crazy week and another one ahead

Source: thisiscolossal.com via Johanna on Pinterest

Amazing art: Analog Double Exposure Photographs by Florian Imgrund


... we started the long journey of hunting for an apartment - I can´t believe we came to this point already and I can´t wait to meet the right one :) we are beyond excited and nervous to learn the market get to know all the areas we like and at the end find the place we can make to our future home... today was our first visit to a potential apartment and tomorrow will be the second... we are looking in the same city where we live right now and I am slowly getting to know how this works here in Israel. Since Sh. is busy with jobs, I did all the phone calls til now and organized all the meetings. I must say it was not easy, but it worth the trying (I must be honest: I hate calling unknown people on the phone and procrastinate it soo much), since I becoming more and more israeli :) - a too polite israeli (oximoron) :) anyway, we are at the beginning of the overwhelming process and hope for the best!

...tomorrow morning 6.30 is my very first open water sea swim at a free training session with the endure team coach in Rishon. I can´t believe there is only one more week left until my first triathlon. I didn´t train as hard as I planned, but did much more strength training and a lot of swimming (pushed my limits at every training)... I miss long distance running a lot (I only ran once this week til now) but the days are too short lately. I am so excited about this event - my main goal is to have fun and share this amazing experience with all the amazing women out there.

... after the early morning triathlon training and apartment watching we are going to a friends wedding - I can´t wait!

... this weekend is a longer one (we are not working on sunday, since it is Shavuot) - hope we will rest some more...

... there is a lot going on with design projects for both of us and hopefully these things develop into something bigger...

... i got my sewing machine, but didn´t find time yet to try it... hope it will happen soon...

... soon we will have friends visiting from Germany/ Hungary - and I can´t wait to have a little holiday at home with them :) just want to walk them around in Tel Aviv and spend a great weekend together in the north. :)

...summer is here. there is no way back. tomorrow I will taste the salt of the sea... good night lovelies!

busy days...

biking...

Life is so hectic these days... I will tell you more tomorrow...

song of the week

my favorite german band :) Ro Shan - a good friend of mine and his band on the way to become famous! Love this song!

Lately I love...

 new canvas shoes (found in the mens department of h&m in Budapest)

 kale kale and more kale (grown in my garden)

 breakfast with freshly squezzed orange juice, raw salad, kale fritatta, home made ciabatta and tehina

 salad with a lots of beets

 even for breakfast the day after

 wearing my Birkenstocks again...

biking to the beach and back with this guy :)

cooking this amazing pan-fried beans and kale recipe

watching this great movie - again and again

working with my friend R. in the same studio

that I could overcome my biggest fears and pet a bat in our office (look at my face -that´s real fear)... how the bats came into our office? That´s a crazy story... it turned out a month ago as 5 bat scientist from the University of Tel Aviv came to examine the special kind of bats who live in our office building (! - where else? directly next to my table outside in front of the window) Can you imagine how much I freaked up as I got to know that? I was waiting in the meeting room for the whole time as they caught 3 bats and put gps sensors on them and let them go back into the "natural habitat".... but last week the guys came back - caught more bats and explained to all of us why these bats are so useful and cute... mh... as one of the scientist guys talked during holding a bat in his hands, I came step by step closer and suddenly realized that I was standing 2 meters from a real bat... my heart was racing, but I thought this might be my only chance to confront myself with my trauma and touch this bat... so I took all my strength and did it. And it was not so bad! His back was really soft and fluffy and he smelled like food... So I hope it was a beginning of a beautiful friendship :)

 I so much want to organize a race like this one here in Israel:

new challenges for this summer

Source: southernpiphi.tumblr.com via Johanna on Pinterest

1. Sport:

a month after my marathon I am finally figured out what I am going to do next:

I will participate on the Women´s triathlon in Herzeliya on the 2nd of June in the sprint distance (750 swim, 20km bike, 5 km run). The race sounds like an amazing day with a lot of women of all kind of ages and backgrounds... I know it is gonna be awesome!

I really wanted to participate in a triathlon with Sh., but we have to be members of the triathlon association in Israel to do that and right now we will wait with that... til then we are biking twice a week together.

