housing housing housing....

a good home is tough to find. that's what i have learned. but before i jump to this big conclusion, let me start earlier. alex, the guy i was going to live with, received a fantastic four year postdoc offer from switzerland (which by the way essentially pays with pure gold, or maybe pure saffron...) and hence will not be staying in cardiff next year. this is quite unfortunate for from a variety of angles two of which are that he is an awesome guy and we have become good friends, and that it means i need to re-figure out the housing situation...
so with these news i began my longest stint so far in cardiff. i have been regularly checking the equivalent of craigslist.org here, gumtree.com (note the .com at the end... in fact, you have the option of paying when posting an ad to make sure that your ad is always at the top of the searches!) and i have been visiting a few houses (essentially) every day. now this was quite interesting at the beginning as i was learning new things about this country. for instance i found out that i was meeting the landlords, the homeowners, the managers of the property - and they were interviewing me, but i was not meeting the flatmates. it turned out that this is quite common here, that people are simply placed into a house with the hopes that it all works out. strange.
so i began looking for houses where the flatmates interviewed me and see if there is chemistry, if i'm a good fit.
i went to see a couple of these, known as social houses, where the gender is maintained half male half female, and the point of the house is to socialize, to hang out, to be friends. three guys, three girls, all living together (or essentially together...) in a new city, hmm, sounds like a tv show i like. anyway, i went to a couple of these, and the first one i thought could be good, it was clean. a huge kitchen with two stoves and two ovens (not that i really know how to use one of those...) and a dining table in the kitchen. it seemed that the socializing in this social house was taking place in the kitchen as opposed to the tv lounge. i like. didn't like as much that as i arrived, the dude that opened the door for me decided to remark that i was ten minutes late and that this is not a good way to make a first impression. in actuality, i was two minutes early. no idea about that one... anyway, i decided to see maybe about that house. feeling tentative, i emailed the landlord/manager - who deals with this stuff at the end. he politely replied that the group decided that they want to see more people... bastards. so 0-1 in housing.
now another thing about the houses here, a lot of them, i'd say 50 percent plus, are 4 bedrooms or more - which means a minimum of 4 pepole in the house. after that 6 person house and a few more, where the living room was quite small, and always centered around the television, i decided to go for smaller houses. at most three people i decided. preferably with a garden - i want my herbs. still, there is a favorite garden here which is the concrete garden. they just concrete-ize their backyard to eliminate weeds, and hence eliminate gardening. me not like.
i began wondering, maybe i should take the place that i was going to take with alex. that house has a very nice living room and a very nice kitchen. the only perceivable problems i had with it were the fact that the stove was electric and that one of the bedrooms was quite small (hence possibly difficult to find a flatmate who would take it) and really near to each other. it turns out almost all bedrooms here are really near to each other. and also, surprisingly, the electric stove heats up amazingly fast.


still thinking about this house. maybe find my own roomate. maybe take it by myself, which would be quite expensive at the end. not sure.
still, i went to see three more houses today. nothing too exciting, except the last house had an amazing garden with tomatoes, spinach, beans, rosemary and basil. the girl who was taking care of it and showed me around was quite cute and sweet, with a thick irish accent (which of course i didn't recognize, but managed to understand just fine!!!). now i remember my friend big - O's story from davis. see, he came to see an apartment in davis, and thought that one of the housemates was quite cute. he later called and found out that they found someone else to take the room. good, he remarked, cause i wanted to ask katie out. now i always thought this was an awesome story, and i was wondering if i would ever face a similar situation. and here one was staring at me in the face. katie and him by the way are happily backpacking around and through mountains still.
i was invited for tea (somewhat common here...) so i stayed, to meet the flatmates better, get a feel for the place. i was wondering how to continue, as i am leaving the country tomorrow and i won't be back in another month. i figured i'd call when i get home, or maybe the next day to let them know that i won't be taking the place and take a page out of big O's playbook. the time arrived and i said my goodbyes and she walked me to the door. as we got there she suddenly said, well listen, even if you decide not to take the place, since you don't know anybody here (cardiff), we can meet up, hang out.

bitch. stole my line.

cheese race!

there is a famous cheese race in wales where a huge wheel of cheese is rolled down a hill and people glamorously run after it. there are often broken arms, legs, other limbs (?), well at least other body parts and other casualties in this race (later on i also heard that once every ten years or so, somebody actually dies, urgh...). when i heard that there was a group going to a cheese race friday, i was quite excited, i mean, run down a crazy slope with a chance to catch some cheese, who would not be exctied! who wouldn't want to dangerously chase cheese down a hill, following and being followed by a bunch of crazed welshies!?

