Rent or Buy a Cell Phone

A cellphone is one of these things, for the very simple reason that the majority of the times if you have no way to communicate at cheap rates, whenever you want, you will have to be rely on others to put you through with the right person and complete the call successfully.

Let's take a restaurant reservation while you are in Siena or in Florence, for example. Do you know which one is best? Do you know where to look up the number?

Thanks to the yellowpages service (pagine gialle), you will have all the info necessary to chose your restaurant, to localize it, and to reserve it.

There are so many companies that will sell you a phone for as little as 50 euros with 10 euros of outgoing traffic included, voicemail, international SMS and MMS capabilities already included, and totally free incoming calls, from wherever in the world. The companies in Italy are TIM, Vodafone, Wind, Insim, Fastweb, PosteMobile, 3...you name it! Moreover all cellphones in Italy are unlocked, so when you go back home you can use it with your own sim card! All Mhz bands are usually included nowadays, so the phone will work wherever in the world.

Jewish Genealogy Newsletter Archive

Since one of the reasons that many people travel to Jewish sites in central and eastern Europe is to find their family roots and "walk in the foosteps of their ancestors," I'm posting here the link to the archive page of the biweekly online Newsletter, "Nu? What's New?" of Avotaynu, the Jeweish genealogy magazine.

Each issue has a lot of information, tips, links, reports, etc. Much (if not most) fills the specific needs of family historians, but there are also items of general interest to the traveler.

Odd shot Monday

I found this to be odd as i don't know if this is a barn or a house, if a barn it would make a neat looking house.
If you want to join ODD SHOTS, see Katney.

Today's Flower #1

This is my first Today's Flowers So thought i would start out with a Sun Flower
Visit Luiz to view more of Today's Flowers

Camera Critters

If you would like to join Misty click here


I took these at the Abbey Museum when we went to Mt Angel Oktoberfest. I am not very fond of people stuffing animals, and i sort of wonder why such a display would be located in a Abbey. I do have to say the man that did these did great work. Click photo for better viewing

So on a much brighter note here is Tom Tom enjoying playing with the hair brush


And here is Princess & Tom Tom after cleaning out his ears, check out T's ear bent

A message from this busy travel blogger

Please forgive me for the silence. It's been 10 days since my last post. I'm busy writing books and other stuff. But I'll be back in the travel blogosphere next week, I hope. In the meantime, I'll touch base on twitter every now and again. Well, a travelling girl chained to a desk for 18 hours a day 7 days a week needs some kind of release, right?

Woops, I almost forgot - you can read a little post I wrote for Mr and Mrs Smith who asked me to share my favorite spots and give them the lowdown on Dubai for their 'Inside' series. Check this out: Inside Dubai: the best bars, boutiques and restaurants.

Pictured? One of my favorite bars in Dubai. The first person to guess where it is? Well, I'll buy you a drink there when I'm back in town.

Sky Watch Friday

If you would like to join Sky Watch Friday please Click here and join Tom, Imac,Sandy & Klaus

5 Millionth visitor to Jewish Museum in Berlin

The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel reports that a 17-year-old highschool student, on a school trip, has become the 5 millionth visitor to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. According to the paper, Sarah-Denise Heellmanns was given a gift package and kosher gummy-bear candies.

The Museum opened in September 2001. Even before its formal opening, the empty building was a tourist draw because of its distinctive design by Daniel Libeskind. According to Tagesspiegel, it is the fifth most popular museum in Berlin, with 733,000 visitors in 2007 -- including 140,000 under the age of 18. (The Pergamon Museum hold the top spot with 1.3 million visitors). About two-thirds of visitors to the Jewish Museum come from outside of Germany.

According to a Museum Press Release

"a steady increase in visitor numbers has been sustained since 2004. In the first eight months of this year, around 515,000 people visited the Libeskind Building and the exhibitions on German-Jewish history, 8 % more than in the same period last year (visitor total in 2007: approx. 733,000).

"The Jewish Museum Berlin, whose zinc-coated building has long-since become established as one of the capital's landmarks, continues to belong to Berlin's greatest attractions and Germany's most frequented museums. The Museum is particularly popular with kids, teens, and twens: About every other visitor in 2007 was under 30 years old - a considerable number for a historical museum. The twens represent the largest visitor age group with 29 %. Almost every fifth visitor last year was under 18 (19 %). Young people often visit the Museum on school trips: Of the total number of over 7,000 tours booked in 2007, nearly two thirds (63 %) were for school groups."

