Bonjour encore! Yesterday, we went to the exact center of Paris, right in front of the Notre Dame! We thought that it would be very easy to find a landmark, but it actually took quite a while to find because it was so small!

All I’m saying is that if anyone wants to be in the center of Paris, look DOWN. Anyway, after that, Dad, Asher, and I went to… the Statue of Liberty! Well, the little one that America gave France to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

We then walked toward a hot air balloon in which we could see Paris and stopped at a playground on the way there. However, the balloon was closed because of wind so we didn’t go up.

After that, we went to the Eiffel Tower. On this note, I will say that I was disappointed. Previous to this trip, I had been to Paris three times. When I went to the Eiffel Tower this time, I saw none of the grass in which I used to picnic, only dirt and gravel. There were tall glass walls surrounding the Tower and you had to pay to even go under the Tower. There was only one point of entry and exit and a very large security checkpoint surrounded it. I understand that Paris has many terrorist attacks, but it still seems fairly easy to plan an attack on the Tower even with these measures in place. Therefore, I do not understand the point of ruining the Eiffel Tower’s magic. Tell me what you think in the comments!

Ella

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Bonne après-midi! Sorry I’m so behind on these post, guys. Yesterday, Dad, Asher, and I went to the castle of Versailles, where Louis XIV lived. We took the train, and when we got there we saw that the palace was filled with tourists. It was alright though, because the rooms were very nice, though they were lacking a lot of furniture. We didn’t do much yesterday other than that, so this will be a very short post. Here, though, are a few pictures:

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Ella

Bonjour, mes amis! Two days ago, September 12, was our first day in Paris with our dad, Greg! In the morning, we slept in, quite a change to life in Israel, and watched the French middle-schoolers at the school outside our window (they, as we learned later on, can be very loud).

We did homework for two hours and went to a crêpe restaurant below us to eat. Then, we proceeded to walk around Paris. We passed by a clothing store in which Dad thought he might buy a jacket, another very nice, vibrant, clothing store that I want to stop by again later to see if I want anything. Then, we went to a door. This door was dark green and was attached only to a wall. If one was to look through the mail-slot, they would see a neon green cat sticker! Dad explained that this was an artist’s installation and that he/she put it up in the middle of the night. The wall that the door was on was covered in art.

Then, we went to a house that I didn’t even think existed; Nicolas Flamel’s house! I had previously heard of Flamel from books such as Harry Potter, but apparently, he was a real person! I thought that this was really cool.

We walked on and stopped at a French comic store, which, I must say, was pretty awesome and creepy because french artists are not afraid to be weird and eerie. Then, we saw a really cool piece of art on a wall. It was a golden man on some lumps of dark metal looking at a golden orb on the farthest and highest metal lump. There was a golden dragon coiled around the greyish lumps and, for some reason, a golden rooster. It was interesting.

Anyway, next we went to the top of a building called the Centre Georges Pompidou to see a view of Paris and to find some air conditioning. This was a cool french art museum, so we went downstairs and browsed their really amazing gift shop. On the way back to our apartment, we met a man with a very old camera and he took pictures of us.

We stopped at Kraft Hot Dogs before going to our apartment and snacked on truly delicious hot dogs. Then, we went home, read a little, ate dinner, and went to sleep. Jusqu’à la prochaine fois!

Ella

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Hey! We are about to leave for the airport for Paris, so I’m writing my blog post now. Over the past week or so, we have done quite a few things. We hung out with our friend, Noam, at his house and went to a park in the neighborhood. We’ve been friends since before we moved away from Israel. Later that week, we went to a Shabbat lunch with our family. That night, we went to the concert of a famous Israeli singer called Idan Raichel. I highly recommend his music, it’s very good. The next day, we went to our friend Catia’s house. She used to teach Asher sensory development when we lived in Israel; I used to tag along in order to feel important. Her one-year-old grandson came and I got to play with him for a while. For dinner that night, we ate at a restaurant with our friends from Boulder, Fiona and Nimrod. They’re both really fun people, and Fiona makes excellent matzo-ball soup! The next night was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We went to Ofer’s cousin’s house where we met roughly thirty family members. There was a lot of food (we’re in Israel after all), including multiple cakes. Then, after we ate, we all sat down around my third cousin (twice removed!), Nadav, who plays the guitar. We all sang some songs together, but then the family wanted me to sing for them, so I sang a song that I had been working on with my voice teacher called Tzipor Shneya, Second Bird in English. Then, they made me sing a couple more songs because they’re my family and they’re Israelis… On Monday night, we went to Ofer’s friend, Ravit’s, house to get together. I hung out with the kids, specifically 3rd-grader Noga who can do a phenomenal Hermione Granger impression, and Tamar, who is sweet and really great with animals. There was a beautiful cat there with oddly soft fur and a great shape. The cat also had vibrant green eyes.

