SoCal

Today I was on the phone with Anders, a colleague. He was used to live here in LA, but he is now living in Atlanta, GA. When we finish to speak about work we reminded to each other the time when we were working in the same office, here in LA. The project was, for most of the time, a moving mess. Average office hours were 9AM - 9PM. But we had also a great time. And he told me how much he is missing the Southern California. Here they call it SoCal. I couldn't agree more. For what I have seen, in US there are really a lot of boring cities. Here it is definitely different. The landscape is really amazing. This was today at lunch time. Today is the last day of the month, and the rent was due. So I went to the bank to pay it. And on the way to the bank, I couldn't miss a stop at the pier to take a couple of pictures. So this is the Santa Monica bay from the Hermosa Beach pier. The yellow SUV is the one of the life guards, but no Pamela Anderson inside, sorry ...... and this is a funny picture. A shadow of myself and of my bycicle, on the pier ...I know, I am lucky to live here. I have to admit it. I don't think it will be easy to move out of here. I tried a couple of times. Three years ago I was supposed to move before to Atlanta, GA and last year to NYC. It never happened. And I am still enjoying the SoCal.

JENNIFER & HILARY

This is an old story. Actually, not that old. And it is story in 2 episodes. The first episode is old, almost 1 month old. The second episode is from today. Let's start from the second episode. Today I finally found the time to go to the Post Office in Redondo (Redondo Beach, CA) ...... and send the parcel to Jennifer & Hilary. In the parcel a small present from Tina & I. A couple of CDs of Israel Kamakawiwo`ole. Wonderful CDs. If you want to listen some good Hawaiian music don't miss them. They are "Facing Future" and "Alone in IZ World" ...So you will wonder who are Jennifer & Hilary, and why am I sending them 2 CD of Hawaiian music. Here comes the first part of the story. Jennifer & Hilary are basically our Hawaiian heroes. They are living in Oregon, but they are our Hawaiian heroes. They made a miracle happen in front of me. They saved all my Hawaii pictures. This is the way it went. Last day of the trip. We dropped the rental car. Took the bus to the Kona Airport Terminal. While I was doing Check In, I couldn't find anymore the camera. I couldn't believe it. All the pictures of the red lava and all the rest. I rushed back to the bus. I asked to the driver if he found my camera. Nothing. Back to the rental car. Nothing. I begged the guys who cleaned the car. I told them they could even keep the camera, I just cared about the pictures, I just wanted the memory stick. They swear at me they didn't find anything. I felt so stupid. Loose the camera with my best pictures ever. I went back to the terminal. Nothing again. Tina & I were wondering if all that bad luck had a meaning. We repeated to our self that everything happens for a reason. I felt stupid, but whatever, my memories of those days were more important of few stupid pictures. We were there in the terminal when these 2 ladies, run towards us smiling and shaking their hands. They had the camera in their hands. They basically found it on the Rental Car bus we took together and they were looking for us in the terminal. Actually they told us that they looked at the pictures and they were amazed of what we saw. Tina & I were sooooooooooooo happy. More than happy. And we took also this picture ... an extremely happy Tina squeezed between Jennifer & Hilary, our Hawaii heroes ...What can I say? Nothing. That I am so glad that there are still people like Jennifer & Hilary, who can find a $300 camera and instead of putting it in the pocket, they go around the terminal to look for the owner. They make me proud to be a human being. Everything happens for a reason. And I am glad that I almost lost my camera.

COPAY, ICE & REST

At the end the Doctor gave me the easiest medical advise ever. "Put some ice and take it easy". The easiest medical advise ever cost me $35. Here in US they call it "copay". Basically you pay already lots of money for medical insurance. But on top of that every time a doctor visits you, there are fees on top of fees. When I spoke about it with my dentist, she told me that she truly believes insurances are suckers. They make a very dirty business out of people health problems. What I know is that I don't really want to get seriously sick here in US. I have the feeling that the insurance will find a way to pull out of my pocket every single penny I have. But that is the dark side, I guess. The bright side is that after today's visit I really feel relieved. I appreciated how lucky I am when everything in my body works perfectly. There are so many things that can go wrong, or hurt. And like a miracle everything works. The wrists, the knees, the tendons, the feet, the heart, the liver, the brain, and all the other tiny pieces that I can't even name in Italian. Really amazing. For me it is enough to be sick for one day to realize how lucky I am. The doctor told me that even if the tendon hurts definitely I didn't tear it. Most likely I just strained it. And because in the tendon there is no blood, it takes a long time to heal. Apparently 3 months is a normal recovery time for a Achilles tendon. I learned something also today ... :) In the meantime I just need to play with ice and take it easy. Maybe surfing is good. Most of the time, I keep my feet in the cold water ... :D

