World Traveling!!!

Places I've been in the last four weeks: New York, NY, Somerset, NJ, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Lublin, Warsaw, Jerusalem, and Modi'in

City with the coolest vibe: Berlin
City I wish I didn't like: Berlin
Best photo op: highway turned parking lot in Germany and look out over Prague
Prettiest: Prague
Creepiest: Terezinstadt (Czech Republic) and Lublin (Poland)
Sickest: Majdanek-literally IN Lublin, the crematorium smells like fire
Home: Jerusalem
Best museum tour guide: Krakow
Worst tour guide: Auschwitz (she had a thick Polish accent, spoke quickly, and was so desensitized to the whole thing I didn't even realize at first when she said in a monotone: "Here the SS doctors conducted illegal medical experiments")
Best Holocaust memorial: Berlin-concrete boxes and Majdanek
Best memorial in general: John Lennon wall in Prague
Flashback locations: padlock bridge in Prague and Beit Nativ in Jerusalem
Unexpected favorite: Polish shtetl of Tincochen and surrounding countryside
Most communist: Warsaw
Worst customer service: Praha (simply RUDE!)
Least interesting: Somerset, NJ (but staff week was SUPER FUN because of all my friends!!!!)
Best food: Modi'in (I'm staying with a phenomenal family who also happens to be vegetarians, and I went to Yossi's house for lunch today--all wins)
Worst food: Poland in general
Greatest night of my life: in Warsaw on Roxy's birthday (we sang karaoke to If I Were a Rich Man and the crowd joined in for yubby dibby dibby)
Rainiest: Krakow
Sunniest: Israel
Homiest: Jerusalem

Books I've read recently: The Help, E.L. Doctorow, Middlesex, 2.5 Minute Ride, and Adjusting Sights (by Haim Sabato)
ALL RECOMMENDED!!!

Defiant moments of being Jewish in places where there was a Holocaust: sitting on benches in the Tier Garden in Berlin, a place where Jews were not allowed to sit under the Nuremberg Laws. We ate bagged lunches and sang the Grace After Meals; breaking out a Cliff Bar outside Majdanek; walking on the tracks as we exited Birkenau; praying in synagogues that were abandoned or ruined during the war

Frequent photo symbolism employed in Eastern Europe: trees, flowers, barbed wire, butterflies, fences, crows, guard towers, Israeli flags, Jewish stars, candles

Random encounters: befriending my neighbor on the plane to Berlin and learning her life story over the course of several hours, angry Israeli woman in Berlin who didn't want us to do a tour where she was also touring because it would distract her, bathroom attendant in Germany who spoke Hebrew to us, Israeli Dance troupe in Prague, woman in a picture in a synagogue in Tincochen who looks identical to my mother

Movies I'm supposed to see: Counterfeit, The Last Train, Conspiracy

Books I want to read: The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Singer, other works by Isaac Singer, Mila 18 (we were there!)

Average hours of sleep I get per night: 5 hours

Average number of liters of water I drink per day: 2

Average number of liters of sweat I sweat per day: 1

Average number of pictures I take per day: 100

Rediscovered hidden talents: wiggling ears, not picking the skin of my face, telling military time, drawing and sketching

Proud purchases: pretty scarf from Praha and crocheted gold wire earrings from Tel Aviv (Nachalat Binyamin)

New favorite song (not actually favorite but definitely a winner): Jack Sparrow by Lonely Island

Favorite part about this trip: MY KIDS AND MY COS!!!!!!!!!!!