Now, I’m about to leave for Paris, so I’ll wrap this up. (By the way, if anyone was wondering what I was doing in between all of this, the answer is a LOT of homework.)

Shana Tova, and Au Revoir!

Ella

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Hi! Boy, am I tired. Today is the day after Asher’s Bar Mitzvah, but I’ll get into that later. We arrived at the airport in Israel at around six in the morning on Friday from Cape Town, South Africa and went to my grandmother’s, Savta’s, house. That night, we went for Shabbat dinner at my uncle Oved and my aunt Michelle’s house and met their new puppy, Chloe. 

She is very sweet, licks a lot, and is quite tiny and fluffy. On Saturday, we did homework and then met our friend from New York for dinner, Merrill. Then, on Sunday, I went to my first voice lesson with my new teacher, Tamar, and worked on a song I was practicing for Asher’s Bar Mitzvah. Then, Asher joined us and we had a Hebrew lesson to improve our Hebrew. Troy came for his lesson, so Asher and I walked back to Savta’s house and did homework. On Monday, I had another voice lesson and worked on my Bat Mitzvah song and speech, and of course, did homework. I also continued working on Asher’s Bar Mitzvah present… Tuesday was the big day: Asher’s Bar Mitzvah! We woke up early to do the most important task of the day… Homework and a math exam! No, I’m kidding, it wasn’t the most important part of the day (duh), but we did do it. Then, after Troy did his Hebrew lesson, I went to Tamar’s house for another voice lesson. I came back and Ofer drove me to my Aunt Ronit’s house. We drove to a hair salon and met my cousin Ariel there. We hadn’t seen her yet because she was in the army when we landed. We got our hair done and dropped Ariel off at the mall, then Ronit and I went to her house to take showers, careful to keep our hair dry of course, and laid out our clothes. We got dressed, I wore my black satin skirt with the gold top and drove to the setting of the Bar Mitzvah, a very nice restaurant called Par Derriere. There, Asher, Ofer, and Troy were getting ready. The first people to arrive were my cousins, and Ronit’s two sons, Imri and Oran (if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, yes, this is the Imri who visited us in Cape Town, see Goodbye To Africa From Ella and An Ecstatic Safari Told by Ella for more details). People slowly started to trickle in until my other cousins (Oved and Michelle’s kids) came, of course, the last to arrive :-). Before the ceremony started, I changed into long black pants and my sequined pinkish-gold top.

Asher went through the movements wonderfully and said the Hebrew prayers expertly until we all got to throw candy at him and Savta stood up front to give her speech. It was beautiful. Then, Troy gave a speech about how good of a friend Asher is which was also very nice. Aba was next. I wish I could say that his speech started out the same as any other, but his speech left me speechless and crying from the beginning to the end. This, you see, was a problem because my speech was next. Previous to this speech, I had thought of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs as fun family traditions and good times to socialize, but this now changed. I stood next to Asher, still crying, and recited my speech. Then, I sang him a song called I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack. However, I was still crying, so it probably wasn’t my best performance. This, though, taught me a very important lesson. I am a perfectionist. For days and weeks, I had practiced this song so that it would be perfect. When I sang it that night it was not perfect, but it was real. Looking back on it I see that becoming so emotional really enhanced my performance, and everyone still said that I sounded amazing. I know what you’re thinking, “they’re just saying that to make you feel better about yourself”, but these are Israelis. They are harsh, though truthful, critics, so I’m happy. We ate, and then Asher and I handed out signed copies of his book to the guests (he’ll say more about that in his post). We got home at 11:50 pm and I gave Asher my Bar Mitzvah present. I’ll give you some background information first: one night in Cape Town, Asher had told me a riddle about Trixie, so, I decided to write it down and come up with the solution. I also drew illustrations to go with it. I have the link here if anyone wants to see the outcome. We went to sleep at midnight, and I woke up this morning for another voice lesson while Asher stayed asleep. When I got back, I started writing this post and then we went to eat Falafel, a deep-fried ball made of chickpeas that many Israelis enjoy. We then went to the dentist at our friend Lior’s. We just came back, and now I’m wrapping up this post. Early next week, Asher and I are flying by ourselves for the first time to Paris to visit our dad, Greg. It’s been great writing, but now I have to go. Bye!