Quick Trip to The Hague and Amsterdam

I'm just back from a quick trip over the weekend to The Hague and Amsterdam, where I was speaking to the board of the Jewish Humanitarian Fund, a foundation that gives grants to projects mainly in post-communist Europe.

I'd never been to The Hague before, and unfortunately I only had a little time to explore the city, which is the Dutch capital and a center of international human rights and other organizations.

Jewish history here goes back to the 17th century and there are a number of Jewish heritage sites in town.

I was only able to visit the Sephardic cemetery (which conveniently is located on the Scheveningseweg, just a brief walk from the hotel where my meeting was going on -- and just around the corner from the huge "Peace Palace" where the International Court of Justice is located and where on Sunday there was a crowd holding white balloons marking the U.N.'s International Day of Peace.)

My friend and colleague Michael Miller (who also was speaking to the Humanitarian Fund board) and I found the cemetery on the map and made our way to the entrance. The gate was locked, with a car packed just inside and it wasn't clear from the notice on the gate whether it would be possible to enter. But we knocked on the door next to the gate (which was marked with a mezuzah) and the man who lives there opened the gate and let us in.



Restored in the 1980s, the cemetery is a vast space surrounded by a red brick wall, and, as it typical for Sephardic cemeteries, the tombstones lie flat --I was told that the first graves were actually of Ashkenazic Jews, but the stones were laid flat in the Sephardic manner. (There are also a few upright stones in one section). Some are very crowded together. Most only bear the epitaph -- some in Spanish, some in Hebrew, some in Dutch. But some also bear carving -- a few with Cohen hands or Levite ewers; but we also so some with skulls and crossbones (similar but less elaborate than those in other Sephardic cemeteries in northern Europe, such as in Altona, Germany or Ouderkerk, Holland.) We found the tomb of a mohel with a small carving of a knife. (By the way -- this article, which I haven't seen yet, looks like an excellent source on cemetery imagery.)



The cemetery did not feature in the recent European Day of Jewish Culture, Sept. 7, but it did form one of the sites opened during the general Dutch day of monuments a week later. I was told that about 600 people visited it that day.

Book Your Flight And ... Remain Home

I just told you that I have to go in Russia from October 2 till 29. These are the dates today. But it was not always so. Here is my sad story about flight booking online.

Some months ago, precisely at the beginning of July or maybe at the end of June, I wanted to see if there are cheap tickets to go in Russia. I'm expert enough in this researches now and it was not so difficult for me to find the best offers. There were different possibilities from 150 till 600 and more euros. But one of them was INCREDIBLE. The direct flight with "Meridiana" from Naples to Moscow -you will not believe!- 92 euros and 86 back.

Could I say "No" to an offer like this? The offer was only for the period of September and October. In September we have some work in our garden, so I choose October. It was not good for me, in October our Lama, Lopon Tenzin Namdak will come in Milan to teach the last part of "The Heart Drops Of Dharmakaya" and I wanted to go there, but it was unpossible with this unique offer I had from "Meridiana"...

Well, about 2 weeks ago, in the middle of September I received a call from the company. The flights from Naples were cancelled, I have to go from Bologna. The flight is at... 6:55 in the morning. Or renounce on the flight.
Because the decision was taken 1 month before the flight, I can have any claim.

It's unpossible to find a ticket with reasonable price one month before the flight. First. So I had to look for the possibilities to go to Bologna. There are trains that come in Bologna at 3:13 in the night. But I couldn't take a bed there, because they do not allow to disturb passengers at that time. I could only have a sit. And than: how have I go to the airport at 3 in the night? Taxi do not answer when I write or call them.

I wanted to buy a ticket online but I made an error and noticed it only when I received the confirmation. It was unpossible to change this ticket online. And it was unpossible to change it in the railway station because I bought that ticket online. Nobody wanted to speak with me.

Now, my life became a horror. I have all tickets now. But I have to come in Bologna at 3:13 and fly in Moscow at 6:55. Trains in Italy never rispect timetable. It is perfectly possible that I will come in Bologna not at 3:13 in the night, but in the afternoon. I did not think about it when I bought the ticket. It said me the man in the railway station.

Do we want to count now how much costs my "very convenient" ticket?

Odd Shot Monday

Join Katney and others for your odd shots, click on side bar to sign up.

