My New Life in Paris

Our apartment is in the center of Paris, about 5 minutes walk from the garden of the Tuileries and from the Louvres. It's on a pretty small street for Paris but big street for California, and right next to our building we have a bakery, and a cafe on the other side. Our building is about 300 years old. It's been remodeled about a million times and it looks really nice.

Our house has a really small entryway, and right next to it there is a door for the kitchen and for a bathroom. Right next to it there is the dining room, which has another door for the kitchen, and also a tiny spiral staircase that leads up to my brother's room and mine. In the middle when you go up the tiny spiral staircase is a tiny bathroom, on the left is my brother' s room, and on the right is my room> The bathroom in the middle is so small that I can barely fit in it: it is all sized for children. Right below my room, at the bottom of the spiral staircase is another bathroom that is kind of big but that only has a shower and two big sinks at kids' height, also for my brother and me. In front of the dining room is the living room, that's pretty big with a fireplace and a really big coach that's awesome because it has wallish-like things on the sides of it. And even in front of the living room there is my babysitter's room, that is very big, and has a luxury bathroom, and it has stairs that lead to the the bed. Also, on the far left of the living room, there is a little hallway with a desk: that's the computer room. And right next to it is my parent's room that I like to call the luxury suite, that has a luxury bathroom, luxury bed, luxury extra space, luxury desk, and even a luxury closet! Everywhere the ceilings and doors are humongous, except our my brother's room and mine and the tiny bathroom. I really, really like our place here, it feels comfortable.

My school is also really great. Because I don't know how to read well in French and to write in French (or more exactly I couldn't because now I can write some things), I am in an adaptation class where the teacher speaks French and all the classes are in French, but it's a bit easier from what the normal 4th grade would be, and if we don't understand things the teacher will repeat it in English. For some classes like history where it's kind of hard they will say almost all of it it English.

Here we have 3 recesses. In the morning, before lunch, we have one that is literally 5 or 10 minutes. Then for lunch we have one that is one and a half hours, including time for lunch, and I eat at the cafeteria. Also, before the last class we have another recess which is 15 to 20 minutes. At recess we usually play soccer, but sometimes we play ball tag, plain tag, and once now we also played football (or American Football). We also sometimes play foot tag, which is where you try to step on other people's feet,and if you step on someone else's foot and you're it then they are it, etc. Also what's great about the school is that if you have a yellow pass which almost everybody does you can leave without a parent at the end of the day. Of course, usually I have parents or babysitters waiting for me, but, the few times that I don't, I can go outside and play while I am waiting.

Don't Worry, it's not his Favorite Finger!

When we woke up we packed for departure, then we went straight to the Mea Shearim district. Everybody there is really, really religious and since they believe that every one should cover their head with something and that all women should wear skirts. Because some of us had forgotten to bring kippas and we weren't incredibly religious and the girls weren't wearing skirts, when we walked by a school the kids were yelling names at us...at least I THINK they were yelling names at us but I couldn't be sure because it was all in Hebrew. Then we went back to the hotel, said our goodbyes and left. I thought that Israel was really good, and I want to go back.

We took a cab to the airport. We flew to Zurich and switched planes and went to Paris. In the terminal when my dad was opening the stroller, my brother left his pointer finger there and when my dad opened the stroller, my brother's finger got squashed between something that barely has enough room to fit a fingernail in it, not to mention a whole finger. It was bleeding and we had to take care of it right away.

My aunt Babette and my cousins Ariel and Morane picked us up to bring us to our new apartment in Paris. Our apartment is really nice and already I can't imagine leaving it.

And ANOTHER Sweater

We had our breakfast at the hotel, and I took a really good video of my brother dancing. I think he could be a famous dancer and singer some day, because he was really good! I can't show you the video because my dad won't let me post pictures of faces of the family...

Then we walked straight to an area in Jerusalem called the German Colony where there were supposed to be really nice art galleries. We couldn't find it at first but after asking a few people, we found them. We didn't actually find the galleries at first, but still found a really nice area that had houses all around it, called the Artists' Colony. Then, on the other side of the houses we found the art galeries, but most of them were closed so we could only look through the windows.

Then we went into the old town again, inside the walls, and walked to the Kotel, and then to area around the Dome of the Rock, which is a dome covered with gold used by the Moslems as a religious place. When we were leaving, we looked all over for the exit because we could not find it. It took us about twenty minutes just to figure out how to get out.

