30 things for 30 days for 30th birthday

I am turning 30.

There's no one who is more surprised by this happening than I am.  Although I've had lots of notice, starting tomorrow, there will only be 30 days until my 30th birthday.  I am going to continue a trend started by two great people.  Seth Jones began his 30/30/30 celebration by blogging about his experiences making a better environment and baking a pie (among other awesome things) http://303030-seth.blogspot.com.  Check it out!

Famously, another great friend, Jeanice Gantus, began her 30 to 30 celebration by trying something new every day and posting her adventures on facebook.  She has done fun things like go shopping as a man and send a drink to a random person at a bar.  You should be friends with her on facebook if you're not already.  You won't regret it.

Following in these 30 year old's footsteps, I think it's a great idea to try a new experience for each of the 30 days before I turn 30.  I want to use the time to do a few things:
1. Try out new things;
2. Actually do things I've been wanting to do; and
3. Reflect on what a fortunate 29 years I have had through charity work.

It's tough to think of ideas, but count on checking them out for the next 30 days!

To prepare, I began thinking of things I had already done by the time I am 30.  I came up with 200.  I encourage everyone to make a personal list and share it!  Here it goes:

1.       Get a BS in Engineering, a JD and an MBA

2.       Go Parasailing

3.       Make sushi

4.       Shoot a gun (and hit a clay pigeon).... and hold a bigger gun

5.       Camp out at a 3 day music festival

6.       Camp in the woods

7.       Learn to box

8.       Learn to play piano

9.       Learn to play the guitar and ukulele

10.   Write a song

11.   Publish a scholarly article

12.   Publish an op-ed in a newspaper

13.   See the Colbert Report live

14.   Visit 9 of 11 Disney theme parks (missing two in France)

15.   Go to the top of the Eiffel tower

16.   Go to the top of the Tokyo tower

17.   Go to the top of the Empire State Building

18.   See the London Bridge

19.   See the Arch du triomphe

20.   See musicals on Broadway

21.   Take a walk in Central Park – and go for a boat ride in the lake

22.   See a Yankees – Mets game

23.   See the Pyramids

24.   See an ancient Egyptian tomb

25.   Get a Turkish bath…. in Turkey

26.   Visit Jerusalem

27.   Swim in the dead sea

28.   See the Hong Kong light show

29.   Buy a stand up paddle board

30.   Kayak to the Mokulua Islands

31.   Windsurf

32.   Get a henna tattoo

33.   Have all you can eat sushi until I cry

34.   Sneak into the Paul Mitchell Estate and take a shower

35.   Place my handprints in Cher’s outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in LA

36.   Get back stage at a Matchbox 20/ Vervepipe concert

37.   Blog

38.   Keep a Journal

39.   Make a scrapbook

40.   Learn to knit

41.   Take a cruise

42.   Study Abroad

43.   Get drunk in Ireland

44.   Watch a sex show in Amsterdam

45.   Eat tapas in Spain

46.   Bake an apple pie

47.   Run a 5K

48.   Stroll the Santa Monica Pier

49.   Visit Delphi – the home of the Oracle

50.   Eat pizza in Naples

51.   Bathe in hot springs in Ischia

52.   See the Coliseum

53.   Receive something in the mail that’s not wrapped

54.   Live in Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, and New York

55.   Wine taste in the finger lakes

56.   Wine taste in Napa

57.   Have lunch with Warren Buffet in Omaha (and pretend to steal his wallet)

58.   Have lunch at Google

59.   Buy Stocks

60.   Buy a home (2 condos in 2005-2006… oops)

61.   Drive a convertible

62.   Hike Diamond Head

63.   Surf in Waikiki

64.   Party in South Beach

65.   Make 6 figures

66.   Pledge a sorority

67.   Eat raw horsemeat

68.   See the Rocketts at Radio City Music Hall

69.   Ride the Maglev train in China

70.   Do a high ropes course

71.   Glass blowing

72.   Have dinner at Per Se

73.   Gamble in Las Vegas

74.   See a Cirque show in Vegas

75.   See the Grand Canyon

76.   Stay overnight at Mcmenamins in Portland, OR

77.   Ski

78.   Get suspended from school (in 8th grade)!

79.   Try a Murder case

80.   Water Ski

81.   Volunteer at an orphanage in Croatia

82.   Feed worms to my pet Jackson Chamelion

83.   Feed chocolate covered raisins to my pet peacock

84.   Swim in the Makapu’u tide pools

85.   Whale watch

86.   Swim with Jellyfish

87.   Swim with Manatees

88.   Be a knife salesman

89.   Be a part of a class action lawsuit

90.   See Cher in concert

91.   See Michael Jackson in concert

92.   Bill over 2000 hours as a first year associate at a New York law firm

93.   See a ballet in Russia

94.   See Lenin’s tomb