I thought this was pretty fitting. It was at a tavern in Mt Angel

Camera Critter

Click on side bar and Join Misty and others for there Camera shots.
You say "Open Wide" so you can see my tonsils?Ok Mommy
Yummy! Yummy!!!! Click on photos for better view.

Francesco Spagnolo on European Day of Jewish Culture

I know I already have placed my friend Francesco Spagnolo's blog on my blog list, but I do recommend readers take a look at what he is writing this week. As I noted earlier, in my post from Siena, Francesco is an Italian musicologist who is now the director of research at the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California.

He took part in a whole batch of events during the recent European Day of Jewish Culture in Italy and has begun posting reportage and reflections on his experiences. I met Francesco when I was beginning my research for Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe; I can't quite remember how I connected with him, but I do remember arriving at his apartment in Milan from Budapest, sitting down, and starting to talk, talk, talk. We don't, alas, see each other all that frequently any more because of geography, but we haven't stop talking. Skype is great!

Meeting of Poles Who Care for Jewish Heritage

The Associated Press runs an article reporting on the first conference of (non-Jewish) Poles who care for Jewish heritage, which was held this week in Zdunska Wola, Poland. The filmmaker Menachem Daum attended and said it was a great meeting -- lots of people in attendance. It's wonderful to hear that these people, who long have worked in isolation, are getting recognition. I look forward to staying in touch with some of them and following continued progress. It is particularly important and even urgent that their work be supported, as resources to maintain cemeteries and other Jewish heritage sites are so strapped. In Warsaw a couple of weeks ago, I met with Monika Krawczyk, the CEO of the Foundation for the Preservation of Poland's Jewish Heritage, and she painted a very pessimistic picture -- time is really running out to save some synagogues.


Catholic Poles take initiative to save Jewish cemeteries

By The Associated Press

Tags: Poland, Roman Catholic

About 30 Roman Catholic Poles have taken it upon themselves to preserve what they see as a unique and important aspect of their nation's history - the crooked and crumbling markers in Poland's neglected Jewish cemeteries.

Kamila Klauzinska, 35, has helped lead the grassroots efforts of a group of Poles who believe that preserving the nation's roughly 1,400 Jewish cemeteries is important to remembering and preserving a shared past.

"It's our common heritage, so how can we not try to save it?" Klauzinska said at a meeting this week of some 30 people involved in similar community efforts across the eastern European nation.

READ FULL STORY

Sky Watch Friday

Join Tom, Sandy,Imac and Klaus for this weeks Sky Watch click here to join
On a Clear day you can look all around you. This was taken on the way to Silver Falls Creek
Trying to peek through all those trees and leaves
St Mary's Parrish At Mt Angel click here for the history of this beautiful church as I didn't get any photos of the inside, it is beautiful inside.

