¨German Requiem¨, and it wasn’t just good, it was absolutely amazing. I almost had tears in my eyes. However there is a funny thing that happened. First of all, every time there was a break in the music between parts everyone in the whole building coughed. It almost seemed like they were saving all of their coughs for that period of time and restraining themselves during the music. But the funny part is that the first time the music stopped someone started clapping. The whole room turned and said ¨SHHHH¨ since the acoustics in the theater are unbeatable it was the loudest ¨shhhhh¨ I have ever heard.

After the concert we met up with SHAR at the hotel. He was incredible. He typed up and printed out a sheet filled with different tango shows, restaurants and attractions we should see and attached business cards and directions. He went over everything with us and answered all of our questions. He was the perfect gentleman and he spent about an hour and a half with us. We all really enjoyed meeting him.

Today we went to Montevideo. Honestly we all hated the trip. It was a giant waste of time. 3 hours by boat in each direction was bad enough, but then we were carted off to a store for 20 minutes, then we ate lunch together and then picket up tourists from hotels in the city. Our actual tour started at about 2 but we had to wake up for it at 6:30 am.

The tour was in 2 languages again and we didn’t get out of the bus at all - not counting 5 minutes here and there to take a picture. We saw people with horses and carriages on roads, little kids smoking and carrying cement. It was very depressing all around. We were finally deposited at a mall and given an hour.

Here my little group of friends and I decided to separate from the group an meet them at the port. After walking around a very expensive mall, we decided to walk around the streets, and the first building we see is Hillel. So we went in to check it out. It was a highly organized building with a gym, a library, conference rooms and a cafe. The people were very friendly and a woman named Deborah (the director of Hillel) showed us around the whole building. There are about 20,000 Jews in Montevideo. They are Zionists and Uruguay had a huge percentage of Jews making aliah to Israel after their economic crisis. It was very interesting to meet these Uruguayan Jews. It seems that Hillel members from northwestern and U of I visited them in the spring for alternative spring break.

We ran out of time and had to go back, so we grabbed a taxi. On our way to the port we actually drove through a rich, beautiful waterfront neighborhood, which changed some of our impressions about Uruguay. This was like being in Miami. We got on our boat and came back. Now we are starving so I have to stop before everyone has me for dinner. I will write more later.

Santiago, Chile Day 6 and 7

I am leaving room here for olya to tell you more about Igassu...

Olya:

OK, so we went on this boat ride into the falls. The guide warned us that we would get wet, and we brought a change of clothes which we left in our van. However, while I thought we would get wet from the mist from the waterfall, it actually ended up being more of an amusement park ride because we went into the waterfall, so it was more like buckets of water pouring down from all sides and from above. Since it’s generally not very warm here, this was not pleasant for me personally. Sereja, however, loved every minute of it. Since Katya´s emails are very detailed, I will also mention that upon disembarkation, all the European women that were on the boat proceeded to change right on the dock in front of everyone. It went something like this: take of pants, take off underwear, reach into the bag, find new underwear, sit down, put a towel in your lap, then slowly put on the underwear, then take off the top (and bra), reach into the bag again, put on a new bra, then pants, then shirt.

The second story I have is about the sauna. Katya probably mentioned that it was very cold in our hotel in Iguassu, so we decided to warm up by going to the sauna. Of course they neglected to tell us that the sauna needs reservations, and is also not free. However, you do get it all to yourself with a key for the door. Well, it sounds like a nice experience, but it was super cold in the sauna. I know that sounds ridiculous, and to be fully honest it was nice and hot toward the ceiling (yes, I know heat rises) where our faces were, but our feet literally felt like icicles on the cold marble floor. The only way for us to stay in there was to sit on a bunch of towels on the benches (cold, marble benches) and hold our legs up over our heads.

And now back to our regular programming....