Then walked for a long time around the Arab Quarter and the Jewish Quarter and I bought a Star of David necklace. We went to a place that we found out had the same sweatshirt as the one I lost at The Frenkels and we bought ANOTHER one there. After that we had the BEST shwarma I've ever tasted at a place in the Arab Quarter.

At about 5pm my uncle/cousin Elie picked us up and drove us over to Tel Aviv to have dinner with the whole family. First we stopped at their apartment just to stay for a few minutes and then we went to another Arab restaurant that was pretty good. But if I was in America, I would basically be having a hamburger and french fries because that is what falafel or shwarma are like in Israel. We then took a taxi back to Jerusalem and we went back to our hotel. I fell asleep on the way and my parents had to wake me up when we arrived.

To Be (in the Caves) or Not To Be

In the morning, we walked around the Jewish Quarter till almost lunch. Then we realized we were almost late for a guided tour that we were supposed to go to. So we literally ran most of the way, got sandwiches to go, and ate running on the way to the Tunnels, which start right by the Kotel (the Wailing Wall).

In the tour, we went through a bunch of tunnels that were dug by the Israelis to be able to see the full length of the western wall of the temple underneath the city. I thought it was really cool. First we walked along the old western wall, then the guide told us we were walking underneath the Arab Quarter and that actually the Arab Quarter had been built on old arches from the Ottomans' time. The tunnel also took us all the way down to the old streets from King Herod's time, and we were able to walk on the street and see the old shops that used to be there. And, at the very end of the street, there was a humungous stone blocking off the street: the guide told us that they were digging the street through the rock, but, when King Herod died, they just stopped digging. At the end of the tunnel, there was a huge cistern and aquaduct dug into the rock.

When we got out, we were in the Arab Quarter, and there were guards that were escorting us back. One of them had a machine gun, and the other one had a handgun with a folding piece that made it look like a rifle. Then we walked down to the Dung Gate and took a cab to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum.

We had found out that my friend Josh and I were too young to go in, so instead, John, Josh's father, "took us to the Caves". First we drove for an hour or two. By then, John thought we did not have enough gas to go there and back, so we looked for another hour for a gas station (which are very rare in Israel). When we finally found one, then we kept on driving for another hour. Then I fell asleep and don't know what happened. But when I woke up we were very close to the Holocaust Museum, and John said we did not go to the caves because it ended up being to late so we had to come back and pick up everyone else.

Right when we were about to leave there, Josh and I had to go to the bathroom. Then we finally were able to drive back to the hotel. That night we went to dinner at the YMCA, but my brother and my mom stayed home because my mother was sleeping and somebody needed to stay and watch him. We had a pretty bad dinner there, and brought some back for my mom and my brother.

The City of David

We had an OK breakfast at the Prima Royale, which was our hotel, then we walked to Jaffa Gate, to meet our guide for the day. He was very nice and he really knew pretty much everything there is to know about Jerusalem. There are different quarters in they old town of Jerusalem. When we were walking across them, we went first to the Christian Quarter, then to the Armenian Quarter, then to the Jewish Quarter, to go to the Dung Gate. It's a weird name, I know, but that's what it's called... The old town of Jerusalem was really nice. In the Christian Quarter, we saw almost no one, but probably that was because it was early. All the buildings were made out of Jerusalem stone, and so was the pavement. Most everything where we walked was over a thousand years old, and sometimes it was two thousand years old! Except that the Jewish Quarter is almost all new, because it was destroyed by the Jordanians in the war of independence, so there was not too much to see there.

From the Dung Gate, we went to the City of David, outside the Old City walls, which is where a part of the old Jewish city was. First we went to a bunch of excavation sites, where we saw the old Canaanite wall, and where King David and his descendants had also built. Then we walked to this place where there was a really old pool, called the pool of Shiloah, that had steps going into it, because the level of the water always changed, so one of the walls was made of steps so you could get to the water. Then we had to walk all the way back up the hill to the Dung Gate. We were really tired so we were literally staggering up the hill to go back into the Old City and to have lunch.

We had some pretty bad shawarma for lunch. Then we went to the Davidson Center, which is the area around the western and the southern wall of the temple. We saw the remains of the Robinson Arch, and a bunch of original pieces of the wall that had fallen. Then we saw a lot of old houses and their cisterns which I thought were the coolest part of the visit, because there was a tiny staircase leading into the houses and the cisterns, and we you walked through them you go back up into a steep tunnel that takes you into the other side of the wall. Then we walked to another part of the wall.

Then we went to the Kotel, which is the Wailing Wall. We saw a lot of people praying by it. They pray there because it is the closest part of the wall to where the old temple used to stand. Then we went back home.