95.   Visit the Hermitage

96.   Visit the Met, Moma, Museum of Natural History, and Guggenheim

97.   Visit the National Air and Space museum

98.   Watch Obama’s inauguration

99.   Attend a rally (to restore sanity)

100.            Stay in the Hamptons

101.            Visit a hutong

102.            Tour the Kremlin

103.            Visit Auschwitz

104.            Eat Kielbasa and pierogi in Poland

105.            See Mao’s tomb

106.            Fly to Guam

107.            Get my hair braided in Jamaica

108.            Go to space camp

109.            Go to Opry Land

110.            Visit Memphis (but not see Graceland)

111.            Tour the museum of Rock and Roll

112.            See the San Diego Zoo

113.            Drink Tequila in Tijuana underage

114.           Have a best friend

115.             Eat a sandwich with coleslaw and french fries (Primanti Bros.)

116.            Eat a lutherburger (burger between krispy kreme)

117.            Eat a hamdog (hotdog wrapped in hamburger deep fried w/ bacon and cheese)

118.            Eat bugs

119.            White water raft in Norway

120.            Eat a waffle, mussels, and fries in Belgium

121.            Tour the EU

122.            Tour the UN

123.            Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge

124.            Eat a Krispy Kreme in one bite

125.            Win an essay contest

126.            Win a mother daughter look alike contest

127.            Visit the world’s biggest Pokemon store in Tokyo

128.            Feel an earthquake

129.            Be in a hurricane (7) – Iwa, Iniki, Charley, Francis, Jeanne, Fay, Irene

130.            See a tornado

131.            Study Japanese for six years

132.            Learn to make homemade tomato sauce from Italians

133.            Dye my hair pink

134.            Learn to swing dance

135.            Learn to tap dance

136.            Go in a hot tub in the snow

137.            Drive a snow mobile

138.            Drive a jet ski

139.            Drive an ATV

140.            Sit in first class

141.            Made an emergency landing

142.            Get my eyebrows threaded

143.            Do Bikram Yoga

144.            Eat lunch with a homeless person

145.            Fly in a 4 person airplane (cessna) and hold the controls

146.            Do a famous pizza tour in Brooklyn

147.            Visit the statue of liberty

148.            Eat honey from a honeycomb

149.            Ride in a stunt car

150.            Try out to be on the first season of “The Apprentice”

151.            Drive a boat

152.            Go tubing

153.            Took a lie detector test (and almost tricked the FBI!)

154.            Watch a live taping of a Nickelodeon show

155.            Got a speeding ticket for going 96…. in a 75 L

156.            Take a boatride on a Fjord

157.            Drive a stick

158.            Visit Niagara Falls

159.            Go paintballing

160.            Dance at a foam party

161.            Walk on the Great wall of China

162.            Stand in Tiananmen square

163.            Smoke a Cuban cigar

164.            Watch the sun rise

165.            Swim with sharks

166.            Get a Chiropractic adjustment

167.            Get an MRI

168.            Dance in a mosh pit

169.            Conduct the Honolulu symphony

170.            Crowd surf

171.            Get thrown off a school bus (for throwing peanut butter)

172.            Be an Imagineer

173.            Be the last guest at Epcot

174.            Pass the Patent bar, NY bar, and FL bar.

175.            Listen to the Dalai Lama speak

176.            Meet Hillary Clinton

177.            Watch the senate floor

178.            Walk to an active volcano

179.            Visit the remains of Pompeii

180.            Off-road in a Jeep

181.            Walk on a black sand beach

182.            Walk through a lava tube

183.            Learn to dance hula

184.            Go apple picking

185.            Go on an airboat ride through the everglades

186.            Eat Kangaroo

187.            Take a mud bath

188.            Drive over the Golden Gate Bridge

189.            Make a Haku Lei

190.            Be a model at the mall

191.            Paddle in an outrigger canoe

192.            Get quoted in the newspaper

193.            Get a Thai massage

194.            Ride a horse

195.            Get a kiss on the cheek from Jerry Springer

196.            Hold a baby owl

197.            Train at a Japanese Dojo

198.            Catch a fish to keep as a pet

199.            Crash a wedding

200.            Fall in love

Meatball

Oversized ugly sweaters, small dogs, thick bottle glasses, and meatballs.

