Dream House

So, I've often talked about my dream house. It's a pretty precise picture that I've been formulating for quite some time. Well, the search is over, I have found my dream house....

Ta-da!!!! Here is the house where I would be MORE than happy to spend the rest of my life.

I mean, this house is situated on acres and acres and acres of land. Who doesn't want to live on acres and acres and acres of land. All of that would be yours.

PLus there would be this lovely "little" (haha, little....) sidehouse for guests. Or foreign dignitaries. Or, you know, parties.

And sheep would just wander throughout the lawns. I would need to hire a gardener or buy a lawn mower.

Unfortuantely, sometimes the house would need a lot of work. Still, that would mean I could still have the lawn for lots and lots of parties. Can you imagine a big dance floor right out there in the middle of the lawn? ALl-night dancing, down at Michal's Manor House. Everyone would be down for it.

I've always wanted a backyard with a big lawn. And here there is not only a huge lawn, but there is a large fountain.

My own MAZE. Best part of the house.

My own tunnel. I would use it to scare people. They would go through on a tour and I would have people in masks jump out at them. And then we'd go over to sit at the rock garden and I'd give them ice cream and cookies to tell them that I was sorry.

This is the rock garden where we'd eat our ice cream and cookies. Or cookies IN ice cream.

And because one fountain is not enough, I'd really enjoy to have another one. Especially one that I could walk up and splash around in, kind of like a big water slide, but a lot bumpier. We'd go there after eating our ice cream and cookies.

I've also always wanted a sensory garden. I'm not sure what a sensory garden is but I'd like one. Maybe not with a naked lady statue but if it was necessary, I suppose it would be OK. It does smell nice there.

Speaking of gardens, even if I cannot grow things to save my life, I still would love to have some. They'd grow everything- fruits, vegetables, flowers, the most frikkin' biggest limes I have ever seen in my life, the gardens would just take over the entire place. It will be lovely and when I don't want to go to the supermarket (which is ALWAYS), I'd just pop out to the garden. And if I needed milk, I'd go to the sheep. And if I needed meat, I'd go to the cows. I could be totally self-sufficient and never need to see people, other than when I have my big parties on the lawn.

I'm not a huge fan of modern art BUT these statues were awesome. They'd definitely find a home in my garden.

And folks, that is just the outside of the house. Wait until we see the inside. First of all, any house of mine MUST have a huge drawing room with sweeping stairs. And if it happens to have painted walls and ceilings, well, that is just an added bonus.

Also, if nearly ever OTHER room happens to have painted ceilings, then that is just ANOTHER bonus.

As I said, not big on modern art, but I do desire to have old artifacts in my house, especially old Egyptian artifacts and ESPECIALLY big feet. And if I can't have two feet, one foot is fine.

My favorite room in any house is the bedroom. Mostly because I love comfy, crazy beds. Any of these would be FINE.

I'd even sleep on this beautiful green couch.

Or even one without a canopy. I'm not picky, I'm truly not.

I would even be OK on this little platform under the canopy. The cute little kid in the hat can be around except when I'm sleeping. Then I like quiet.

Now, the portraits in my dream house don't have to be of former dukes and duchesses (the top row, second from the right is Andrew, Deborah Mitford Cavendish's husband), but portraits would be lovely.

I WOULD need to have portraits of Czar Nicholas II and Queen Alexandria in my house. Absolutely necessary.

OK, I lied earlier. My FAVORITE room in any house is the library. I used to dream of a Beauty and the Beast library. But this one is awesome. And this is just the ANTE-room of the library.

THIS is the library. And it's immense. I would just pitch a tent here and sleep here while devouring each book that was on the shelf. Unless it was really boring. THen I'd just lie on the sofa with it and fall asleep.

It would be fun to have a 1830's Steinway in the ante-room of the library in order to play it whenever I wanted.

If it was rainy, we could totally move the party into the dining room. Many people would fit in here and the cookies and ice cream would be totally delicious here too.

And EVERYONE needs an antler chandelier. If you do not need an antler chandelier, you are a liar and I don't want to be your friend anymore. End of story.

Swoon..... everyone knows my obsession with statues and the fact that there is a sculpture garden here just sealed the deal. Done, the end, I'm moving in tomorrow.

So, the moral of the story: come visit me in my dream house. We will have parties with ice cream and cookies. Except there will be NO eating in the library. Do not ruin my books, people, do not even think about it. RSVP regrets only :)

A Hero

My mom posted this on her facebook page- take a look.

Yuval Roth and my dad grew up on the kibbutz together. To see what he's done is really inspirational and I'm lucky to know him. Although my most vivid memory of him was when I was probably 10 or 11 years old. Ada, my grandmother, took Roni and I to a museum. There just happened to be a clown/magician act going on in the front lobby on this museum. One of them was Yuval, my dad's friend. We watched the show and when Yuval's partner asked for a volunteer, I raised my hand and Yuval picked me. What came next was the most terrifying ten minutes of my life. I ended up on his partner's shoulders WHILE HIS PARTNER RODE A UNICYCLE, joking about how I was going to fly off and do a flip in the air. I nearly had a heart attack. I'm not kidding, I thought I was going to die. I did, in the end, not die and ended up with a balloon animal for my troubles. A person who can bring such joy to children, as well as to Palestinians, despite what Hamas did to him and his family, is truly inspirational.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear

So much to catch up on!!! There have been a few late nights recently which has made me very unmotivated for blogging. Let's see where we left off..... ah yes, arriving in Nottingham. The very next day, I drove out to Chatsworth House to see where one of the Mitford sisters lived when she was the Duchess. There will be a forthcoming post about that momentarily. Saturday was spent in Nottingham. After having breakfast with Katie (the day after we had gone out with her work friends for her leaving-do.... what a lovely British phrase), I headed into City Centre. I wandered around a bit and ended up joining a tour led by this fellow dressed as Robin Hood. He took us around the town and gave us interesting information about the old buildings, as well as a history and literature lesson about the origins of Robin Hood. I didn't have anything to write with (I really need to take a note out of David Sedaris' book- no pun intended indeed- and start carrying around a little notebook and pen at all times) so here is what I do remember.

