Back in the saddle again

I'm back. After three weeks of planes, rented cars, trains, subway stations, fighting children, creative kosher eating and the likes, we are back on home turf and damn glad to be here.

I have several things that I want to write about over the next few days but for today, I am only going to offer my observations on three weeks spread between Scotland, England and France.

1) If I ever run away from life, I am going to Scotland. If you are looking for me, you can find me there -- notice, I am not mentioning specifically where I will be. Previously, I had planned to drop-out somewhere in Vermont or New Hampshire, but now I have had a change of heart. I will be somewhere in Scotland.

2) Fashion and style never made it as far north as Scotland. The people couldn't be any nicer, but it might be a worthwhile venture for someone to import Vogue, In Style and a few other fashion how-to magazines. I saw some of the biggest fashion crimes of our trip in Edinburgh and worst of all, I don't think any of the Scottish people noticed.

3) The Lake District of England is unbelievably beautiful however, since I am far from the first person to have figured that out, there were zillions of other people in my way while I was looking around. If all those people would have just gone home, I might have considered dropping out there.

4) I always thought that Walmart was the everyman's shopping Mecca. I was wrong. I stumbled into Tesco in Perth, Scotland and it changed my life forever.

5) Cadbury World outside Birmingham is the biggest scam I have ever seen perpetrated on an innocent chocolate-loving public. To quote my husband: "We should have just spent the 40 pounds the museum cost us, on chocolate."

6) Warwick Castle, also outside of Birmingham is the second biggest scam ever. I know I am going to get a lot of flack for saying this, but I am sorry, I cannot be moved from this position. We had so many recommendations to visit Warwick Castle that I had big expectations -- and entry had a big price tag -- and as far as I am concerned, I should have spent the day at Tescos!!!!!

7) Paris is the most over-priced place I have ever visited. Absolutely everything costs a ridiculous amount of money. One example: one scoop of Haagen Dazs ice cream costs three to four euros from a street vendor.

8) While Paris has what are probably the best collection of museums and monuments -- in one city -- in the Western world, I simply don't like it there. I love the museums -- the Louvre, D'Orsay, The Centre de Georges Pompidou, the Picasso Museum, to name but a few, but frankly I do not plan to ever step foot in Paris again.

9) Three kosher pizzas in Paris cost 300 nis. If we had eaten them in the street they would have cost less but we wanted to actually sit on chairs at a table to eat for a change, so there went that possible bargain.

10) There do not seem to be any caucasians living in Paris. Assuming that at some point in the past, there were lots of them, I wonder where they went?

11) However, Parisians will actually stop their cars and let you cross the street, while Londoners would run you over without blinking an eye.

12) London is a much more orderly place and that suits my personality much better than Paris. That said, the museums aren't nearly as good.

13) That said, Londoners may smile at you but they would walk right over you without giving it a second thought. And of all the Londoners we came across the least friendly ones were the ones we met in synagogue.

14) London had the best buskers of anywhere we went. If you want to see the best array of buskers I have ever found -- Covent Gardens is the place to go.

15) Travelling without children is much cheaper and much quieter, however, there are less people to put in your vacation photos. Of course, there are also less people TO LEAVE YOUR CAMERA WITH ALL YOUR VACATION PHOTOS ON THE BUS -- NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.

The astonishing rise of El Glen

I checked with Wikipedia and as it turns out one of Pablo Picasso's first words was "piz" which was a short form of the Spanish word "lapiz" which means pencil. His father was an established artist and by seven, Picasso was receiving formal art training.

After years of formal training he began to make a name for himself in the early 1900s. Basically, it was a long and arduous road to success and fame. The cubist, classicist, surrealist, who had a blue period, a rose period and an african-influenced period, spent several decades mastering his art.

You don't have to take my word for it, just google Picasso and Wikipedia and you can see for yourself.

Fastforward to Ra'anana, Israel, in 2009 where one day 49-year-old Glen Shear woke up and decided to be a painter. He went out and bought some art supplies, moved all the furniture out of the way in his living room and announced to his wife and four daughters that he was now a painter. And not just a painter.... a post-modern, quasi-cubist, sometimes abstract artist with a leaning towards Mondrian-style colours and balance.

Within two months he had finalized arrangements for his first public showing and painted well over 20 paintings. I am the proud owner of a Glen Shear original. Well, it isn't actually mine; it was a birthday gift to my husband. (Yes, but when both of them are long gone, it will be mine and I am going to auction it off for a small fortune with Southeby's.)

Did I mention that during that same time period he had launched a website of his art www.glenshear.com (that was created by our website designing friend Lea Cohen) and arranged for a very clever, mutually advantageous charitable exchange deal with a successful Israeli charity, Table-to-Table, which was the brain child of another friend, Joseph Gitler.

Last night was Glen's gallery opening. Everyone was there. Everyone. Even some hebrew speakers and a few paying patrons-of-the-arts. Overall, I would have to call the evening a rousing success -- particularly for someone who has been a professional artist for three months tops.

Now that I see how easy it is to become an artist, I wonder what took Picasso so long to get going? And I also wonder why Van Gogh was so distraught that he cut off his own ear and when that didn't cause his angst to subside, he committed suicide? What was wrong with these guys? They couldn't hack it for a few months until they became highly sought after? And I won't even start on what a wuss Jackson Pollock turned out to be. They all should have taken a few life lessons from Glen.

Make a career decision. Buy supplies. Find a place to work. Ignore all naysayers. Promote yourself like all get out. Demand respect and get some. Glen's e-book should be available on-line in another few weeks, when he finds a little free time to become a professional writer.

My hat is off to you Glen!

P.S. If you choose to become a world-class brain surgeon instead, please allow 3-6 months preparation time.