Dark and holly photos from the kotel tunnels
| You are invited to view gil.even's photo album: 2010-06-15 the kotel tunnels
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| You are invited to view gil.even's photo album: northen day trip part 2
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| You are invited to view gil.even's photo album: 2010-06-15 the kotel tunnels
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I started writing this almost a month ago and just now finished (no it’s not that long…. I had some events in the middle…)
Its 1ST of JUNE today, and the fact that this date is in bold has no significant meaning – more on that later
My ring arrived a few days ago and I started my ring trial run. It’s off having a ring on, I keep put it on and off, I tried stress tests to see if it falls off by itself, tried shaking, shaking harder, twisting, but so far it doesn’t, haven’t tried it in the shower yet, I am keeping it safe on the side. Already managed to forget it at home 1 day and almost dropped it here on the plane in the back seat pouch. I predict lots on interesting moment with this ring, but so far its safe… I need to stitch it to my finger.
Last Thursday after we drove down town, its 1 pm and we’re headed for the justice center. I pass by a park and its full, of various government workers having lunch, sunbathing on the grass or jogging (reminder , it is Thursday). 2 weeks prior alla was driving at regular racer speed to work, but unfortunately ignored the school zone area (you have to drive 20 mph there), and here this violation is watched often. So we went in front of a judge. Too bad we were not alone. They have several courts one next to another and about 50 violators of different offenders stood in the same court.
This hall is small, and I sea the great seal of Ohio for the 1st time above the bench. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a seal. The seal has a drawing of the sun setting over the hills, which was weird since Ohio has no sun (even in the summer) or hills. It also has 17 arrows (Ohio is the 17th state) and grains (Ohio is a mid west state and full of fields of various kinds).
Then the judge came in and the bailiff says “all rise, close of your phones and pagers” I was expecting, “the honorary judge whatshisface…” but here cell phones get the honor. At some point during the proceedings, some guys phone rang, the gourds took him outside and reprimanded him. The gourd calls the people to stand in line which reaches all the way to the door, so you stand there for 20 minutes till your turn arrives. The judge begins by announcing the rights to everyone and explains what’s going to happen then they begin. All the offences here are misdemeanors from 1st to 4th degree – the max punishment for the 1st degree are up to 6 months jail time. We didn’t know where alla’s offense stood. All those with 1st degree (most sever) decide to ask for a lawyer, those who don’t, the judge basically orders them to take a lawyer. There are a few traffic violators and the fines for them are not high, after the 1st such case, I sigh in relief. After an hour of cases, Racer’s turn begins. She does not contest the charges (means she says all the facts are correct, but she admits no guilt, apparently its better since it cannot be used against you in some future thing). Alla hesitates about her plea and the judge asks her again to be sure. In the end we get 95$ fine + 140$ court costs. This was a 4th degree misdemeanor which is the lowest. But not she has to be on her best driving behavior for the next 2 years, so no more racer, welcome the snail. We will pay more with insurance next year over this, that a good way to learn (when its applied to others, for us its , “we are going to pay how much?”)
With the trial over , we continued to the ceremonies of Alla’s graduation. On Friday night we went to a formal dinner at her school, more like a get together, time to take photos with the other students and stuff like that, we enjoyed a fruit fondue and that headed to Sue’s house.
Sue is one of alla’s classmates. She is around 45 a mother of 2 and till a few years ago lived in a trailer and worked in low paying jobs. But she worked hard and applied to pharmacy school 3 years in a row and was rejected, then on the 4th year got accepted to a year of pre colleague (pharmacy school here is a masters degree) and after finishing that she finally got it. everyone studies hard for any title, and I can’t tell you how many nights alla went to sleep at 2 am only to wake up at 4 am and keep studding. If you have nothing to do but study, it’s a very hard degree, if you have to handle more like sue, it’s very impressive . not to take anything from alla, she earned this title with a good grade.
On Saturday we were busy busy packing for Israel and stretching our luggage to the limit and in the evening went to the annual rib cook out and the show. This time it was the happy together tour; these were 5 60s bands. The Buckingham’s (never knew them, don’t know them still), Paul revere and the raiders, the grass roots (‘shlalala live for today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnFZsrs32Co)’, the Monkeys (yes the actual lead singer of the monkeys!!! And the finale, the turtles with the happy together song.) the monkeys and turtles have several super duper hits and I was enjoying every minute. With stomach full of ribs we went home to prepare for the graduation (before was just a pre graduation dinner).
Alla went to get her graduation hairdo and we drove to the ceremony.