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Ella

Ok, people. Bear with me here! A lot has happened since last Thursday! After we returned from the safari, the next day we wrote our blog posts and did homework. However, the next day was far more interesting.

We drove to the Cape of Good Hope again, this time with Imri, and went to the beautiful beach, and I quote from my earlier post about the trip, “the walk down to the beach must have had about a hundred enormous stairs, but once we got to the shore it was worth it. Cool, white, soft sand made from crushed shells welcomed our aching feet. Another steep slope rolled down to the water. Asher and I put aside cleanliness, lay on our sides, and tumbled down the hill!” After rolling down, I tried out an art I had wanted to attempt; sand-sculpting. I was only able to make a heart-shaped mound because I had only started and we had to leave, but it was fun nonetheless. After eating a small lunch and witnessing a woman shriek because a bird tried to grab her sandwich, we went up to a lighthouse on the cliff that we hadn’t been to before. We then went to see the African penguins at Boulders Beach again, and once again they were hilarious. We went to both the isolated beach and the big beach to see the penguins (read “Ella’s Penguin Paradise Adventure” to see more detail). Once we left the penguins, we went home to do homework and then went to an excellent restaurant called Nelson’s Eye. Nelson’s Eye has very good steak, and both Imri and I are carnivores (I know we’re omnivores, but you know what I mean!)

Anyway, on Saturday Asher and I did homework while Ofer and Imri went to the Farmer’s Market. We said goodbye and he went to the airport to fly back to Israel. That night we met with friends of one of my best friend’s mom. We went to another very good restaurant called Beluga. There, we met Francesca and Gareth. They live here in Cape Town but they used to live in many other places, including Boulder. We talked and got to liking the couple. When we started talking about Asher’s upcoming Bar Mitzvah we told them about mine and Asher’s lack of outfits. Therefore, Francesca decided that she would take us to a good dress store a couple days later and see if we could also brainstorm some ideas for Asher. On Sunday we did more homework, but on Monday we went shopping. Francesca met us at a dress store called Shana. Because we got there before her, we had walked around the area and seen the store. There were a couple of blue dresses in the window that weren’t really to our fancy, so we were hoping that it was the wrong store. We were also trying to find a way of getting out of buying anything. However, when we walked in with Francesca and started browsing we were pleasantly surprised! I tried on a medium-blue dress with a very nice shape and a black netted dress with hand-stitched flowers on it. Both were very nice, but we didn’t end up buying either. I would tell you what we did buy, but I’ll wait until my Bar Mitzvah post to tell you about that! No, I’m just kidding. We bought two tops and a skirt. The first top is black and gold and very iridescent. The second has nude-pink sequins on it that turn a silverish-white when you flip them with your hand. Both are very beautiful. The skirt is plain, black, and satin. As you can imagine, in a store like this, the skirt was a work in progress. However, we wanted it plain black and we left it and the tops to be fitted to my size. We then went to a cafe called Truth Coffee Roasting where we ate brunch. Now, the Truth cafe has a theme; steampunk. If you didn’t know, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary steampunk is “science fiction dealing with 19th-century societies dominated by historical or imagined steam-powered technology”. However, to most people steampunk fashion is, and again I quote, “a style of design and fashion that combines historical elements with anachronistic technological features inspired by science fiction”. In other words, it’s basically an interesting combination of metal and leather or things like that. While we were sitting at Truth Coffee Roasting, Ofer decided that Asher should wear a steampunk outfit for his Bar Mitzvah! We asked our waiter where they bought their costumes from and he said that they were specially ordered, so that was a dead end. Then we went to the next possible option… Google! There we found a store selling steampunk clothes called Steampunkt. We went inside and looked around, finally buying Asher a vest with metal clasps and a decorated bowler hat. Then, we discovered that the woman who owned the shop actually made Truth’s costumes! Not a dead-end after all! As we were walking back to Francesca’s car we stopped at a second-hand/antique store where I found something that I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted: A small ceramic cow covered with colorful plates. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I really want it. However, I was out of luck because I wasn’t allowed to buy it even if we did leave it in Israel. We then drove to Lucia and Mia’s, Gareth and Francesca’s daughters, high school and picked up the girls and their friend. Francesca told us about the neighborhood and what it’s like living in Cape Town. She mentioned that many schools here were separated by gender. However, what, or rather who, I found most interesting was the two homeless people in their neighborhood. They call them “Geppetto” and “Galileo”. Geppetto finds spare wood and sharp objects such as old knives or glass to carve by the side of the road. He does this every day and tries to sell them to people. Francesca says that having something to do probably keeps him sane. People have even begun giving him carving kits to work with! Geppetto is intriguing, but Galileo is a whole other story. Every day Galileo sits on a hill and looks at the sun through his fingers. Non-stop. Every day. Oh! And did I mention that he ONLY WEARS TRASH BAGS?! Francesca has even tried giving him clothes, but he refused even a blanket. Even when it hails, Galileo literally sits there, staring at the sun, in his garbage bag. After dropping Mia and Lucia’s friend at her house, we drove to the family’s home and took an Uber back to our apartment at Sea Point. After homework, we went back to the family’s house for dinner. They have two dogs; Lily and Luigi. Lily is old and dominate, but Luigi is very very playful and needs a lot of attention. Over dinner, we talked about a lot of things. Then, we started to talk about vinegar. Apparently, Francesca is from Italy and her family is famous for its old vinegar. They let us try some and it was delicious! Oddly, it tasted like date-honey ((Lucia is obsessed with vinegar)(like me!)). After dinner, the girls went to their rooms to do homework but came down to tell us about Cape Town and what it’s like to live there. They were very insightful and I think if we had met earlier we would’ve become good friends. Then, we got home and went to sleep. The next day (Tuesday) we stayed in all day doing homework because it was raining but then went to have our last dinner at Camps Bay. We also went to pick up my Bar Mitzvah outfit. On Wednesday, we went to a Township called Langa. There, we cycled around, stopping at interesting places such as a school, church, sacred ground, graffiti contest site, craft center, and traditional healer.

