Jerusalem Trip (March 27)

March 27, we went to a Tallis and a Tefillin store, visited the Kottel (Wailing Wall), Shuks (Arab Markets), the Burnt House Museum and the Golden Menorah, walked through Mea Shearim and Geula, drove to Kenion Mall to get comfortable shoes for all the walking and for dinner we had the absolutely best Shawarma ever at a small shop by the road.

Jerusalem Trip (March 26)

March 26, 2008 to April 2, 2008 Benjamin and I spent some days in Jerusalem. I´m late, but I´m posting some of the pics I took during the trip or pics which I drew in my Moleskine.

The check in at the airport took more than 3 hours in the morning. We met two people we knew on the same EL-AL flight and one lady even had the seat next to mine.


From Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv we drove with a Sherut (shuttle taxi) to the Grand Court Hotel, Jerusalem. After having dinner at the buffet and the welcome cocktail at the bar we went to bed at 9 pm. I fell asleep much later though, as they had an Indian TV Station there and I spent the night watching Indian series. Unbelievable, these shows!






The Internet is not working! :D

Music (tagged)

I have been tagged by Sarah to reveal 7 facts about myself. I usually choose one topic and today the facts are all about music:

1. The first concert I visited was by Suicidal Tendencies. The second one too.
   
2. I had a crush on Michael Jackson when I was 13 years old. One day you could win tickets at a radio station so I spent days on the phone calling them. I didn´t win any tickets, but the phone bill that month was 3 times higher than usual. Sorry mom! *
   
3. Britney versus Christina? I favor Christina Aguilera, Benjamin Britney Spears.
4. There are pieces of music, which make me cry instantly. No chance against the tears.
5. I get aroused by some music. The louder the better. But I won´t tell you which music it is. :)
6. One of the most beautiful moments I have experienced was when someone sang "What a perfect day" (by Lou Reed) for me.
7. Currently my favorite artists to see live would be Amy Winehouse.

Update: As usual I´m not tagging anybody special - except for Steffi - but consider yourself tagged if you want to join in on the fun.

* By the way: The bill was higher than a ticket for Michael Jackson would have been.

Moleskines Ready To Be Sent Off!

I´m ready to send off the Moleskines for the 3 groups of the Moleskine exchange. Only one address is missing. Hope to get it soon.

Moleskine Exchange #3: "Red"

I love the color red and after doing moleskines drawings for two other groups in b&w, I just had to do something colorful too.

Completed The First Part Of The Moleskine Exchange

I´m finally done with drawing the garden for Moley_X_6 and it is ready to be sent off. Boy, it took me hours and a lot of patience to get this one done.

Warning: Fart-Fun!

My daughter is sick and she´s been crying a lot throughout the day. I have ton of work to do as holidays are coming up. But as she wasn´t feeling well I had to keep the kids home today and really didn´t get any work done. So I sat with the laptop on the sofa next to her and could at least do some online stuff.
I saw a link at The Presurfer to a really stupid site: The Ultimate Fart Soundboard. It really cheered her up. My kids and I were laughing until tears came out of our eyes.

Moleskine Exchange

I haven´t been posting about our trip to Jerusalem, Israel yet because I have been fascinated by a new project: Moleskine Exchange!

"Each artist of the group will set off with a Japanese folded Moleskine and create a drawing, collage, or painting on a couple of spreads (3-4 pages), then send it on to the next artist. When the artists book is filled, it will be returned to the owner with images created by artist around the world. Each artist has a month to make an entry. The outcome will be a pleasant and surprising adventure, as artists are encouraged to interact and merge their art with others."

I tried to set up a new group with my favorite flickr artists and so many replied that currently I´m running 3(!) new groups. That means, for one year I have to draw 3-4 pages each in 3 different Moleskines every month. I hope I´ll keep up with it.
Update:
I drew the picture with the centaurs today night/morning. While doing the dots on the stones I fell asleep (just a few seconds I guess) 3 times. Everytime I woke up again, I was still dotting the stones. Is that called obsessive? I´m glad I didn´t ruin the pic.

Invitation To Dubai!

"i am interested in you. i saw you at the airport in munich last week. can i invite you to Dubai? i will arrange your travel and staying here for few days (ticket, hotel, shopping, etc.)
by the way i am a doctor and have 2 medical centers here, one of them for plastic surgery. would be lovely to hear from you.
thanks"

Doesn´t sound bad: free tickets, hotel and shopping. But then... I´d rather postpone that for a few years - when I can also take advantage of the plastic surgery. :) (I just wonder how he found out my name or email address and why he would contact me as I was at the airport with Benjamin. I blurred his face and the license plate before posting the pic here.)

Stuck In The Elevator

I still haven´t found the time to post about the trip to Israel. I´ll try my best to do that soon, but the next weeks are even busier than usual.
On Sunday I met with some friends (Steffi, Steffi, Pauli, Hans) which I know through the net. Together we watched the musical Cabaret at Deutsches Theater. Except for Hans, who plays one of the roles at the musical. (Watch the second video on his website. It´s fun!) Though I do not really like musicals, I did enjoy Cabaret. You can watch a short video here. After the show we went for a drink (or two) to the bar Kr@ftAkt. Delicous cocktails!
Monday evening just before the shops closed I dashed into a department store (Karstadt Bahnhofsplatz) for some quick errands, but I didn´t get far. The elevator got stuck and nobody heard my banging on the door or my shouting. It´s really frustrating to hear all the people around you, but they don´t notice you. So I rang the alarm, which DID NOT WORK! I was starting to get scared, because no one was hearing me, the alarm didn´t go off and the store was about to close. I opened the door with my hands, but that was useless as there was a concrete wall before the door. Luckyly I´m not claustrophobic, but I was getting panicky as I didn´t receive any reaction. After 15 minutes the alarm seemed to work and a female voice started asking dumb questions: "Are you really stuck in the elevator?" "Why don´t you press the open door button?" etc. I couldn´t believe it. She didn´t quite believe me and further she said, that this elevator (with the # I had to pass through) didn´t really exist. I was becoming desperate. Then she was gone.
Then I heard all the customers leaving the store, 10 minutes later the sales people left and then everything was totally quiet. No more talking, no more sounds of the escalators, no music, nothing at all!

Foto: George F. Lee / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM

I rang the alarm again. After another 10 minutes a different lady´s voice appeared and she was shocked to hear that I had been in the elevator already for 45 minutes. She said she would take care of it and be back soon to tell me the news over the intercom. She was really nice and let me know that there were some guys on their way to let me out. So no shoping, just panik and stress. That´s the way the week started and continued...

Find Me ...

... on this page sketched by Damien Weighill:

We are back home from Israel, and I´ll post some entries about it next week.