Dubai on a budget: the best things in life are free

So what do budget travellers do in Dubai? There’s lots of fabulous stuff to do that is free or costs next to nothing. Your biggest costs are going to be hotels, transport and food: see this post for ideas on keeping those down. After that, Dubai’s your oyster:
1) Dubai’s museums – Dubai boasts a number of fascinating but compact museums that take no more than an hour or so to see yet offer an extraordinary insight into the way of life in pre-oil days. Most museums are either free or cost a dirham (30 cents) or three (one dollar). Dubai Museum in Al Fahidi Fort, near the Bur Dubai waterfront is the best, providing a great introduction to Dubai’s rapid development through a multimedia presentation and engaging displays of musical instruments, coins, firearms, costumes, and jewellery, a rather whimsical and very kitsch life-size diorama of an old souq, and a small but superb archaeological exhibition. Also, don’t miss the lovely Heritage House, a restored pearling master's residence, and Al Ahmadiya School, Dubai’s first, near the Gold Souq in Deira.
2) Bastakiya – this tiny old labyrinthine quarter on the waterfront near Dubai Museum boasts breezy narrow lanes that are home to traditional Persian merchants' houses that have been restored and in some cases reconstructed; the area was ramshackle and almost lost until it was decided it should be rejuvenated in the late 90s. The buildings are now home to charming boutique hotels, superb art galleries such as XVA and Majlis Gallery, and atmospheric cafes such as the enchanting Basta Art Café. Try the refreshing Basta Special, a thirst-quenching fresh mint and lime juice drink.
3) Dubai Creek and Dhow Wharves – it costs nothing to wander along the waterfront of Dubai’s buzzy Creek. From the Bastikya, stroll through Al Seef Road Park for spectacular views of the Deira skyline opposite, with its stunning architecture. We never tire of the reflections in the glass buildings of the shimmering water and dhows (old wooden trading boats) and abras (small wooden water taxis) cruising along the Creek. In the opposite direction, wander through the wooden arcades of lively Bur Dubai textile souq, and then take an abra (1dh/30 cents) across the Creek to Deira to saunter along the dhow wharves and check out the amazing stuff they load and unload from the boats – everything from enormous flat screen TVs to chickens and cars – and see how the guys live on these things! Or continue to stroll along the Bur Dubai side of the Creek to the…
4) Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum's House – one of several wonderfully restored old houses lining the waterfront. This grand building, like most in this area was built from gypsum, coral and sand, and boasts big cooling courtyards and beautiful wind-towers, the traditional form of air-conditioning. The former residence of Dubai’s ruling family, it's home to a fascinating and eye-opening exhibition of old black and white photos of Dubai.
5) Heritage and Diving Village – Dubai’s wealth initially came from the pearling industry and the city was once a diminutive pearling and fishing village, so visit this recreation of the first settlement at Shindagha, at the mouth of Dubai Creek to get an idea of what Dubai was like not all that long ago. There are barasti (palm frond) houses, a small souq, beautiful old wooden boats, and traditional performances (pictured), when you’ll see more Emiratis than tourists. It’s loveliest and liveliest in the evenings. Afterwards, you can head next door to the sprawling al fresco Arabic eatery KanZaman when you can feast on Arabic food (a few mezze and a juice will cost you around $10) and try the aromatic sheesha, as you savour the sublime views of Dubai Creek, enchanting at night when the fairylights twinkle on the boats.

How People Live In Moscow

Continue my virtual walk around Moskow with the photos of the persons living in the capital. These are some views on everyday events there.


«День Города» на Яндекс.Фотках

Many -most maybe- persons pass different hours every day to go to the work and to turn back. From the house of my sister for example, she needs about an hour and a half to reach her work. About 40 minutes with metro till the center of the city.


«Попутчики.» на Яндекс.Фотках

When youngs meet their friends they want to show how they are free from the rules and near to the culture of US ecc. Sitting on the street, on the grass near the street. Interesting that they don't do it near the houses in the "sleeping parts" of the city, I noticed.


«Встреча без галстуков» на Яндекс.Фотках

But in the parks in center you can find often these scenes:
It comes from "capitalist culture" too. "A sign of freedom". It seems to me, that I've never seen something like this many years ago when we visited the capital. But I'm not sure.


«Москва. Александровский сад. Жара...» на Яндекс.Фотках

River Moscow alows you to go from one side to other with this river-tram. I don't know if there are tourist river tours, but I think they have to exist.


«Классический речной трамвай "Москвич" и храм Вознесения» на Яндекс.Фотках

Mount Angel Abbey

I have always wanted to see the Abbey over the yrs and didn't know that you could take a tour. So going to the Oktoberfest was a plus to be able to go here, they have a museum also at the Abbey that i will share later on. I am not sure what the museum has to do with the Abbey.
Anyway we went to see the Museum to start with, but then when we got there and seen that, there was a bunch of people that was on a bus tour and Fr. Edmund Smith, O.S.B., Director of the Retreat House

Was doing a tour of the grounds, i am not sure if we were suppose to be there or not, but no one said we couldn't so we got a tour of the grounds with him telling us about the place, he has been there i think he said since 1953.

The Monastary

Mount Angel Abbey is a community of Benedictine Monks founded in 1882 from the Abbey of Engelberg in Switzerland. We maintain a monastic tradition that has been a vital part of the Roman Catholic Church for more than 1500 years. Responding to God's call to holiness and preferring nothing whatever to Christ, we dedicate ourselves, under a Rule and an abbot to a life of prayer and work. We strive to support one another in community, to serve God, the Church, and the larger society. We do this as we celebrate the Holy Eucharist together, pray the Liturgy of the Hours five times daily in choir, and devote ourselves to reading and silence.