OK,

I guess I will have to pace myself for this story. We left from Iguassu and went back to Sao Paulo - we have been in that airport 3 times already. We got on to our flight to Santiago with no problems and all of us got our luggage at the airport. Then we started to look for our guide who was supposed to pick us up. We stood around for a half an hour and started to get worried when finally we saw a man with a sign that said "Shafran" We greeted him and breathed a little easier but only for a second. The reason he had "Shafran" written on the sign was because he was only expecting Olga and Sergey Shafran and had no idea who the rest of us were. It took us a little while but we finally convinced him that the rest of us were also on this trip. Luckily he came in a van so all of us fit in with our luggage and we drove to the hotel. When we got in, we found out that the hotel reservations were also made for one double room since they were only expecting the Shafrans. Masha ended up giving them her credit card number in order for us to be able to stay in the same hotel. Our guide also told us that until he receives confirmation from his company that Masha, Ilyusha, and I paid for our city tour we can’t go. Since we have a time difference of 3 hours between us and LA our tour was moved until 2 pm.

After all of the unpleasantness was taken care of, we decided to walk around the city. I’ve got to say that I love the city and I think everyone else feels the same way. We took the subway to the downtown area (which was the cleanest subway I have ever seen) and ended up at a castle (we later found out that the castle is the original Santiago site. we climbed all the way up and had a great view of the whole city. There were little gardens and squares on our ascent and we stopped and chilled for a little while. I also have to mention that the amount of PDA here is insane. Everywhere we look there are people making out - mostly in parks and squares. After we spent some time on top of the castle we came down and saw a big market where we drove the boys absolutely insane. I seriously think that by the end of our shopping they couldn’t think straight. We have broken their spirits. When they finally dragged us away we decided to walk around and look for a place to eat dinner. On our way we saw a store with a huge sale... yeah they wanted to kill us :-) When we were dragged kicking and screaming from the store we took the metro to the university area which was slightly shady and had a really nice dinner in one of the restaurants. A good time was had by all. Then we went back to our hotel to rest up for the battle with the travel agencies.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast as usual, and then Olya and Masha spent some time on the phone with the Chilean agency that was handling our reservations. Everything was cleared up and we were told to be ready at 2 pm. Since we had a few hours to spare we walked around the city for awhile. It has a very European feel to it. Also everyone is very nicely dressed and groomed. It’s just nice to see people to well taken care of. The only shady areas seem to be the parks. We really enjoyed ourselves and took a bunch of pictures. We made it to the hotel 10 minutes before our tour was supposed to start. Our guide was about 15 minutes late when we called the company again. There was another miscommunication so the guide didn’t even know he was giving us a tour. The company sent him and the driver over. To make a long story short we started our tour at 3 not 2.

Once the tour started it was great. Our guide was very knowledgeable and he told us a lot of interesting things. For example, when there’s a lot of traffic the president takes the metro to work. We stood about 5 feet from an ex minister of justice. We didn’t even know this until our guide pointed out and then we saw all of the camera crews rushing to talk to him. Chile is very safe and laid back about security, but they do have a large police presence, especially in areas where crime could potentially be committed like markets and the metro. The guide was really hungry and so were we so he took us to "el rapido" that served us the fastest food I have ever seen. We all had empanadas and they were great. After lunch we walked around the Plaza de Armas and went into a beautiful cathedral. The confessionals in Chile have chairs that face each other. The Chileans believe that the religion and the people should not have walls separating them. So far they are the only country that has such confessional booths but our guide told us that Mexico is also converting to this method.

Once out of the cathedral we drove to the top of the mountain where the Virgin Mary statue was. Chile was incredible to look at while we were driving up. We saw 2 ski resorts in the distance. This country is amazing. They are 1.5 hours form the beach; they have skiing and wine along with really cheap food and a good economy. I think a ski trip here is a must in the future. We climbed about 150 steps and ended up with another gorgeous view of the city. Did I mention I love this place? Our final stop of the tour was the modern district’s wine store where we all bought a lot of Chilean wine. We already drank a bottle and are now on our way back to the district to walk around and eat dinner. Stay tuned for Argentina, we fly out tomorrow morning - this time hopefully without incident (THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED BY MARIA: KATYA QUIT JINXING US. EVERY TIME YOU MAKE YOUR WISH WE HAVE MISHAPS, SO STOP IT!) OK. I gotta go. I will write more from different country.

