The 1 Month Mark!!!!

So yes, I must apologize to myself and the 3-4 readers that keep up with this blog for not writing in a little while. The truth is I have reached the point that I don't feel like I'm in another country, I feel at HOME. It has being only a month that I've been away from home and somehow it feels like I've been living here my whole life. I have found tricks to not get home sick and so far so good, except for the morning when I found videos my 8 year old sister Karla had made for me and hid them in my computer. I will try to post some of them so you can understand why tears were dropping down my face the second I heard her voice. That day I got to talk to her on skype and felt so much better. I really don't know what I will do in China if the communication is not this good. Here I talk to my family everyday and it feels like I haven't left. I'm going to divide this blog in a few categories and so I can check 1 year from now how things were going a month after being away, so let's try this.

REHEARSAL
With rehearsal everything is going great. Every morning we start the day with a very intense warm up and work out by our amazing choreographer.  No matter how hard it is I find myself laying in the floor on a pool of sweat feeling grateful to be a part of this. I already feel stronger physically and mentally and there's still 14 months left wow!! We have officially finished every dance number and learned all the music. Today we took out first fencing class to get ready to fight Zorro.  Next week we start working with the director on the scenes.  The movement is very fast and challenging because it hits every beat and requires a lot of stamina to sing while doing the fast foot work.  I am one of the gypsies so it is a BLAST to dance with all the passion and flavor that its required.  The music is The Gypsy Kings so its impossible to not feel the rhythm inside of you.  LOVING IT!!!

First Day of Rehearsal

FOOD
This is very weird for me because I literally eat in restaurants for every single meal, and I've lived my entire life accustomed to home cooked meals, but I'm not complaining. I do have the regular restaurants where I know exactly what to order and made friends with the staff. But every now and then I take my bike for a ride until a cute or mysterious restaurant catches my eye and invites me in. Food is not super cheap but is not crazy expensive, plus like I said I got my special places.  Hummus is officially in my life menu from now on. I did get tired of pita and humus so now I switch it up by doing crackers with hummus (Im eating them as I write lol) or salad with hummus or bread with hummus or just HUMMUS.

DAYLIFE
I will admit that I have fallen a little bit into a routine, and Im usually against routines except for the fact that this one includes the beach every single day. I wake up, ride my bike to rehearsal, dance my ass off, come back home change into my bathing suit and bike to the beach to see the sunset, finishing the day with a beautiful dinner somewhere unknown, then going out at night for some social life. Life is GOOD!!! To be honest I never felt more at home, aside from Cuba of course. Im not talking about family and roots etc... but a feeling of freedom that I only remember having in Cuba as a child. Maybe is my bike and riding it in small streets without really knowing where Im going, or not having a cellphone but there is a sense of freedom in the air and the people around, that feels like home to me.

Daily Adventures!!!

NIGHTLIFE


I think I have being given the role of The Party Boy of the House along with my 'hermanito" Mario who is my roommate and who I Love. As the latin boys of the house we find the energy to go out almost every night, even if its for a little. We just ride our bike to the bars or clubs and just go in,  searching for a new fun memory every night. We have rehearsals every morning at 10 am except for our days off which are Friday and Saturday, but this doesn't stop us. Now let's be clear the nightlife It's not or will ever affect our performance at rehearsal. We are the ones to always be jumping around early in the morning and doing everything FULL OUT every single time, just to be clear hahaha. We of course are going out tonight right after I finish writing this blog :-)

    

Night Adventures!!!

Im going to finish this BLOG by saying that my MAMI is coming to visit me in Tel Aviv Sept 9th!!!! Her Birthday is Sept 15 so It is my goal to make this her best birthday EVER!!!!!

Hebrew 101

So I don't know if you guys read it before but I had this idea the first day to record random people that we meet and ask them to say their name, a hebrew word and the meaning. It started as a silly thing but eventually I found myself looking back at the videos to practice my Hebrew. This is also a good way to socialize by just popping out my flip cam and asking for some words and smile.  It also crossed my mind to choreograph a piece or some kind of project with all the videos we'll see what happens after one year.  Enjoy the video!!!!

www.vimeo.com/27568923

Famous people can't do this...

Just so you know this blog has being the hardest one to write yet.  Whenever I get an overwhelming feeling of happiness I have the impulse to write a blog about it just so I can remember it years from now and try to relive it. The problem is that those feelings are constant in this magical city so its impossible to keep up. Those moments of happiness come unexpectedly triggered by the simplest things, like my morning yesterday at the market. There's this market a block away from our house that is the best reminder to myself that I'm in Israel. It's this very narrow and long market where they sell everything you need and where bargaining is welcome even though it hasn't worked so good for me, so I need to get better for China. Yesterday I went there for my daily pita sandwich with chicken, vegetables and of course HUMMUS from this tiny place where the guy screams every 2 seconds DELICIOUS!! DELICIOUS!!  so I had to try it to see if it was worth it for this man to take such pride in his pita sandwiches when there's a hundred places just like this one. He did not disappointed me it was indeed DELICIOUS but what made this place even better was this little corner chair where I sat to have my D________S sandwich. It was literally on the way of people's path but I loved it because I could say "I'm Sorry" in hebrew since its one of the words I know. In all honesty maybe its because I've been just living the moment and so much has happened in 1 week but sitting there I really had time to take that moment in, and register everything that is happening and how fortunate I am. People around me probably thought I was crazy because there I am sitting alone in a corner, smiling by myself and closing my eyes so I could hear all the hebrew around me as this single sun ray is hitting my face. I felt so invisible and completely filled with happiness. One of the random thoughts was the fact that famous people can never do what I was doing at that moment,  and that tickled me lol.



I took some pictures and a small video to share it for you guys, but I really want to wake up at 4am one morning and document what a whole day is for these people that work at the market because It truly is their life. They bring their children to work and they work just as hard. Everything is always set up perfectly and you can't help but wonder what they do when they close at night. So I went around the time that they close, also because I hear is the best time to bargain since they have to get rid of things like vegetables, fish etc.. around 7pm this market transformed into something not as pretty as you see in the pictures and video. Everything is thrown to the middle, so you have to be careful to not step on the fish and garbage they throw away. The smell is disgusting and there are puddles of water everywhere. This might not sound like the best time to be there but it sure is a good time for the cats of TLV. Oh yeah I haven't told you, there are hundreds of cats everywhere on the streets of TLV. They are not normal cats either they look like they have some leopard blood in them, no kidding.  I promise to take pictures of all the exotic looking cats to prove it.  Well I have a lot of other more exciting events to write about like my first rehearsal, our rooftop party, and last but not least my new best friend my BICYCLE!!!

Thank you guys for reading, It really inspires me to write more and take you on this trip with me. If you are curious about anything let me know and I will document the shit out of it, video and all.

I LOVE YOU