MY OSCAR AWARDS

This is the nite of the Oscars. I am in LA. Hollywood is here. Just 20 minutes ride from Hermosa. But of course I won't go there. No way that I will spend my night there. A way to see it is that nobody really invited me there, and I am not used to go to a party if I am not invited. An other way to see it is that tonight I prefer to cook with my Tina some couscous with vegetables and enjoy a red wine. An other way again to see it, is that anyways tonight those guys in the Kodak Theatre won't give the Oscar awards according to my taste. My taste? OK. I know, I am little bit biased. But this is my vote. Best movie ever made: Pulp Fiction. Best Leading Actor: John Travolta (Pulp Fiction). Best Supporting Actor: Samuel L Jackson (Pulp Fiction). Best Supporting Actress: Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction). Best Soundtrack: Pulp Fiction. Best director: Quentin Tarantino (Pulp fiction). Best Script Ever: Pulp Fiction. Best Scene: Royal with Cheese (Pulp Fiction). OK, for the best scene ever, you can judge ... ... Ok, there are other scenes which are great. But to me this is the best. What else!? Mmmm ... I almost forgot. If you really want to give an award to Best Foreign Movie, the best one can only be Italian. I have three movies in mind. La Vita e' bella - Life is Beautiful (Oscar in 1998). Mediteranneo (Oscar award in 1991). Ladri di Biciclette - Bicycle Thieves. It is the masterpiece of the Italian neorealism. It is a B&W 1948 movie. Probably I would vote for the last one. Yes. Ladri di Biciclette is probably the best movie ever. After Pulp fiction, of course ... :D

MAGRITTE in LA

A way to see LA is this. LA is big. Full of freeways. Trapped between the pollution and the crime and it is just waiting for the "Big One". An other way to see it is this. LA is in California. It is an enormous and exciting melting pot. The pollution is much worse in most Italian cities than here. It is pretty safe to me, who most of the time I am leaving the door of my place wide open. OK, for the "Big One", I can't do much ... I will wait for that like anybody else. In the meantime I am surfing. An other thing that it is not debatable is that in LA doesn't have the big museums of NYC. It is true. But at least here the weather is so good that most of the time, when you get at the main gate of any museum, you wonder if it is really worthwhile to spend the day inside. This is pretty much what happened to me today. I went to the LACMA (LA County Museum of Art). Two exhibitions are running now. One is dedicated to Magritte. The other is dedicated to Picasso. I took this picture at the entrance of the Magritte exhibition ... I was ready to step into the museum, and there you go. I changed my mind. I bought a coffee, I got THE ECONOMIST that I had in the car and I spent all day in the garden of the museum following the moving shadow of a palm while reading my magazine and spilling the coffee on my T-Shirt ... :D I learned something. Basically, in few years we won't carry anymore any bills and coin, and not even credit cards. We will just use our cellphone to pay. I doooonno. I will go to see the two exhibition in few weeks, if they will still be there. What I am sure is that they won't accept my cellphone to pay ... :D

CARINE & HER DREAM

One of my (many) dreams is to take a backpacking journey around the world. Honestly, when I was a broke student I didn't even think something like this could even be possible. The money was the biggest concern, I guess. But since I started working I understood that it is possible. You "just" need to set your priorities and save some money for it. And of course you need to have the guts to take off. In my backpacking vacations, I met also a lot of people who did it. It can be 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. In Argentina, last year, I even met a couple of Swiss guys who are travelling for 3 years now, doing small works and using the money they saved they are basically travelling forever. Today is Carine's time. Carine is a friend from Israel. Very funny the way we met. She was a student in a training I was giving in Israel and basically she slept at the bottom of the class for most of the time of the 4 days class. After we became also colleagues and friends. I didn't hear form her in the last 2 years, but Brian & Nataf told me she decided to take a sabbatical and travel. And we got in contact again. She doesn't have a blog, but she sends pictures to her friends. I am lucky enough to be in the distribution list. This is one of the picture she sent ...Amazing, place isn't it!? The picture is from the Maldives. Since the begin of the year, she has already been to Sri Lanka, Maldives and now she is in India. I love people like Carine, who are able to transform their dreams into reality. To me they are a model. And one day I will do it as well.