Click on photos for better viewing

Mt Angel Seminary

Five years after establishing their community, the Monks of Mount Angel Abbey opened Mount Angel College. Two years later, Archbishop William Gross of Oregon City asked them to attach a seminary to the College. Over the years, with the increasing costs and complexity of school operations, the College and its associated high school have closed. The Seminary, however, has maintained continuous operation. Today it is home to 114 seminarians from approximately 30 dioceses, plus 40 candidates for priestly formation from religious orders. Counting 25 lay students working toward advanced degrees in theology, the Seminary maintains a total enrollment of just under 200.

The library is one of Mount Angel Abbey's principal works of Christian service. It has been made possible by the gifts of many people; its mission is to serve all who wish to use its resources.

The library strives to serve the scholarly and recreational needs of its patrons for reading, listening and visual material in many areas of human culture, especially theology, language and literature, philosophy and the arts, as well as social science and natural history.





To be continued:

WMF Jewish Heritage Program Grants

(Zamosc synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

The World Monuments Fund has announced four Jewish Heritage Program grants totaling $235,000. The funds go toward renovation, repair and preservation of three synagogues in east-central Europe as well as to preliminary planning for preservation of a former Yeshiva in Belarus.


(Choral Synagogue, Vilnius, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

$70,000 was awarded to the Choral Synagogue, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Built in 1903, it is the only surviving intact synagogue in Vilnius and still serves the needs of the small Jewish community there.


(Subotica Synagogue. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber)

The Art Nouveau synagogue in Subotica, Serbia, which has been undergoing fitful renovation for many years, was awarded $75,000. (Restoration of the synagogue has had its ups and downs....which I experienced when I was a board member of the SOS Synagogue foundation formed in 2001 to oversee and encourage the process. Putting in briefly, politics played a role.) Some of the history of the synagogue and restoration attempts can be seen on the SOS Synagogue web site, which I designed, but which has not been updated for some time.

The 17th-century synagogue in Zamosc, Poland, received $75,000. The Renaissance synagogue, part of the "ideal" planned city, was recently restituted to Jewish ownership after long being used as a library. It is managed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, which has devised a revitaliation plan for the synagogue that is a centerpiece of its activities. Plans include creation there of a regional Jewish museum.

The Foundation's web site states: "The synagogue in Zamość was erected at the beginning of the 17th century in the late renaissance style. Originally it consisted of only one building. In the 17th century two low porches for women were added to the north and south elevations. The main building of the synagogue is surmounted by an attic, behind which a depressed roof is hidden. The vaults of the synagogue (both in the main hall and in the porches) are richly decorated with stucco work, very similar to the decorations in the main nave of the Zamość church. Both buildings were decorated in approximately same time and in both of them the same type of vault-decoration (the so-called Kalish-Lublin) was applied. In the eastern wall of the synagogue there is a 17th century stone Aron Ha-Kodesz (a niche were the Torah scroll is kept); it’s richly decorated frame is dated for the first half of the 17th century. The synagogue was last renovated during the period 1967-1972. Since that time no major works took place in the synagogue. "

In addition, the WMF granted $15,000 for conditions assessment and conservation planning for the former Volozin Yeshiva in Belarus. Founded in 1803, the Yeshiva was considered the progenitor of the Yeshiva system in eastern Europe. The grants were presented through the WMF's annual Jewish Heritage Program awards.

THE LEGEND OF THE REVERSED BALCONY

Florence, like all the medieval towns have a lot of legends about curious and strange events that have occurred in the past times.
Florence, like all the historical towns, has many charming and unknown little corners.
Sometimes those little corners are the subject of the ancient legends, like in the case of the legend of The Reversed Balcony, that show the irriverent character of the Florentines and the Tuscany people in general.
In the centre of Florence in via Borgo Ognissanti number 12 there is a balcony, at the first floor, that was built with all the classical elements, the supporting corbels, the volutes and the balustrades ... that are assembled all counter wise.
The building with this balcony is dated to the 16th century, and seems to have been built in that curious way on a request of the stable's builder, for a revenge with the Duke Alessandro De' Medici. Seems, in fact, that the Duke at the moment of the project proposal, rejected the project cause of the prominents of the balcony, at the time there was a law that forbade the contruction of balconies all over the city. It is said that the builder presented the project more times with only few things modified between one time to another, leaving the balcony almost unchanged, and it is said that at least the Duke wrote on one of his responses: "yes on the contrary". The builder, it is said, applying the answer of the Duke, ordered to his architect to build the balcony upside down. Finally when the Duke saw the balcony, it is said, would liked to punish the constructor .... but as Florentine .... probably .... apprecciated and approved his presence of mind ....