emepetrés

I had alwayas been hesitant to buy such a fashionable thing like a mp3 player; I don't know, maybe just because I didn't see them useful except for isolating from the rest of the world while one walks, which I can do (in fact I ALWAYS do that) without earphones, hehehe. But one day I started thinking of how nice it would be to travel while I listen to my favourite songs, which I can rarely find on a radio station here -sometimes I don't know who made me like the music of Despina Vandi, Dana International, Sarit Hadad, Irini Merkouri, Elena Paparizou, Ethnix, Dudu Tasa, Sertab Erener, Nancy Ajram, Nawal El Zoughbi, Shlomi Saranga, Zulpikar Zaitov, Lior Narkis, Ivri Lider, Anna Vissi, Ofra Haza, Tarkan, Sarbel, Severina Vučković, Orel Hen & Stalos, Jana Karleuša, Yasmin Levy, Arkadi Duchin, Dana Berger, Željko Joksimović, Tina Karol, Mihai Trăistariu, Shiri Maimon, Sibel Tüzün, and of course Shahrizoda! No, I didn't have enough with Paulina Rubio, Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera, Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, Tito El Bambino, Shakira, Cher, Whitney Houston, Mecano, Mariah Carey, Alanis Morrisette, Marilyn Manson, Vanilla Ninja and Aterciopelados. I HAD to ask for something different!

Anyway, after some research, and decided NOT to buy an iPod and become part of the industry standard again (Both my PC and my PDA both run on Microsucks Windows) I bought a SanDisk Sansa e250. Here it is:

Mine is an e250, with 2GB of flash memory and a slot for SD Micro Cards, a 1.8" (4.6 cm) QCIF+ LCD screen, with a resolution of 176×220. It's a good alternative to an iPod Nano, though; it has an FM radio and stuff, and LOT cheaper, since it costed me 106$ with the "condom" (the silicone protective cover) on amazon.com. It's not perfect, though: I have had to low-level format it twice since it seems deleting and deleting files corrupt the file system, which is based on Linux or something like that *SHRUGS*

Anyway, Sandisk's Tech Support has been SUPERB and so far (thx Najeer and Kimberley!) and I still recommend people to buy one of this Lil'Monstas ;-)

Ju'er diablo, ahi viene la novia!

So finnaly, after more than one year of planning, the D-day has finally come! My cousin is getting married in the beautiful Margarita Island!

My journey to Margarita Island started at 3:00 AM on Thursday morning when my alarm clock rang. I had booked a cab for 4:15 AM so it could drive me to the bus station near Parque Central where thr airport shuttle buses depart/arrive since 5 AM. Obviously, I didn't want to get late to the airport and I arrived WAY too early, which gave me time to wander around the national terminal for a little while, and thus I had the chance of taking this magnificent view (according to Manena) of the National Terminal while I was waiting for my LASER Airlines flight that took take me on time to meet the gringos (my cousin's new family) and also lots of relatives that I haven't even seen in my entire life!

My mission at the wedding was being the "link" between the american and the venezuelan families, since nobody else but my cousin and I speak both languages. That was quite entertaining and exhausting as well since I had to keep my brain active most of the times, switching between languages, expressions and even jokes! But it was definitely worth it. Matt's family is very, very nice and his friends are very kind and funny and I had a wonderful time taling, eating, shopping, drinking, and dancing with them (yeah Megan, you're a good dancer). And being Ana's man of trust was quite an experience, from making sure every single person was sitting on the place SHE (yeah, you bitchy-bossy lady, you got me a headache!) chose at the church (yeah, me, the jewish cousin, making sure everything was OK at the church.. ain't that ironic?) and also at the tables; yes, there were not just tables assigned, in each table, people had their seats named and everything! Oh and also making sure people got in and out of the church in the order specified for her.. man, that was quite an experience!

But apart from all that, I had a goal: Taking grandma from Barquisimeto by plane so she could attend her niece's (and g'daughter) wedding. It was a very stressful thing for me because my grandma had never travelled by plane, EVER! and she hadn't travelled alone by bus farther than San Felipe, which is 45 minutes away from Barquisimeto by car. But you know, my girl did it not just well, she just hit the ball like a slugger! She had to take one flight Barquisimeto-Caracas and then after 45 minutes, take another flight Caracas-Margarita, where my cousin was waiting for her to pick her up and taking her to the hotel where we stayed. I was SO happy to have her with me for the wedding! Of course, apart from attending the wedding we did eating out and shopping together, including household items, high heel shoes, a purse, a pashmina and a spiked skirt for her that when entering the church the wind blew very hard, what made aunt Elizabeth say "look, there's Angela coming like The Woman in red"! Natürlich, I bought shoes for me as well, hehehe :-D

But it was all worth it, from having coffee with Matt's mom to dance tambores barefoot to taking care of drunken cousins, it was all so fuckin'good! I'm really happy for Ana and Matt that they finally got married the way they wanted, with all the people they wanted to celebrate with, all their loved ones. And they looked oh-so-cute!. Wanna see more photos? click here

!פורים שמח

This text is Shoshanat Ya'akov, a prayer included in the Song of Songs and recited especially in Purim, after the Megillah is read. Purim is a very important jewish holiday, in which jews all over the globe celebrate how we escaped of anihilation (yeah, Hitler wasn't the only one who wanted to fry us like tequeños) thanks to Esther and her cousin Mordechai, with the help of their braveness and their faith in G'd, of course. We fast on Purim's eve, as the custom in those times was fasting before a battle to achieve both spiritual and body purity.

Something really strange happened to me while fasting. Since I wasn't eating for obvious reasons, I took my lunch time to read about Purim, but then something I don't know made me stop reading and walk downstairs to the K-12 lounge of my school. There was a box full of used books left by someone; usually when people at ECA wants to get rid of books, they leave a box in that lounge instead of trashing them away. I usually take a look at these boxes because sometimes people leaves interesting books, which always makes me stop by and sneak into the box to see if there's anything of my interest -no, not porn! (I mean, not in the boxes)


So guess what was the book that was sitting on the top of the box? The book that inspired Steven Spielberg to film Schindler's List. Yes, true. This is it:


And BRAND NEW. Ain't it interesting that while fasting on the eve of a celebration of how we jews escaped from anihilation more than 2,000 years ago, I find a book that tells the tale of Oskar Schindler, a Sudeten-German Catholic businessman who was instrumental in saving the lives of over one thousand Polish Jews during the Holocaust? And if we add that I lost some distant relatives during the Holocaust, that makes me think AGAIN that there are no coincidences in life...ever