You may think this was a list of homey items that remind you of grandma and grandpa.  Nope.  They're a list of things that are trendy in New York.  

Okay, Shaina.  We know about how hipsters dress and how people like to carry little dogs in purses, but meatballs?

Yes.  Meatballs.  

I finally was able to make it to The Meatball Shop in the lower east side.  The only reason we actually got in (on a Wednesday night) was because Jess and Mikel got there 2 hours early to wait for a table and I was 30 min late.

I've heard the hype about this place through friends, co-workers, commercials, and taxi cabs.  Meatball seems to be the new bacon.

Sitting down at a small table, we were given 4 glasses with water, one glass with dry erase markers, and laminated menus.  The "customizable" menu has check boxes so guests can mark how they'd like their meatballs or, in Mike's case, to mark and order every single option on the menu.

I decided to try a variety of sliders:

- Spicy pork with spicy meat sauce

- Greek lamb with mushroom sauce

- Veggie with pesto sauce

- Beef with tomato sauce

The sliders looked small and common.  But, biting into the spicy pork meatball, I realized how soft and delicious the buns were.  The flavorful meatballs and sauce pleased me with each bite.  At $3 a piece, the sliders initially seemed like a good deal until I was still starving after eating 4.

Fortunately, I was able to control my hunger with dessert....design your own ice cream sandwich!  The sandwich was in the form of a slider but about 3 times the size.  Mine had one peanut butter cookie, one snickerdoodle, and white chocolate caramel ice cream.

I Sea Christmas

I've spent many Christmas days at the beach.... but always in Hawaii.

This year, despite the fact that we were on long island, Mike still wanted to spend Christmas at the beach.

He was the ONLY person who got in the water.  But, he did a good job and even caught a wave!!

Besides being in the sea, Mike's Sicilian grandparents make traditional seafood christmas eve dinner.

Shrimps, Sea Urchin, and Baby Octopus!

Merry Christmas!

Amazon

We've all received this email:  "Dear Shaina Stahl, we thought you might be interested in the following items..."

Dear Amazon, NO.  I'm not interested in ANY of those items.  You have never ONCE sent me an item recommendation that I have EVER been interested in.

Amazon's problem is that people frequently use Amazon to buy gifts or novelty items.  Somehow, their service cannot seem to distinguish what might be a gift, what someone might actually be interested in, or what someone will buy once and never buy again.

No, Amazon, I don't want to buy a fake moustache.  I JUST BOUGHT 36 OF THEM FROM YOU LAST MONTH!  I'M GOOD FOR A MINUTE!

It is the season where I am reminded of why Amazon has such outlandish recommendations for me.  I sign up to buy christmas gifts for kids in need.  Last year I bought a little girl a barbie dreamhouse.  Amazon has been recommending barbie DVD's, figurines, and panties to me ever since.

The little note from Samantha said:

Dear Santa:
How are you doing?  My name is Samantha and I am 6 years old.  I'm asking if you can get me a dollhouse because I am a good girl.
Thank you,
Samantha

She even drew a picture of a "well-endowed Santa" probably hoping to boost his self esteem and make him want to buy her more presents:

This year, I had to buy toys for two brothers.

Dear Santa: My name is Justin.  I'm writing to you because I want some toys for christmas.  The present that I like spider man toys.  Thank you for read my letter.

Dear Santa: My name is Jeremiah, I like some presents from you for christmas.  I like spider man toys.  I like to much that toys.  Thank you very much for read my letter.

I ended up getting them each a spider man web shooter, spider man boots for Jeremiah and a backpack/ sleeping bag for Justin and they also each got some toys.

I just logged onto Amazon to buy some soap.  "Shaina, we think you might like...." and there it was.  A spiderman cape.  Yes, Amazon, I would like a spiderman cape, but really I'm here to buy a bar of Dial.

