Obama in Prague

COOPERATION, DIALOGUE, PEACE and a William Butler Yeats quote....This is indeed a new administration and it makes me so giddy and happy I could scream. And in fact I did scream (and clap) repeatedly at Obama's speech in Prague this morning.

Everything was perfect. The crowd was wonderful (I think every American living in Prague was there along with Czechs and other nationalities) The setting was beautiful (an old square in front of the Prague Castle gates overlooking a view of the city), and of course Obama's speech was inspiring. He not only talked about the Czech Republic as if he had a degree in Czech history, but spoke about the importance of global cooperation towards Nuclear Arms reduction.

I truely feel proud to be an American

Venice Holiday

The long winter continues in Prague....so on the recommendation of my "doctor" I went to Venice to take in some of the healing Venetian sun....How I long for a time when instead of anti-depressants doctors recommended scenic holidays. Sun, art, good food and of course gelato, lots of gelato....is a cure for most anything.

Israel Trip

Ok, it's been WAY too long since my last post, but in my defense I've spent the last month racking up frequent flier miles on a Prague-New York-Israel-New York-Prague trip marathon. For those of you who don't know, I had the amazing opportunity to go on an all-expense-paid Birthright trip to Israel in January (yes I'm a quarter jewish, and that's enough). It was a very eye opening experience in many ways, which I'm not going to go into right now, but to tide you over I've put together a short clip of the trip to give you a taste of my Israeli experience.




Note: The conflict in Gaza began just a couple of days before I left, however the tour I was on did a very good job (for better or worse) of keeping us away from the conflict area, to such an extent that we often heard more about the conflict from friends back home in the US than we did during our trip. This is the reason you don't see any reference to the conflict in the video, however I hope to share some of my experiences and insights in a later post.