Robin Hood really is an amalgamation of many different people, ideas, myths and identities. He started out as a poor robber who would disguise himself in a friar's hood (hence the named Robber in the Hood), eventually became a yeoman sung about in a ballad, an aristocrat who was dispossessed of his land, to a former crusader. There is no certainty about his time but it was Sit Walter Scott who placed him during the time of the Crusades and with Richard the Lionheart. He is mention in 13th and 14th century literature by name although with no reference to exactly who he was. His band of Merry Men "robbed from the rich to give to the poor", which was a phrase also created in the 19th century. His love for Maid Marian came about after a story about him praying to the Virgin Mary. When it become unpopular for people to pray to saints, Mary turned into a girl named Maid Marian. Try as we might, we will never be able to solve the mystery of who Robin Hood really is.

This guy was great. So funny and a pretty good story-teller as well. Very passionate about his tour and about the history of Nottingham. Plus he can pull off the costume quite well.

Considered the oldest pub in Nottingham, built in 1189 during the Crusades and used as a stopping point for pilgrims heading down to Canterbury as well as Crusaders off to the Holy Land.

Nottingham Castle is built on sandstone (in fact, the whole town is on sandstone) which made it better to carve through than cut out. The indentation sat the bottom left of the picture is where an old door used to be.

Nottingham is known as the City of Caves. There are hundreds of caves underneath the city streets, including this pub. These caves were used as hiding places, storage areas, houses, prisons, malting beer and of course, as protection during WWII. Very creepy.

The Galleries of Justice- now a museum/tourist attraction, once the site of an old prison and then later the courthouse. People were hung on the front steps up until 1864.

The original 13th century stone-work on the front facade of St. Mary's Church.

Both of these buildings were part of the lace industry in Nottingham. Lace was the biggest Industrial Revolution invention for the town and just recently, the last factory closed, which is very sad. These buildings were made to impress those merchants coming to buy the lace to sell around the world. IN the top picture, the s-shape street ensured that people walked around the inner street, making it a lot more exclusive for the merchants.

A fresco of the beloved Robin Hood in one of the indoor shopping malls.

The "Riviera" in Market Square. Nottingham has no beach so it created its own. It was quite precious- you had to give it to them for their good effort. The sand was a weird color though...

When that had concluded, I only had about an hour before meeting Katie and her friends so I wandered around a bit more, popping into a few bookstores and reading on the steps of the Galleries of Justice before meeting up for tea. We had a very proper tea, champagne included of course, with lovely little cakes and sandwiches. Actually, it was technically my very first proper British tea and it was lovely. Katie's friends were quite nice and we all had some great conversations.

With a slight issues with Katie's burglar alarm on my way out of Nottingham, I made it back home to Oxford luckily still in one piece. I met up with Roni and we went to her friend Tommy's house for a party. We wanted to leave on the early side the following morning but not before Team America beat the most annoying un-American jerk-face in a game of beer pong. I even sank the winning shot- so proud.

Early the next morning, Roni and I headed off to Eastbourne, down by the sea. Before hitting up the shore, we stopped at Long Man. Long Man is a huge, probably 240 foot man literally carved into the hillside outside the town of Wilmingdon. I've wanted to see the Long Man since I got Weird England and he certainly did not disappoint. What just baffles me is what led someone (and no one really knows when he was created- it could be as early as the first centuries or as late as the mid-19oos) to create this huge man up on a cliff. It's so bizarre but incredible at the same time.

When we arrived at Eastbourne, we found that there was a huge Airbourne festival going on. There were military men all over the place, many booths, lots of food, people all over the place, military vehicles and, about ten minutes after we arrived, an air show just like the Thunderbirds. We took a short break from our scheduled events to watch- it was pretty spectacular. There was a guy who explained what was going on the entire time and helped us keep an eye on where we should be looking. I know Roni really enjoyed it.

Once the show was over, older WWII planes did their show but we headed up to the South Down Ways and wandered about to Beachy Head. The areas near car-parks were very populated but the paths were nearly empty and the colors of the sky, the sea, the grass, the plants, the flowers, were just indescribable. They were absolutely gorgeous and bright and the camera did not capture their glory properly. At Beachy Head, we had incredible views of the white cliffs and a sweet little light house. It really wasn't a long walk at all but a jaunt on the downs was exactly what we wanted.

We were starving by the time we got back to we picked up some fish 'n chips and ate down on the pebbles on the beach. The water looked so inviting and I wanted to put my feet in but the beach was really packed and so we decided just to head out. Our next stop was Charleston House, where the Bloomsbury Group would live outside of London. Virginia and Leonard Woolfe, Clive and Vanessa Bell and their children, Duncan Grant, Dora Carrington, Lyton Strachey, among others, all called this place home. Unfortunately there weren't tickets for a house tour until 4:30 and we didn't want to pay the price to only have half an hour there. So we wandered through the bookstore and then headed up to Henley, famous for its river and regatta. We ate our standard flake, wandered along the quayside and sat on a dock for a little bit before heading back to Oxford. All in all, a wonderful two days.