My Chocolate Paradise

Exactly two days, eleven hours, and forty minutes ago, we went to a chocolate making workshop. The taste of icing may be permanently stuck on my tongue. It's in a kibbutz called Dafna, and in my opinion, it has the potential to out-do Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

First, we entered the chocolate store. All over the room there were chocolate shoes, footballs, teddy bears, and love hearts with all kinds of chocolate flavours. It got even better as we visited the museum.

The museum was only a room big, but you could see all the workers making chocolate through a glass wall. I was kind of hoping they would be short and orange with curly green hair, but oompa loompas or not, it was still awesome to watch the process of chocolate making. On the other side of the room, we could see the chocolate masterpieces - I had a few favourites.

After we had a look at the museum, we went to our chocolate workshop. A lady was waiting in a large room lined with tables. First, we were quizzed about the different types of chocolate, how to tell them apart, and its history. She let us taste chocolate without the sugar, and our reaction wasn't pretty.

Next, she scattered small, laminated drawings over the table. We picked our own, and I chose a cute, little mouse. The drawings were simple and easy to trace, which is exactly what we did with chocolate icing. We went over all the lines, and then filled the middle in with white chocolate, leaving just the outline.

While we waited for those to freeze, the lady squirted a thick strip of white chocolate across the table. She gave us a plate filled with sprinkles, another with coconut, and our own with four chocolate truffles. We got to decorate them. We rolled them into balls and dipped them in the white chocolate to stick our chosen toppings together. We could also keep them as cubes and just layer the top with the white chocolate, then design it with our leftover chocolate icing.

As we added the final touches to our truffles, our other creations had set. The lady called out our names and we came up to collect them - they turned out so well! We were sitting next some friendly americans, and we all joined in a celebratory picture.

Mission Impossible, Sort of.

Around a week ago, we went to another Escape Room in Rosh Pina ( a town in Israel. )
Since the last one was so fun, we decided to do a harder one at Inside Out.
We were in Paris, and our objective was to track down a terrorist group. According to the tape recorder I found in the second room; the terrorists had hidden a bomb. As part of the story, a recorded message from an agent informed us that we had to find it, put it in the 'Atomic Vault,' and quickly get in the bunker to avoid the explosion. After he finished explaining our mission, the sound of screaming and gunshots emitted from the tape recorder. Yikes.

First, we were on a 'train.' In that room we found a phone, which the lady running the Escape Room used to text us clues if we needed them. We managed to get out of that room pretty quickly.

The second room was the biggest and the hardest to escape from. There were lots of different spices in bowls on a table, and later we figured out that we had to smell them and compare them to the smell of some spices hidden in boxes. The spices in the bowls all had symbols sticking out of them. On the table, there was also a piece of paper with the symbols deciphered into numbers. We then used those numbers to open the lock under the table.

There were many different objects and things in the room, but some of them were just decoys to throw us off. I found the tape recorder in that room. Our last room was all about teamwork. In short, it was really tricky but we managed to find the bomb and put it in the vault. We finished in around an hour. 

Yay!

The Blood Moon...

There's a first time for everything.

A few nights ago, our entire family gathered around to watch the Lunar Eclipse. We walked over to our cousins, and they set up a telescope for a better view. Unfortunately, when I looked through all I saw was a reflection of my eyelash. It was my first Lunar Eclipse and the longest of the century. In between watching the moon, we had snacks and played games outside to pass the time.

It was a very long process but completely worth it. There were no clouds in the sky, and it was surrounded by shiny little stars. At first, the moon was its normal colour, but then it slowly started fading away and turning orange. By the time we went home, it was bright red,

and later it gradually turned back to grey.

There is a big difference between a Lunar Eclipse and a Solar Eclipse. A Solar Eclipse happens during the day and is when the Moon eats the Sun. A Lunar Eclipse happens at night and is when the Earth separates the Moon and the Sun - probably because they were trying to eat each other. The moon passes behind Earth and in front of the Sun, so the planets are aligned closely, with the Earth stuck in the middle.

We were extremely lucky; 

the Lunar Eclipse only happened in 

Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean Countries!