unfortunately, i found out that the race we were going to was not the famed one at gloucestershire (look it up!) but rather a smaller one at a city just north of cardiff known as caerphilly. the city boasts a beautiful castle, well known in the u.k. - and, well, nothing else. this is their big yearly event and everyone in town was up for the occasion, quite excited, and some dressed up. in fact, people working there all had purple polo shirts that said in excited yellow letters - the big cheese!!! (packer fans anyone???)

so the race at caerphilly centers around (and through) the castle. this was pretty sweet cause usually it costs money to go into the castle, but this time, it was free. when we got to the fair, it was already quite happening. full of booths for young and old, games, amusements, etc., but as soon as we found out about the race - i wasn't going to 'not participate'. so we quickly formed a team. of course, we were the only team that was not prepared, i.e. not dressed up, not shoe-d up , and we needed to come up with a team name... we tried initially The Big Cheese, only to be told that that was the name of the fair. Last Cheese Rolling it was! we lined up with firemen, a sombrero wearing, mustache sporting group, four teenagers numbered 118, and some other groups. with hundreds of people watching, excitedly, the mayor gave some prepared speech (couldn't understand a word. and no, it wasn't in welsh). but soon it was over and wam - the mayor, well decorated in a variety of medals and gold linings, gave us the sign. joe and i waited (joe is a very nice lady from near london... full name, joanna) while alex and anna (my office mate joaquim is married to anna, they are the sweetest couple from barcelona, and whenever i ask them a question about why they do this or that, the answer is - well, that's the barcelona (read catalan) way...) started of. our goal, stated in our name, was to be last, you know, keep expectations at a minimum. anna and alex left joe and myself in a good position to accomplish this, coming in literally a second before the last group. we did a switch-arroo and five seconds later, we were last... people were quite nice, encouraging us, cheering us on in their funky accents. one 9 year old girl told us to move our knees higher, you know, good practical advice. we came in last, of course, and dropped the pretend wooden cheese down and prepared for a photo with the mayor...
in case you are wondering, the firemen (but of course) took first.

the evening culminated with a beautiful fireworks show shot from within the castle. electronic music accompanied the rockets to make sure they were on beat... it was quite astonishing, the castle lit up in different colors, sparkling in the dark sky. i of course provided my harmonies to the setting, oohing and ahhing along.

for those keeping score:
h 0 - cheese race 1
h 0 - cardiff housing 1
h 0 - cardiff girls 1

but one day...

pics from italia...

no explanations necessary, just put your mouse over the picture and read at the bottom of your screen...

'family' time

so when i decided to come to italy, instead of going on a more solitude type trip to say, iceland, it was for two reasons. the first was to hang out with steve and julia in roma, an opportunity that seemed too good to pass up. the second was that my 'aunt' has just passed away and i wanted to come visit the 'family'. now, as you have probably noticed, there are ' ' on the family pronouns. let me explain this.
when i was in italy in 2000, i spoke to my grandmother one day who excitedly exclaimed - we have family there in toscany, you should call them! she gave me a phone number and of course, i called, i think even that evening. that phone call went to marcello, the 'uncle'. he was amazingly friendly on the phone, very warm and when i said i was a parente, a relative, he immediately exclaimed - when can we meet? are you coming to visit?
i was in pisa that very weekend visiting him. he is an amazing person. incredibly warm, sweet and charming, a true character. i stayed at his house and he took me around pisa and explained so much about the history, the life, the university (he is a botanics prof in università di firenze). i greatly enjoyed the weekend. he then told me of his sister in firenze, the 'aunt', and her two kids, 'the cousins'. i also got to meet his son, a 'cousin', who it turns out is a physicist...
ok, so i still haven't explained the ' '. its coming.
i later investigated this side of the family i had never heard of from my mom and my grandmother. so my mom's father's (yes, some would call him my grandfather...) sister (yes, my mom's aunt...) ex husband is a cousin of marcello. to sum it up, my great aunt's ex-husband's family (he is romanian by the way). so i have no sangue, blood, relationship with this 'family'. (see how i am showing off my italiano?? that was like three words i wrote in italian just now!!). yet they have treated me so amazingly well that i can't call them anything but. dana, my mom's aunt's youngest daughter, is very close to everyone in this side, as is her father alfred. i am quite close with dana, i have a really cute thing she wrote me when i was just born, saying i was the cutest baby ever. i mean, how can i not love her after that (and of course, she reads this blog, so..).
all right, so that's the famiglial relations. now, marcello's father was a partigiano, a member of the italian resistence against the germans/fascism. his mom was jewish so they all hid for around a year from 43 to 44 in firenze. he has very strong memories from the period and now that eva, his sister, the aunt, has passed, he has no one to confront them with. so he is writing them down. he told me this one today.
eva was born during this time that they hid, and he and his father risked their lives (he was 7) to go out of their hiding spot and go to the market to buy a basket where she can sleep. he took me to the place where they hid along with two other families, in a church. the picture is below.
quite fascinating. and quite emotional at the end.