Igassu, Brazil Days 4 and 5

So... picking up where I left off. At the market Olya, Masha, and I did some great bargaining. One of the people who ended up selling us stuff even inquired if we were from Israel :-). You will all see what we bought when we come back so there is no point in describing it here. I have to say that the club was amazing. (Although kind of a rip off) Let me say that the club culture and etiquette is very different here. The guys come on strong but move on if you are not immediately interested. When we got home it was around 5 am, so we didn’t really get much sleep.

The next day was mostly spent flying, and as you can imagine, no flight here is without adventures. When we got to the airport, the flight attendants told us that we should take an earlier flight, one that was leaving 20 minutes later. We agreed and Masha, Ilyusha and I went directly to the plane, while the Shafrans went to get their cash from having their bag lost. We weren’t really worried until the plane started moving and the Shafrans weren’t on it!!! We started making plans on what we would do with their luggage if they didn’t make it to Sao Paulo in time to make the flight to Iguassu. Thankfully they got there with 40 minutes to spare. Also imagine our surprise when we all got our bags upon arrival to Iguassu!!!

Our guide turned out to be a really laid back middle aged man named Fernando. Fernando told us that he could take us to the Brazilian side of Iguassu falls right away so that we would have more time on our last day here for the Argentinean side of the falls and Itaipu. We gladly agreed to start our adventures as soon as possible. The bus took us to the national park and we walked through the trail to the falls. I can not describe the beauty of this place. It was relatively warm and sunny and there were rainbows everywhere because of the sun hitting the mist that was coming off the falls. We couldn’t stop taking pictures. At the end of the trail Fernando led us to a bridge that was catching all of the mist. It was incredible to stand on it and watch the insane amount of water rushing all around us. We also noticed that the birds liked to fly in to the fall, not quite sure why. When we left the park the sun was just setting and it made everything a little better, especially the fact that I was freezing and soaked to the bone.

Our hotel was not as nice as the previous one, but still relatively good. We had dinner and then the guys checked out the local area (there is NOTHING here) while I fell asleep wondering how we manage to get wet and cold every single day of this trip.

This morning we woke up kind of early and made our way to Itaipu - which is an Indian phrase meaning ´rock that sings´. In reality Itaipu is a dam that is shared by Paraguay and Brazil. The first thing we had to do is watch a propaganda communist type movie about the joys of water and the camaraderie of the countries that share the dam (In reality Argentina, Chile and Brazil attacked Paraguay to get access to the Parana river and killed 99 percent of the white population in the 1800s and then restricted |Paraguay’s use of their own oil so Paraguay had no choice but to be in on the whole Itaipu thing). After we were sufficiently brainwashed and our pupils have dilated to twice their normal size, we were put on busses and had a tour of the dam. The tour guide let us out to take pictures - they are pretty funny because all of us girls were freezing and huddling to keep warm, we kind of didn’t care about the dam at that point. When they let us back on the bus we traveled to the Paraguayan side of the dam and back - so technically we have been in Paraguay on this trip as well.

After Itaipu Fernando took us to the Argentinean side of Iguassu. I didn’t think that I could ever see anything more impressive than the Brazilian side, I was wrong. The weather was sunny and warm and the falls were incredibly beautiful. We walked around all morning and took an insane amount of pictures again. Fernando suggested that we take the boat ride to the falls. Everyone else took the opportunity and will tell you about it later. All they told me was that it was fun and amusement park like. I opted of a nice uphill hike and Fernando kept pointing out some animals and birds to me. I would say we all had a great time. When the guys came back we went to our hotel and rested for a few hours, and then Fernando took us to dinner and an international show. The show started off a little cheesy, but picked up momentum towards the end. They had really nice Argentinean tango and capoera - that’s right hushband eat your hearts out. There was also a half naked guy dancing with fire that we really liked and of course the half naked Brazilian girls with the giant feathers on their heads. I say it was the perfect last night of Brazil.

