I HAVE THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!

The most exciting thing has happened to me!!!!!!!!! I got asked to go on March of the Living!!!!!

For those of you who don’t know what March of the Living is, I will explain the best I can. Basically, thousands of Jewish teenagers, their chaperones, and a small group of Holocaust survivors meet in Poland to re-create the march that the Nazis forced the Jews in concentration camps to do shortly before they were liberated. Thousands and thousands of Jews died on that short march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, and every year, a massive group of Jewish youth march together to remember the dead and remind the world that the future of the Jewish people still exists, despite the Nazis efforts to eradicate us. After spending 5 days in Poland, everyone travels to Israel in honor of Yom Hashoah (Israel Memorial Day) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel Independence Day). If that wasn’t a good enough explanation, you can visit the March of the Living website and read more about it in depth here.

This was a huge honor to be asked and I am so flattered. Every single person I have talked to says that the March is absolutely life changing. I have already started reading some of the material from past years and I can’t believe that in a few months I am going to be actually at some of the places I have read about in Holocaust literature for so long. I have been to Israel before in 2005), but I have never been to Poland. Also, I just can’t believe that I will be IN Israel on its 60th Anniversary!

This is also exciting for me on another level. Many of you know about my interest in historical fiction (books like The Red Tent or Da Vinci Code where the author takes, and my plan to eventually write several historical fiction novels of my own, including one having to do with the Holocaust. I am hoping that seeing firsthand for myself many of the places and sites that I know I’d like to write about will spur me into action towards actually sitting my ass down and writing the book. I will probably never have the chance to be given a trip to Poland ever again so I plan on taking full advantage of this opportunity and learning and absorbing as much as I can while I’m there.

I know this isn’t something I would usually blog about (this couldn’t be further away from reality tv or weekend vacations), and I know that this trip isn’t for a long, long time (I will be gone for two weeks, April 29th til May 11th) but I am SO excited about it and wanted to tell as many of you as possible, hence the blog post. I will have a computer with me and will be posting live blog updates every night from Poland and Israel so you all will be able to read about what I’m doing and experiencing every day. When it gets closer I will obviously be able to give you the link and other details.

Words cannot express how excited I am about this opportunity. But it is a few months away and for now, Biggest Loser is calling my name. Before I go I want to say congrats and give a big mazel to Jeremy, who passed his Series 7 test today! He has been studying ridiculously hard for the past few weeks (something I didn’t even know was possible for him to do) and his hard work paid off. Now he is a Real Financial Advisor (all caps). I hope that doesn’t mean I have to start paying him for advice.

I am off. I hope your day was as great as mine was!