Pippi, Midsummer and a Whole Lot of Ice 07/10/2010
Some twenty years ago, one of my third grade (or second, can't be too sure) mandatory reading was Pippi Longstocking Add Comment Snails, Islands and Timber-Frame Houses 06/28/2010
Guess what? Our couch finally did move a little:) Well not our couch per se, but we did. These past 5 days we've been at our 100yr old house in the mountains just up from Bitola, in the village called Magarevo which is just at the edge of one of Macedonia's (if not the) most beautiful national parks - Pelister. We come here once in a while in the wintertime and quite more often in the summertime, always with visions of absolute laziness, sun-soaking and long uphill hikes. In practice, our stays here are a mix of really hardcore garden work, the occasional home improvement project and (really towards the end of our days) a couple of lazy morning hours, book gulping and rakija-induced afternoon naps. Despite the blisters on our hands and the really embarrassing tan lines that reek of fieldwork, and no matter how short our stay in this little getaway, we openly daydream about moving to the countryside where we'll blend in with the local folks that live beyond 90, wake up to the sound of birds, eat from our vegetable garden, and perhaps even get used to the idea of sketchy TV reception, no neighbors to steal wireless from and the ever-present village gossip.
Photos from a White City, Full of Color 06/03/2010
The home city of our guest Tal, Tel Aviv, is 101 years old and its name literally means "hill of spring" (Aviv or Abib = spring, in Hebrew). Tel Aviv is the first all-Jewish city in modern history, first founded by some 60 families as a Jewish neighborhood near Jaffa.
A part of Tel Aviv is known as The White City, a reference to the many Bauhaus/International style buildings built in the city in the 1930s by German Jewish architects. As a result, there are more Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv than any other city in the world (Germany included). Whole neighborhoods were built in this style - a total of around 4,000 buildings, of which only about a quarter have been renovated. Tal tells us that many of them are dilapidated and you wouldn't think they're a part of some architectural site of interest. But not this one, I guess... |


