Green Passover

Since last writing I've been occupied primarily with preparing for and observing Passover. I did my shopping, baked a nut cake and a ton of matzo balls- neither of which came out quite right although they were adequate, and went to the Rothfield family seder. I had heard from Philipa Rothfield, the hostess of the seder and my tenuous connection to the family, that it was going to be a green-themed seder. When I asked what that meant she said, "we're going to talk about how we as a family can reduce our carbon emissions". And that really is what they did. Now, my family is not very religious, but compared to Philipa's family we're practically orthodox. I'd say there was about 15 minutes of seder and about 60 minutes of how we were going to reduce our carbon emissions! Plus, you know you're at a pretty relaxed seder when you look around and realize that you're going to have to avoid most of the desserts- especially the very non-kosher looking brownies! But not to worry, I didn't starve. I had salmon and matzo ball soup and my own nut cake for dessert, and I even got to go home with a free copy of An Inconvenient Truth, the Green Passover party favor. It was certainly an experience, and I was doing alright until I got back home and realized that we hadn't sang any songs. Then I got upset. But even that has been set right now- I called home during both seders and got to sing along via telephone. So now I feel satisfied.

Other than Passover, in the past couple days I bought new sneakers, watched an entire British comedy series called Absolute Power (FANTASTIC! You should all see it), and went to the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) and saw a great exhibit from the Centre Pompedieu (sp?) in Paris which included an installation about Dog Day Afternoon with video clips from the actual robbery that the movie was based on, and interviews with the actual people involved. Best of all, I met up with my friend Carolin from W.A. She's in Melbourne working for the year and we went out to this really cool bar with her friends from work. Basically we just talked all evening, and she is a very cool person so it was really nice. We're probably going to hang out again tomorrow night, and maybe see Pan's Labyrinth, which I've wanted to see for a while but have avoided because I heard it was too upsetting for me to see alone.

So, overall things are going well. I'll try to get back in the swing of posting daily or at least every other day. I know you are all on the edge of your seats.

Love,
Emma