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Published: January 28th 2010
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We are now in Italy, in a small town called Lucca, one hour from Florence. We arrived late last night, after 3 weeks in Israel, which were spent mainly seeing family.
Shakked summarizes the visit: "We had a pleasant time, playing with our cousins card games, board games, and soccer.
We had a birthday party for my dad and his twin brother Ami. Us kids, with the help of our aunt, made up a song, it went like this:
"Ayom yomuledet le ami ve Ilan, col ha mishpaja beyajad chogeget, laila vayom savta tarja, uva sof hi sarfa et hauga"...there is more, but here is the translation to English (though it does not rhyme as well):
"Today is the birthday for Ami and Ilan, all the family together celebrates, day and night grandma toiled, and in the end the cake she burned. Help! Help! How we will ask for a wish? Congratulations daddies, wishing you a pleasant day, and that you will live till two hundred and forty. Congratulations daddies, it is not a pleasant thought, but soon you will be grandparents too! ". The part about living to 240 is because Jewish people think that everyone should live until
120, so if you take 120 and 120 and add them together you get 240!
In the second part of our visit my brother and I actually went bungee jumping! Not real bungee jumping where you hurl yourself at a cliff with an elastic cord tied to your waist, but a different kind, less scary. You see, there was a park near where our grandparents lived, and and on the outskirts of the huge park was a circle of four trampolines. There was a pole between each trampoline and it's neighbor. Each pole had two elastic ropes tied to each pole- for the trampoline to it's right and to the trampoline on its left. Thus, when you climbed onto a trampoline you got two ropes tied to you, one form each pole, on either side of you. Then you started jumping, higher and higher, and the ropes started to take effect, springing you into the air. My dream is flying, and this was the closest I have ever gotten. You'd go soaring up to the sky, hanging for a heart stopping moment in the air at the height of your jump, looking down at the black dot that was
your trampoline, which after a second you plummeted down to, with your heart in your mouth.
We also went to a beautiful art museum. The best part was called "Blackfield". You walked into a small dome, and lo and behold, part of the ground was covered in sand and there were black pieces of steel shaped like flowers sticking out if it. No two flowers were the same shape. As you walked slowly along, the field slowly brightened . The flowers were brightly colored on the other side! When you got to the middle, half of the field was dark and foreboding while half was as bright as a summer morning. It was amazing!
Finally, our aunt Moria taught Amit and I how to make animals out of beads. Some were even 3-D. I thought it was OK, a good way to pass the time, but Amit loved it, and he was always chattering on about it. Well, time to get our warm clothes ready, soon we will be freezing our toes off in Italy."
And Amit: "On the first night we were disappointed to find our cousins sleeping soundly. The next day it was Maytal's Bday! We
made her a cake and her birthday present was to eat a slice of the cake (her first ever). At my dad's bday he got from his mom a beautiful picture book about his life. All the cousins got a present too - each got a bag full of chocolate. "
Amit also loved the bungee jumping, but about this part he wrote on his journal in Hebrew (with English letters). It was a very exciting highlight for him too! As for the museum , he writes: "We saw a beautiful exhibition about flowers. The flowers were not real , they were made of steel. One side was painted, the other not. The artist arranged them in the sand so one side was black the other colorful , so when we walked around slowly everything became colorful." For Amit the best part if this visit was the special connection he made with his aunt, Moria. She taught him how to make wonderful animals out of beads, a work requiring great patience and perseverence. Amit worked for hours and hours every day, making beautiful creations, as you can see in the pictures below. We had an opportunity to spend many
days with the cousins from Ilan's side of the family, who we had not seen in 2.5 years, and we had wonderful times with them. We hope they come to Hawaii to see us soon!
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Tutu
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Since I can't hug you - all of you - live, I'm sending you hugs via space. We had a wonderful time with you and the whole family - a truly happy time. The house doesn't feel empty, although only Saba Benni and I are rattling around in it. It is somehow still filled with you and the Amis and Toushtoush+Ma'ayan. Neshikot, Tutu Belina