un po' di italia...

ahh, italy. summer, sun, blue skies. wow, what a novel concept coming from wales... yet internet here has not been a big part of the old roman design (how could they miss such a thing? huge, huge oversight!) and hence i am only now blogging... we'll see how many loyal readers have left in serach o other blogs of trailer parkers that have moved to wales to do math/physics research...

got to hang out with bobbo and j in roma, haven't been to roma in quite a while. well, three years ago i needed some italy in my blood so i came for a quick three day visit, but before that - five years ago and six years ago were decent size trips here... long time. anyway, bobbo and j showed me parts of rome, rather outside of rome, that i had never seen before. such as adrian's villa - all complete with


housing for the servants and







underground passage for them so that they don't 'disturb' the day to day life. in addition, there wasa small man-made lake there which i am quite sure, never had seen a frisbee before. so bobbo and i thought - why not fix that? and yes, the frisbee ended up in the water.









luckily, by the end of the tour - the wind had pushed it to the side. so italy still has only claimed one of my frisbees... that would be bologna, the city of the devil since that unfortunate day....

my italian has come back. i mean, on the bus from the airport, this lady asked me what time it was, and just from my one word response 'otto' she said - you are not italian, eh? nadi was pissed (i forgot the article, l'otto.... but now i am back to usual, thinking a bit in italian, and all.

after roma, i went to visit michela, a friend from ucsd with whom i did a language exchange (i taught her california slang, she told me about italian milk...). the beach culture here is something. they sit there for hours, every year in the same spot, with the same neighbors, renting shade from the beach and lounging chairs. they get so so tan. they made so much fun of my whiteness and the fact that i got sunburned... and of course, michela said that where she put sunscreen on me, i didn't burn, but where i put it - chest and stomach, i did. she was right... italian moms, they are something. her kids are adorable, nino (antonino) is 12 now, and giulia is 6. this girl is a miracle child (i call her miracolosa) she was born on the 25th week!!!

Cardiff once again…

I have arrived once again in Cardiff, some tidbits from the way;

Had to pay 100 euros for extra poundage at the airport. Talked them down from over 300 euros (my winter clothes… plus books = extra weight), but still, not fun.

Had a very unpleasant experience at the passport booth with a very unfriendly lady (albeit at 4 am on an early Saturday morning). Not sure she likes her job…
So trip didn’t start well.

Met a very nice guy on the first leg of the flight who teaches in Liverpool. Gave me his card, told me to come visit. This is good… Liverpool is my favorite soccer, I mean football, team in England and I would love to see the city of john, paul, ringo (and I always forget the fourth guy’s name…)!!!

Upon landing in Cardiff met a german photographer who was going on a job taking pictures around wales for a travel magazine. The magazine was put out by volkswagon. Hence she was getting a beatle and had to take pictures of beautiful places… with the car in the pictures. She was really nice. She offered we meet for a drink Monday when she got back to Cardiff. I offered to go with her on her trip. didn’t happen…

Got to train station near uni, started walking towards apartment. Walked by place that sold falafel that yehonatan, one of uzi’s group members, told me was owned by an Israeli. Saw an Israeli-looking guy outside. Said shalom – and chatted with him. Turns out there is an Israeli group here. He ended up insisting to take me to the apartment – so I arrived in a Volvo…

Went out with alex and two math phd ladies to a food fair in Cardiff bay. Had some welsh cheese – organic cheddar was quite good, the goat cheese not as great. Had some welsh pery – cider made out of pear, not bad, some welsh whiskey – it was sweetened with berries, too sweet for me. Made friends with the cheddar guy, will go visit his farm some day. Excited, very excited, that there is a cheese area not too far from here!!!

Went to a party of board games (played munchkins) hosted by a French girl. Told them about dork night. they didn’t understand (how could they??? Does that mean I can’t be friends with them?). crashed on the sofa after around 40 hours of no sleep…

it rained all day!