Egypt

An Emory Law student was sitting in his hostel room during his internship in the summer before his 3L year.  A group of men stepped into his room through the open door and placed handcuffs on him.  "Is this about the police report I filed last week?" he asked.  The men assured him that it was and that the handcuffs, blindfold, and large van with shades were standard procedure.  The student knew deep down that this was not true - the people he worked with at his internship had told him all too similar stories.  Having no clue that the next four months would culminate in his being traded for 25 men after extreme efforts by the president, ex-president, and countless others, he allowed the men to take him to jail.

That student is Ilan Grapel, and I got to meet him last night.

I frequently try to avoid places with names like "The Yale Club" but when Emory was hosting an event titled, "Hear from a law student imprisoned in Egypt," I knew I'd go.  The Yale Club actually had quite a lovely library.  Perhaps I'll become a member and take up squash and start "doing lunch."

After sitting down in the 5th row with no one sitting in front of me in the first four (it's like we were still in law school - cool kids all sit in the back), Ilan sat down at the table right in front of me.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but he was just a cool normal kid.

I've never been face to face with someone who has been through this sort of imprisonment.  I don't think I've ever heard of it outside of movies (besides John McCain, of course).  I'm not sure why I expected someone who fought in the IDF and was wounded in Lebanon to cry like a baby and show extreme signs of PTSD.  I'm not sure why I expected tears and emotion.  I realize I thought it would be what I would have seen in the movies - something a bit too extreme.  But, even with that understanding, I was surprised at just how nonchalant Ilan was.

He began telling his story by setting the stage in his room in a hostel in Egypt.  "It was much worse than my jail cell," he began.  Nervous chuckles swept through the audience.  "No.  Really.  The hostel was horrible and disgusting."

He laughed as he described his first interrogation by the Egyptians who accused him of espionage.  He did not understand why he, a joint Israeli-American, who fought for the IDF, a wounded soldier, fluent in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, working for an NGO in Egypt, was thought to be a spy.  His best defense was that he openly carried his Israeli passport and that all information about him was freely available on facebook and the internet.  Would a spy do that?  Wouldn't a spy do that?  Either way it didn't seem to help him.

Neither did his public defender who apparently never said a word.  His hired private attorney did no better and sat through each interrogation taking sips of coffee and only speaking up at the very end saying, "you should let Ilan go."  The interrogator frequently laughed and let Ilan answer that question.  "I would miss your face too much," the interrogator would say.  Ilan took this as a compliment.

Ilan was kept in solitary confinement, sometimes going 2 weeks without being allowed to talk to a single person.  There was a guard present at all times but he was not allowed to speak to Ilan.  At first, Ilan was given nothing and then they decided to allow him 2 books every two weeks.

The first two books Ilan got didn't really help.  One was a book on homosexuality and the other a book put out by Israel that detailed what happened to previous Israelis who were captured and tortured.  I'm sure that was uplifting.  His mom finally began sending books and he received about 20% of them.  He also appealed to the law school to send him casebooks since the 2 book a week limit did not differentiate between a 20 page book or a 2000 page case law book.  Those books never made it through.

Obviously, solitary confinement for 4 months with a limited number of books was terrible.  Although he wasn't physically abused, Ilan mentioned that some activists are trying to include solitary confinement in International conventions on torture.  For some reason, he didn't mention adding reading for law school to the convention.  Go figure.

The Egyptians were very clear in their reasoning behind no physical harm - they wanted him to look good when they put him in front of the world.  They also fed him "very well."  In fact, they forced him to eat well threatening that if he did something stupid like a hunger strike that embarrassed them, he would regret it.  So Ilan sat, and waited, and ate, and read, and thought about what a nice solitary jail cell he had.  No one told him of the riots and killings between Egyptians and Israelis.  No one told him that Obama and Jimmy Carter were calling on his behalf.  No one told him that they were preparing a trade - One Ilan Grapel for 25 Egyptians.  He was under the impression that Israel didn't want those 25 prisoners anyway.  If you didn't want them, WHY are you holding them?!


All the stories about the still present Egyptian secret police brought back feelings of one of the scariest stories of my life.