Watch this amazing video about the race  (even though it is in hebrew, you can get the feeling).
The race takes place in memory of Tamar Dvoskin, a triathlate, who started her path in sport in the first Women´s triathlon, and was killed in 1996 at the age of 21 in a hit and run accident while on a bike training ride. :( Her mom is the lady with the short hair who is so enthusiastic about seeing all this different girls and women (skinny, full, beginner, professional, moms, girls, grandmas etc.)expressing themselves in this event through sport.



Can´t wait! Right now my weekly training look like this: 3 running, 3 swimming, 2 biking sessions. It will be a big challenge though, to swim in in the Mediterranean Sea...

2. Learn how to sew on the sewing machine and make some fun projects.

Thanks to my mom I got my first sewing machine (which originally supposed to be a birthday present  last june from Sh.) and I sent it by post from Austria two weeks ago as I´ve been at my family in Hungary. Now it arrived and waiting to be picked up next week in the post office (in Israel they don´t deliver packages directly home because of security reasons).

I can´t wait to try it and sew some stuff I´ve been waiting to do forever... like making a few new jeans short from trousers I don´t wear...

3. Really get our own business started... 

The last few months since january(hm, is it almost half a year already?!) has been crazy at work...lot of overtime but a lot of great projects and excitement... the only downside is that other than marathon training, swimming, cooking, being with my husband and meeting friends, I almost din´t have time for anything... although I planned to have a portfolio website and lot of other things... I hope the summer will be a little bit more easygoing and I will have some time to organize and develop our little studio...

4. Find out where we want to raise our (future) children and buy a home... this will not happen only in this summer but we have to wake up and get started on this huge project...

5. Start painting again

Nir David Open Water Swimming Race Recap

After getting back home on friday from the Dead Sea, we went to carbo-load at Laboratorio di Pasta in Tel Aviv. We arrived at home very late and even we were so tired, we couldn´t have any excuses to pass on the next day´s race, because we promised two of my girls from my group to take them to the bus station. So saturday early morning we woke up and both of us left the house tired and a little grumpy. We traveled with a minibus with 20 people from our swimming group to participate in the open water championships in Nir David, in the north of Israel. 

We slept on the way and felt much better as we arrived to this amazing kibbutz. The place was full with swimmers, families, kids and spectators everywhere. Sh. didn´t have much time to get ready, because his race (5km masters) was starting in half an hour. I creamed him with suncream wrote his number and sent him with a big kiss to have a great race. It was the first time that he swam so long. I was so excited for him. He did an amazing job- 5 kms - and won the 2nd place in his age group. The course was 500m long back and fort 1000m, so he swam the loop 5 times. He said it was boring around 2000m but after 3500 he wouldn´t mind continuing even further than 5000, because he was in the flow :) 

After he finished it was our turn: the women´s master race started at 11:30. This is our group: me standing in on the right - the only one with the swimming cap already on my head...

we were waiting in the shade and  getting ready mentally ....

The race started crowded and it was not so easy to find my own pace in the first 200meters... also because one of my swimmer friends was really afraid of the fishes and open water so she kind of hung on me and I could feel her very close but slowly it started to be fun...

We were swimming together til the turning point with the girls... after that I started to speed up a little bit and have relatively more space to move froward.

I got hit a few more times, but all in all enjoyed the race very much. Sh. came along with us on the shore for the first loop and took some pictures... it was funny to see him every time i took a breath on the right side.

There were some other spectators along the way...

The only thing that bothered me were my googles - they were pushing my face after 1000 ms...and I couldn´t wait to take them off... during swim I was visualizing swimming in the ocean on the triathlon and my marathon... and it was an amazing experience. I could keep a good tempo and didn´t get too tired.

I swam the last 20 meters in butterfly in the memory of Nadav Shanal, the swim coach who died and for whom´s memory the race is organised every year. He was a butterfly swimmer.

I hit the finish bar and I was really happy to take off my googles. I did it!

Later it turned out that I swam the 2kms in 55:34 and won the 3rd place in my age group (from 6) :) So I even got a bronze medal! I was in shock :)

What an amazing day!!!! My first real open water race ( Crossing the kinnereth was an easy going 3.5swim, not a real race) in an amazing setting! It was definitely not the last one. :)

Weekend part 1: in the Desert

Some captures of our amazing independece day trip in the desert next to the Dead Sea.