My cousin Miriam finally decided to settle and married Isaac. About freaking time. You can see photos of the trip (and mostly of the wedding) at The MKX® Photo Central.

I also had a chance to spend some quality time with Liat and Joelle. See video below.

Finally I want to point out that Aeromexico opened a direct flight from Austin to Mexico City. Hope it stays around and it stays around cheap. Their food is usually better than Continental’s and the beer is still free. Gotta love them.

[Update Jan 16, 2007]: Fixed photo caption (David is Robert). I thought I had fixed it before I posted. Weird. Maybe I’m not qualified to write a blog.

Jaco (my cousin) and I went last week to Budapest for a few days (original plan was to fly to Istambul, but tickets were sold out).

The trip was a lot of fun. Budapest is a beautiful city with lots of history. We were visiting places all day for four days straights non-stop and barely covered what we wanted to see. We saw museums, the Parliament, Statue Park, amazing buildings and even got to visit a Thermal Bath for a bizarre experience surrounded by middle-aged, fat, nude Hungarians. I have uploaded some photos from the trip (sorry – no naked Hungarians).

As promised:

This past weekend I flew to Mexico City in order to attend the wedding of my very good friends Pepe and Avital. They were both my next door neighboors at the kibbutz (in each side, different rooms).

Pepe and I go back a long time. He’s a marvelous acrobat (video will be posted in the future). He can play videogames like no one can (he finished Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing for Sega Genesis in 72 hours playing as El Cupacabras . Nonstop). He got me hooked on Lost.
It was a blast getting together with them both and the rest of the gang that made it to the wedding (some of who I hadn’t seen in 10+ years). They were all very immature back in 1995 and I’m proud to say that they haven’t changed a bit.

During my limited stay in Mexico City, I also got to see some of my family (Bobe Sonia, Tia Chela, Martha, Jacky, Becky, Jenny, Simon, Malka, Miriam) and friends who had nothing to do with the wedding (Aizik, Goldman). I ate a lot, saw a true Mexico City bank robbery, ate a lot, went to the market to buy fish, and ate a lot.

Jenny went to the market…

And of course I’ve got to thank my great friends Abraham and Galit Braverman who hosted me this weekend and put up with all my shit. I know it’s not easy. You are welcome to come visit me in Austin, we’ll have a blast. Appropriately, when I went to their wedding, I stayed with Pepe.

Photo album here.

And stay tuned for “Spectacular Flying Pepe: The Video“… coming soon to this blog.

Some items in my packing list:

• Cellphone
• Cellphone charger
• Electric shaver
• Electric shaver charger
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo DS charger
• iPod
• iPod charger
• Computer
• Computer charger
• Digital camera
• Digital camera charger

Am I doing something wrong?

[Update June 30 2006] Added digital camera, I knew I was missing something.

Last Sunday, in Monterrey, I went to the new (opened in February 2005) explanade and giant flag next to the Obispado museum. Since it was such a clear day, we took the opportunity tu go up there and take a nicke 360° QuickTime VR panorama of the city (basically, I did the driving and Moi did the photographing with his fancy tripod). It’s a very high quality file of over 7 MB, so be patient and make sure to zoom in to the details!

Some cool things to look for:

• ITESM
• Obispado
• Puente Atirantado (hanging bridge)
• Loma Larga Tunnel
• Rio 70 Cinema
• Bibiloteca Magna (UANL Library)
• Cerro de la Silla (easy to spot)
• My big butt
• Alfa Planetarium
• Fundidora Park

Enjoy!