I visited Egypt after a 2 week trip to Israel - arriving on El Al Israeli airlines.  After two days in Cairo, a friend and I decided to take the overnight train to Luxor to see some tombs.  Purchasing tickets took about 10 minutes but it took them about an hour to give us our passports back.  I didn't mind waiting in the train station because I was fascinated when, at 5pm, the station essentially stopped, laid down prayer mats, and began praying towards Mecca.

Waiting on the train platform late that evening, we were approached by a young woman.  She did not look like the other Egyptian woman we saw who almost always wore a head scarf.  She was wearing a tight-fitting sparkly top, had her hair curled, was wearing full makeup and high-heeled boots.  "Are you Americans?" She asked.  "Yeah."  We answered.  "I am a student studying English.  I like America, do you like Egypt?"

A student wanting to practice her English!  Yes, we understood.  The happened everywhere overseas.  We continued to answer her questions for a minute before she took out her cell phone.  "I like you, can I take a picture?" She asked.  I love being in pictures!  I darted over to my friend and smiled for the camera.  I noticed he looked away.

"Thank you!" She said and continued, "now one like this."  She then pointed her cell phone in front of each of our faces and took a head-on individual shot.  We continued to ask her questions but her English deteriorated almost immediately.  She seemed to lose interest in us and quickly moved on.

That was weird.  That was really weird.  OMG what was that?  I began to freak out as the train finally arrived.  Why did she do that?  Was she really interested in foreigners?  Looking around, the entire platform was filled with foreigners.  Thinking about it, much of Cairo had been filled with foreigners - we weren't the first Americans she'd seen and wouldn't be the last.  She certainly didn't want our picture because of how attractive we were...  Getting on the train, relief set in that if it was something weird, it was in Cairo and I was going to be in Luxor.  I slept well on the 12 hour train ride.  My friend, I later found out, did not sleep as well.

I awoke just after 5am - about an hour before we were scheduled to arrive.  It was still dark out and the train was moving slowly and stopping periodically.  During one stop, all of the lights turned off.  My immediate reaction was to open our cabin door to see what was happening in the hall.  My hand was immediately smacked as my friend slammed the door shut and double locked it.  Now we were sitting in the dark.  "But, shouldn't we see what..."  "SHHHHHH!"  So I shhhh'd.

The lights came on and we eventually pulled into Luxor on time.  Bleary-eyed, after fighting off some aggressive hostel owners, we finally arrived at a place along with another pair of traveling students.  There were only two rooms left.  Of course, we weren't even spending the night (or we would have found a hotel).  We were using the hostel as luggage storage for the day.  When the owner told us he had one room with an in-room bathroom for $8.50/night or one room with the public bathroom for $8.00/night, my friend and I sighed and sadly decided we would let the traveling pair who were actually going to be sleeping there have the nicer room with the private bath.  To our surprise, they REALLY wanted to save the 50 cents and were thrilled that we allowed them to have the cheaper room.

The room was awful.  I won't describe it because a picture is worth...

 


I just laid down to take a quick nap when my friend began to tell me his fears.  He had been up throughout the night as the train stopped in many deserted Egyptian cities between Cairo and Luxor.  He furiously checked his blackberry and found out that then President George W. Bush was arriving in Egypt that same day and there had been some protests.  In addition, American soldiers had been captured on the Syrian border with Israel.  It was not a good day for Americans in the middle east.  They had taken our passports for an hour while we bought our train tickets.  They knew we were American.  They had our picture taken by "tits mcgee" (as we affectionately called her).  They probably had pictures of all Americans on that train and during one of the stops in mid-country-Egypt, rebels were going to board the train and grab all the Americans based on the pictures and kill us on the night of Bush's arrival.  (Hence the shut door when the power went out).  It was an obvious plan.  Why didn't they grab us on this trip down?  Maybe they were waiting for the trip back.

Maybe we let our imagination run a little bit wild, but I was too scared to even stay in the hostel room.  It certainly looked like a good place to die.  I put on my head-scarf and sunglasses and went straight to the Egypt Air store to buy a plane ticket back to Cairo. No way was I getting back on the train just to get murdered.  Once we had tickets (for an hour long flight on an 80% empty 747), I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of Luxor.

I never found out any more information about what happened.  I told the story to others who had just listened to Ilan speak.  No one seemed surprised.