Sanremo in Pictures

Nice in Pictures

Those Crazy French

Despite my enormous fear of getting interrogated at the Airport and my electronics confiscated, Max and I had a safe confiscation/interrogation free flight from Tel Aviv - Riga, Latvia - and finally Nice, France.  Initially our plan was to stay in a shared bathroom bunk bed kind of delio...and you all know how well that worked out last time for us.  I decided to surprise Max with reservations for our first and only night in Nice with a nice room - still two beds pushed together - but clean and our own.  The walls are lined with yellow and pink flowered fabric.  Very French.  And oh my, I just noticed that there is a Mcdonalds across the street from our hotel.  You never get too far from home :)  

After getting almost no sleep on the less than comfortable Baltic Air seats, we were dead tired and crashed for a few hours in our tiny yellow room.   After some much needed rest we ate at "Hippopotamus" - great name, saw some unreal street dancers and the coolest public art I may have ever seen.  Glowing man-lamps in various kneeling positions.  They change color too.    

And We're Off

Farewell Jerusalem Bookbinding

This is my bookbinding teacher Yehuda.  He has been not only a fabulous teacher and mentor, but really a friend to me and Max.  He and his wife had us over for Shabbat dinner a few weeks ago and just the other day Max and I spent a few hours at his studio.  I went to pick up my new spokeshave for paring leather  - leather bindings here we come - and he told us a barrel of amazing Yehuda stories.  We also convinced him to show us some of his bindings.  You can see some of them on his website.

Singing For Your Supper

My preemptive apologies for the forthcoming plethora of "goodbye" posts.  We just feel like we have met all of the nicest people in Jerusalem - all of them - and we are so pleased that we get to see most of them before we go.

Meet some of them.

Last night I met up with Max and his a cappella choir at "Marakia" or "The Soup Pot" for a farewell dinner and what turned into an impromptu choir concert.  Check out the video and you'll see what a hippy dippy place this restaurant is.  The smiling, but seemingly homeless employees make huge pots of, you guessed it, soup and dish it out to the seemingly homeless patrons.  Part of the restaurant is actually covered by a tarp and held up by two by fours.  It's pretty wild.

Just as people were finishing their soup Max's choir director Shelly went to the piano and plunked out a few notes.  Then the group erupted into song.  They sang song after song for about 2.5 hours.  Everyone clapped after each song and the scruffy employees couldn't stop smiling.  It was one of the neatest things I've been a part of.  The good will from the members of the choir and the other people in the restaurant was overwhelming.  Max has really enjoyed this choir and they expressed many times how sad they were to see him go - and who wouldn't, he's a nice guy. 

By the end of the night Max had the room singing along to Beatles songs while he accompanied on the piano.  It was the perfect send off.