Tomorrow we will leave the hotel at the crack of dawn and travel to Sao Paulo so that we can fly to Chile. Let us all pray for the airplane trip to be uneventful. More to come! Also thank you all for your support of these emails. I write them as kind of a diary to help me remember the trip and it’s nice that you enjoy reading them :-)

Katya

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil Day 3

Well,

The dinner at the Brazilian meat place was beyond any description. It was the most delicious meat that I have ever had. Everyone's favorite was the fillet mignon. All of the meat was medium rare, but even I, who likes her food burned to a crisp didn't mind. We had a great time and great conversation. We ended up staying at the restaurant for two and a half hours. After the meal our plan was to go to a club, but everyone was so tired from the day that we decided to postpone the club for the 7th. When we hot to our hotel room THE MISSING SUITCASE WAS THERE!

This morning we woke up and surprise surprise it was raining again. All the Brazilians seem very apologetic about the rain and keep telling us that July is the driest month of the season and that this type of weather is atypical, but hey that's our Jewish luck.

At breakfast we decided that instead of Sugar Loaf Mountain, we would go to the National Museum. I am just sorry that we didn't have more time to spend there. The actual building of the museum looks like it was beautiful at one time, but the mold and chipping paint have added a layer of gloom to the place. We were practically the only people there and both Olya and I felt like we were walking through a dream. Olya kept saying that this place reminded her of something but she wasn't sure exactly of what. The museum itself is a combination of the Science and History Museums with a bit of the Smithsonian mixed in. We really enjoyed ourselves there. The inside is tragically beautiful and unkempt. The glass from the exhibits is so old that the glass is rippled and there is a layer of dust everywhere. We looked at Brazilian artifacts, as well as Egyptian mummies, shrunken heads, prehistoric thongs (tangas) made out of clay, and fertility amulets with tiny penises that you have to look at through a magnifying glass. There was even an exhibit of how many people have visited the museum over the years. In 1960 (the peak of Brazilian culture and civilization) 250,000 people visited the museum. On our way out we finally figured out what the museum reminded us of - soviet structures - at one time beautiful, but not taken care of at all and ruined slightly in a sad way. When we got out of there we found a cab and went back to the hotel to eat at another "kilo" place.

Let me take this moment to share with you the driving habits of Brazilian cab drivers. We all felt like we were going to die every time we took a ride in the cab. First of all, we have noticed that such minor rules as traffic lights and right of way are more like suggestions than laws. No one should cross the street without a crosswalk, because if they do they will die. Also there are no actual lanes that are being followed. Every car makes its own lane and there is sometimes an inch or two between two cars. We were scared, oh yes we were. Here is a quote from a tourist book located at the INTERNET cafe bookshop: "Since most Brazilians bought their license, or forgot most of the rules and regulations, everyone drives like they were on drugs. Interestingly, every year there is one traffic law which is fashionable to follow. This year it is not to stop at pedestrian crossing stripes" I am not joking this is an actual quote and it is TRUE.

When we got to our hotel (fell to our knees and wept with joy that we were still alive) we had 15 minutes to eat and then we were off on our tour of Corcovado, the beaches and the H. Stein museum. Our tram ride was through the largest urban forest in the world and it was beautiful. When we got to the top we had our first piece of luck with the weather. It wasn't raining and it was not foggy. We elected to run up 250 steps rather than ride the elevator, and enjoyed some nice views. The view from the top of Corcovado is breath taking. You can see all of Rio and it is breathtaking. We will have lots of pictures to show everyone when we return. It started pouring as soon as we got down so the tour of the beaches wasn't as good as it could have been. An interesting fact: the waves here sometimes go in different directions and crash into each other. It's very neat to look at.

Our tour of the H. Stern museum was pretty short. It was kind of neat to see how jewelry gets made and designed, but it wasn’t anything that blew me away. No one really tried to sell us anything since we didn’t really look rich, and we were very happy to not be harassed. We tried to walk around Ipanema for a bit but it was still raining. I have to say that Ipanema is like the Gold Coast of Rio. Everyone is well dressed and neat. We bought some wine so that we could pre-drink before the club and went back to the hotel. After we changed we went to another "kilo" place for dinner and then here to write you all how we are doing. Our plan of action is to go to the market and buy some souvenirs/presents/general crap and then finally GO TO THE CLUB. Tomorrow we are leaving Rio and flying to Iguassu. Overall I would say that I liked Rio for the atmosphere that it invokes, rather than the city itself, but I am not sure how the rest of the people felt.