Everyone was very friendly, and even the children greeted and waved at us. Then, we had lunch at a restaurant called Mzansi. We ate many different types of food, but the Malva Pudding was absolutely wonderful. We listened to a fantastic live band who taught us how to play their marimbas, looked at beautiful sand art created by a man called Lutel, learned how to make sand art from Lutel, bought a necklace made of seeds made by Lutel’s wife, and listened to the owner’s (“Mama’s”) story of how the restaurant came to be. She speaks Xhosa, an African language filled with very loud clicks. That night, we went to dinner with a friend of ours and his girlfriend at a restaurant called Kloof Street House. This “friend” I have sadly neglected to mention in previous posts. Anton was originally our Uber driver, but then we all became friends and he drove us to many exciting adventures. His girlfriend, Tria, was also very nice. After our excellent meal, Anton and Tria drove us back to our home in Sea Point. Today is Thursday, the 30th of August, 2018; our last day in Cape Town, South Africa. Today we fly to Israel for our second destination on our year-long trip and Asher’s Bar Mitzvah. We will miss you, Africa! We hope to visit soon!…

Ella

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P.S

Sorry this is so long!

Hi! Last Friday, my cousin, Imri Marcus, came to visit us in Cape Town from Israel. Before he arrived, Ofer and I baked a gluten-free (he’s gluten-free) tahini cake for him (and cuz we felt like it :-)). We bought some edible silver glitter, strawberries, and powdered sugar to put on the cake. Before we went out for dinner at Camps Bay (a nice beach neighborhood) we ate the cake… Probably not the best idea as we ate the rest of it after dinner too… Anyway, the next day we went to the local farmer’s market. They had great food, and among other things, I ate biltong (basically South African beef jerky), grilled mushrooms, samosas, and I sampled vinegar!! After snacking at the farmer’s market we all walked to the V&A Waterfront intending to get some cheese I like at one of the stores. However, as we went to where the Gourmet Pantry is usually set up I was disappointed to see that the cheese part of the booth was gone. We then took a cable car to the top of Table Mountain, one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. On the top, (no surprise) we found another colony of Marvins! These were the laziest ones we had seen yet, as they lounged right on the edge of the cliff-face. We hiked along the rocks for a while, but when we saw how long the line to get back to the cable cars was we decided to stay and have lunch. That night we went to a local hub called Mojo’s where different vendors sell food, so there’s something for everyone. We eat there quite often. We woke up early the next morning in order to get to the airport so that we could fly to Kruger National Park for our safari. I have to mention this because it’s awesome, but Imri bought us really cool leather passport cases (just to clarify, he came on safari with us). Mine has a beautiful multi-colored heterochromia-ed lion on the front. Anywho, when we landed at the Johannesburg (Kruger Park) airport, we ate breakfast/brunch and drove to the park. We hopped into a jeep and within minutes saw a lioness stalking some impalas, small deer-like creatures, but we didn’t see much more than her head. The rest of the day we saw many common animals which I will list now (these are also common animals from the rest of the week, but I wanted to put them all in one place). We saw chacma baboons, vervet monkeys, giraffes, warthogs, African elephants, bush pigs, Burchell’s zebras, elands, greater kudus, roan antelopes, sable antelopes, African buffalos, nyalas, waterbucks, blue wildebeests, common reedbucks, bushbucks, impalas, water mongooses, banded mongooses, slender mongooses, dwarf mongooses, white-tailed mongooses, tree squirrels, ostriches, dwarf geckos, and crocodiles. When the sun began to descend, our guide said that it was “Leopard o’clock” and sure enough my cousin Imri saw a leopard!