Norweigan church, where Roal Dahl was baptized
























Cardiff opera house

last night in israel...

its been a very nice and very full 9 days in israel. the experiences here are not so new to me, so they are not as conducive, not as motivating to blog about.
tonight though, i had something i wanted to blog about. i just got back from a concert by ahinoam nini (known as noa in italia). she is an israeli singer of yemenite origins and my cousin is her manager. she has a beautiful voice and has integrated many cultural and ethnic traditions and songs into her repertoire.
she is huge in europe, in fact, she is the one that i went on tour with for about a week when i was in italy, 9 some years ago. seeing her tonight coupled with the fact that i am going to roma on monday, really brought that trip back. kind of made want to talk to amanda even...
she has since added even more stuff to her repertoire. she now sings traditional yemenite songs while drumming on huge empty metal olive oil containers, she sings in italian - in particular the neopalitan dialect, and in a very beautiful way, has paired with an israeli arab singer to write and sing a few songs. in fact they represented israel in the eurovision competition this year with a very nice, conflict resolution, optimistic peace song. here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thDZrD8lblc

she also gained lots of fame for a song she did for the movie 'la vita e' bella' - life is beautiful. she wrote words to the composed soundtrack, sent it to bennini and made a video clip. in fact, when i was on tour with them, the award winning composer for the movie, played the music and she played the song (she asked me to translate a few sentences for her in italian in which she thanked the crowd... i felt important, and just a bit scared...). here is the clip to that song, it's really cute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAhSf4NKeLA

it was really nice to see her sing with the arab singer. she has always been very outspoken and very peace/cooperation based and she has done many things in the past. she gets some crap for it in israel, but every one gets crap in israel for just about anything... anyway, it was a nice last thing to do here before leaving for a few months. in fact, i leave in 30 minutes... no, 12 minutes.

and tomorrow - going clubbing in cardiff!!!

wedding time!

i made it to israel early, early thu morning (~4 am-ish). the jet lag was to my advantage though as for me that was only 2 am and i could sleep later, gain some energy for the wedding!!!

gilad, my childhood's best friend, got married thursday eve in an amphitheater in the midst of a forest just a bit north of jerusalem and a bit south of modi'in (where the macabees came from). it was a very nice wedding, very beautiful and lots of jumping and happy-ing. he is my first childhood friend to get married and i was actually quite emotional at the wedding, to the point of tears (that were well hidden, must keep macho exterior!!!) in truth, i have been somewhat emotional in almost all of my good friends' weddings, just no one has ever caught me... nehama was also there, another great childhood friend (who might be next on the wedding ladder, though there is a potential that someone might sneak in there before her, hmm...), with her boyfriend who is a really cool guy. yet there was only one other guy from our village from our age group. still, it was a trip back in time, seeing gilad's grandparents, his parents, siblings. they all didn't know about wales yet, so they thought i made the trip all the way from the u.s., which scored extra points for me! i waited a bit till i corrected that misconception... but outside of them, i didn't really know anyone.

a few shots of whiskey took care of that and i preceded to have a very good time...

about to break the glass, make it official. look how happy they look!!!













nehama with omer

Amsterdam...

On my way to Israel, and man, I feel excited. For a variety of reasons, one of which is of course going to Israel, seeing my family, my childhood’s best friend - gilad’s wedding, and eating some fresh veggies… hmm. My stomach needs it.
But flying here, on a transfer flight obviously, just made me realize how close everything is, how easy, and relatively cheap, it can be to travel. And man, Amsterdam looks amazing from the sky. So much water, with islands of fields – seriously, just flat pieces of land surrounded by water where they grow wheat, or rice, or something else (I couldn’t tell from the sky, but I am pretty sure I spotted some rice grains and aren’t the Dutch world renown for their rice???). pretty cool. And right before the city there are all of these wind turbines in the water, generating electricity in an ecological way. So so cool!!! And on a Davis note, the airport smelled like cows. Seriously, cows. And this is after the Cardiff airport kind of looked like it was at the end of the world. I mean usually, you see building by airports, or some sign of civilization. Cardiff? Its way out of town (30 min train) and you see the sea and some far away land horizon. There is a farm at the edge of the airport and what looks like a watertower. Kind of cool.
And yesterday, my last eve at the conference, a bunch of us went out dancing in Cardiff. A slightly different experience than dancing in Davis, I’d say, especially since we were given the foreign eye, and hence the foreign treatment at the first club (maybe it was the mathematician/physicist eye?) either way, we didn’t make it in. ended up at another place that sold sugar flavored with vodka and some color. No kidding. They called it flavored vodka, but I know better. And, I spoke to four Welsh girls, just to see how it goes. It was all right, though I got bored fast. But they love the California accent here, it’s pretty funny… ask me to repeatedly saying things in ‘Californian’… anyway, now of to Israel, where I can practice my newly developed British accent. They won’t know the difference there, I can pull it of…

p.s. of course I bought some Gouda. It smells deliciously sinful!!!