Erie pa is not known for many things (if infect it is known at all), but heat was never one of them. But in the big convention center is was so hot and humid. Hundreds of pharmacists and doctors graduate today, and they are all wearing heavy robes and I am dying in my single layer shirt. The ceremony began with a salute to the armed forces, which is such an American thing to do, but it’s a very nice touch. It was followed by a song about the school, the song came from a video on screen, but they brought a live orchestra of 20-30 musicians, but they did the music from a clip, I found that odd.
Then they had speeches on the Med school (and completely ignored the other programs….yada yada yada later and they began to call the names- this process took 2.5 hours, each person gets their deserved recognition. The official robbing, and it’s done by a family member if one of them is a doctor. Mean while most graduates were using brochures as fans (did I mention it was hot). At one point a critical moment in the ceremony came when the announcer announced ‘DR Alla Greenberg’ and alla came on smiling, with a new hairdo looking like a queenJ. From that moment it got boring, since we had to see another 2 hours of other less important graduates (with some exceptions for alla’s friends).
The announcer supplied some relief by fainting on stage (told you it was hot) , but she was ok later so no need to worry. After that we walked out to the good fresh air and celebrated with alla while she got her photos taken with all her friends , then went home to a post graduation dinner with the family at rita’s.
Ok, later is here, on that evening, Alla’s niece Anna gave us a wedding gift (since she would miss the wedding)- a engraved wooden box with few photos of us- it’s hard to explain but it looks very nice and now it sits on our center shelf. Anyway , she carved the date of when we began dating, but she got it wrong. She kept insisting it was the right date since she saw it in a blog (I tell you, this world has one too many bloggers), in said blog I wrote the date of our engagement events, and she mis read it as the date- so what if it was in bold, you have to read the fine print. But never mind, its still a very nice gift, and now more memorable because of this short tale. So date in BOLD have no special meaning., ok back to alla, again anna with creative gifts created a memoir for her in the form of a book, with eateries by all of us, and 25 shocking days later, she has not read these comments, I am sure she will when she reads these lines.
The next date we headed out for the air port, and since we fly delta, things can never be event free;
We fly delta to new York and from there ElAl to Israel. So delta comes up with a new trick, over sized bags. Our bags are perfectly regular in size. And delta says these were elal regulations- there is a max size for a bag and a max size for 2 bags- which is a lot smaller than 2 bags- more like a bag and a half. Saying its elal regulations, left us with no place to argue, since there is no el al counter in clevleand, so we reluctantly paid. In new York we had a 5 hour layover, just enough to handle bureaucracy. Of course el al does not know anything about this regulation (why should they it doesn’t exist). But since delta asked that, they must get some brochure (or charge us again based on what delta said), but this brochure was not given to us, so we had to go to the delta counter and explain this weird state and get the brochure and a refund. The brochure took a while of going back and forth and the refund, well if you paid in Cleveland, you cannot get a refund in new York(why? Ask them), you must call Atlanta(HQ) but the ticket is in transit, so you have to wait….yada yada yada, why are we still flying delta? It’s annoying that they are the largest airline today. (but good for 1 blog reader, as usual, sorry Cindy, I can’t get a break with them).
The flight itself was ok- I watched a half a movie and slept most of the way.
We had another companion that accompanied us on the flight, and that was the dress, it was kept in its case and was so big it looked bigger than another person, it had a sit of its own when we stopped to eat, I think at some point it went to the bathroom alone. We didn’t put a fragile ticket on it, but we probably should have (you know how fragile a bridle dress can be).
When we landed, we took our companion and headed to delta offices to prove that the suitcases were the right size (they still were) and we got that info added to our ticket and now we still have to call delta HQ for the refund.
Luckily the dress got us an upgrade at budget, we didn’t even ask, this was very nice (and lucky since we rented the smallest car and got something decent in size which was much handy later on in the trip.
After that we went with my dad to check the sabawell.. and more on that in future blogs
Lots of kids, ice cream, and heat
From: gil.even [mailto:gil.even@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2010 8:39 PM
To: Gil Even
Subject: Invitation to view gil.even's Picasa Web Album - northen day trip (1)
| You are invited to view gil.even's photo album: northen day trip (1)
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This is pure family photos, with some comments
From: gil.even [mailto:gil.even@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 11:03 PM
To: Gil Even
Subject: Invitation to view gil.even's Picasa Web Album - pauline bat mitzva (1)
| You are invited to view gil.even's photo album: pauline bat mitzva (1)
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Photos from the day of, few wedding photos, and some from big Tuesday (rehersal dinner)
[Gil Even] mostly family stuff,
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