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I'm back home now and glad to see the entire family in one piece. The plants and the dog didn't die either. My laundry and kitchen were in complete disarray, but what the hell, that's what Fridays are for. I'm back to being Cinderella.

Barcelona was great, the people were nice, the nuns were very hospitable, walking me to the airport bus and making sure I took food with me - the only complaint I had about the city was that there was way too much purse snatching. I think it's out of control. We have other problems here, but there is very little of that in our country, thankfully. And the whipped cream is tastier in Israel, and I did pick up a little Spanish, like "no carne" and "este" and "quanto". A few more weeks, and I may have put full sentences together. Ibrahim gave me a stack of business cards to take home for him. My kids looked at the maps of the city I brought back and laughed at the place called Zona University, because "zona" in Hebrew is "whore". Yes, Europe is special. A special university for whores.

I bought t-shirts for the kids with "Barcelona" written on them - different styles of course. And it was first come, first serve. Of course some wanted what the other one chose, but had I gotten them all the same stuff, they would have been embarrassed.

Tonight in Jerusalem is the end of the Film Festival and street fairs although not as packed as The Ramblas in Barcelona. If I were jealous of anything in Barcelona that they had that we don't have - it's tourists. They had thousands of tourists. Because of the negative media portrayal, showing Israel/Palestine under fire in every square foot/meter in this country, no one comes to visit anymore, outside of a few religious pilgrims. And that saddens me.