It was amazing! The leopard was really close to the road, which is quite unusual, and there were no other cars around so we got to experience it by ourselves. Soon after this unique sighting, we headed to our campsite inside the park. We had little huts to sleep in and I shared mine with Asher. After eating dinner at a restaurant at the camp, we got ready for bed. However, Asher and I were bored and there was a Bible in the room so we started to read it. Therefore, I may have accidentally kind of hit my roommate with the Bible on the nose. The next day we woke up at 4:50 am and were at the gate at 5:30 am. We decided to get our Uno game in case we had time for a relaxed lunch, so I ran back to my hut but got lost on the way back. I just have to say, that place was enormous. There were restaurants, stores, a gas station, and hundreds of huts. When I got back to the jeep, we waited a few minutes until the rangers opened the gates and then drove through. We saw some more animals, and then we saw another leopard!

It was right by the road, even closer than the leopard from the night before, and ended up walking and strutting around in front of us and crossing the road in front of the jeep. We drove around for a while until we saw some white rhinos. Later in the day, our guide took us to a place where he knew there were some hyena dens. As we drove along, we saw the hyenas! There was a mother hyena, a young hyena, and two baby hyenas that were born so recently that they didn’t have spots yet! Hyenas have such a bad name, but they are really noble animals (it doesn’t hurt that they’re adorable!).

After the excitement of the hyenas, we saw more amazing things. Among them, lions! We saw nine lions, male and female, lounging on the side of the road. They were large, even though we could see their ribs because it’s the end of the dry season, and very intimidating. They, however, simply lay there oblivious to us and letting us “bask in their glory”.

We stayed there for a while and then drove to lunch overlooking a small lake and some marsh where there were elephants. There were vivid blue starling birds everywhere. After seeing some more animals after lunch, we saw another pack of lions on the road again, even closer. There were eleven of them and they sat down right in the middle of the road, literally stopping traffic. They walked around and played and then we left. On the way back to the huts we saw more animals and a baby giraffe. That night we had a barbecue and looked at the stars. We woke up at the same time the next morning and went to look at the hyenas again. This time, we found another family in their den. There was one mother, three newborns, two really young ones, two young ones, and one teenage one, all equally cute. Then, we saw a wild dog. This doesn’t seem cool, but they’re actually really rare and hard to spot. There are only 325 in Kruger Park and Kruger Park is 19485 km2.

We then drove off to find a cheetah, but it was a false alarm. We drove to the airport and flew back to Cape Town where we started writing our blog posts and went to sleep. The next day we started working on our online homework. I forgot to mention this earlier, but most of the civilian cars we saw on the road were white. I’ve seen this all around South Africa, but it really came to my attention here. It got to the points where Asher and I would make bets on what color the next car would be, and it would almost always be white. If it wasn’t white it was silver and if it wasn’t silver it was red or blue. The entire time I was trying to figure out why white is such a popular car color here. Please write in the comments if you have any ideas because I am genuinely curious (and I really have no clue as to the answer).

Ella

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