Life of Spud

We made it to Israel last night. We decided in the summer time that we would go for Sukkot and I figured that we should spend Yom Kippur here as well (they change the clocks in Israel based on YK; the fast is just as long but ends by 6 pm). We flew Air France and it was a decent experience. My father-in-law and NR drove us to Dulles (in record time) for our flight to Paris. There was extra room on the flight but we all had a hard time sleeping. When we got to Paris we were all set to hop on the RER and head into the city but we couldn't figure out what they had done with our stroller. Turns out that when they took it from us at the gate they checked it through to Tel Aviv! I was pretty annoyed as Elana was tired and we weren't about to carry her through Paris. But the woman at baggage claim managed to track it down for us and the problem was solved (although we did lose an hour of free time). Turns out, that wasn't such a bad thing... we were so tired that walking in Paris,...

It's been a while since I've blogged, but last night I presented my Centropa experience to my shul (synagogue) in Baltimore and I though I'd write about it a bit. Due to the makeup of the membership, my audience was mostly older people, with a smattering of the "under-40 youth". It was pretty intimidating being up in front of people who have experienced so much more than me in life, and probably lived through some of the history that I was going to present. What worried me most, though, was that they wouldn't get my jokes. But things went well. While some of the jokes flopped (maybe they weren't funny?), the material really presented itself. I entitled my lecture "Revival of Jewish Life in Austria and Hungary" and spoke about the Jewish life that I encountered while over in that part of the world. While I only planned on speaking for a half hour, I actually took an hour. After the Q and A people came up to me to tell me about themselves and where...