ONE ITALY

My country, Italy, just 10 months after the general elections almost lost its prime minister. This week we had an important vote on the way to continue our foreign policy. The government didn't manage to see its policy go through the Parliament. The prime minister resigned. Probably he will have back in his position next week, but with a better agreement with the parties in the Government. The usual Italian political mess. Today I was reading all this on the paper and I felt so useless. Where the h*ll my vote went? I donno ... :O So I decided to look to something able to lift my Italian soul and I looked into youtube. So here it is, one of my favorite videos with one of my favorite song as soundtrack ...... if you don't follow soccer it doesn't matter. I am sure you will feel anyways, with this video, the energy of that day. That day we were on the top of the world. But you know what? I love my country even if after 10 months our prime minister resigned. It is a great country. Too many Italians, though. Ehehehe. And all of of us have a different idea. That's one of our problems. But really who cares. This is Italy. Like in the U2 song, there is only ONE. One Italy. Either I love or I don't love it. And I love it.

CREDIT CARDS in US

Something that I was told, since I was a kid, and that I always believed in is that "money are not for free". You need to work if you want some of them. So when I saw this flier in my bank today I didn't really believe it ... $50 for free if you open a new no fee credit card account ...... of course I didn't believe it. But the Bank Teller told me there was no trick. You just need to spend some money with it in the first billing cycle. After that you can forget about the card. Just don't close the account, otherwise it will hurt your credit history. $50 are not going to change my life. But if they are there I can offer some beer to my friends in the weekend. So I decided to go for it. And now I just hope not to have any surprise. All this made also think that you can't really understand what this country is all about if you don't understand how credit cards work here. Back in Europe people is using credit card or debit cards in the same way, at least this is the way I did. I probably preferred to use the credit card to have the "points", that I could convert in gifts or "airline miles". Here it is all dan other ball park. I still remember a colleague explaining why here credit cards don't have any annual fee. He tried to explain something I couldn't understand "Credit Card companies will make money on your debts". People is living on credit cards debts. And credit card companies are living on people debts. I still remember how shocked I was when I moved here to US the first time and I saw all these ads about debt recovery. I didn't even think that a family could live on debts. But here is it is normal. And I believe this trend is moving to Europe as well. At least to Italy, for what I heard from my parents and friends. So, if you you will be patient in few years they will offer you also a no fee credit card with $50 bonus entry. Just watch out not to overspend with it ... :D

BOWLING

Bowling. I haven't played for months now. Probably one year. I never been particularly good, but I like it. So when today Leif asked if I wanted to join him, I jumped in the car and we went to play bowling with some other friends. Of course, I had also my camera. I even managed to win a game, but definitely my style is the best ...... BTW ... Leif hates the "ghost style" pictures that I took ... ehehehe. This is what I love of my life in LA, I have friends here and I can have a normal life also outside the office hours.

GETTING HIGH

Getting high. I know it sounds exciting, but it is not. I mean in a way it is. In our case it is costing us the sink out of order for 4 days. The sink is the one in the kitchen and since I moved in, it has never been particularly nice, but in the last months it really deteriorated. Basically it was peeling off. I never really understood why. I have never seen a sink peeling off. We kind of complained with the landlord. And he found the solution. He did call the worldwide famous RAINBOW TUBS to repaint it ...... yep you got it right ... repaint it !!!I didn't even know it was possible to repaint a sink. American miracles. They are able to throw away anything even if it is brand new, but apparently they have special techniques, unknown to the rest of the planet, to recover the sinks and tubs. Here is our sink job expert in the middle of the miracle. Our places is still smelling like a car body shop after the repainting of an entire car. But it is not that bad. It gives a kind of a high ... :D ... the only problem now is that we can't clean the dishes and the stink of the non cleaned dishes will soon be overwhelming, unless we will decide to use the bathroom tub to clean the dishes.

DRUM CIRCLE

Are really simple the things that make me truly happy. One of them is definitely music. And playing music is something even better. And playing drums is just perfect. Not sure how it works, but allows me to release so much energy. That's why I simply love when in the Hermosa Beach pier there is, once a month, the drum circle. It is a non-profit organization that organizes it. I know it is every 3rd Sunday of the month at the Hermosa Beach pier but normally I bounce into it by mistake, and I simply love it. The nice thing is that they collect money for kids with mental disabilities.

The same was today. Played drums for at least one hour with Tina and other people. And it was definitely perfect. I felt like a baby. A happy baby. Like when I was a small kid and with my small yellow bicycle and I was cruising around my neighborhood ...

... OK, I am a little grown up now, but still I enjoy these things. Not sure why. Probably because they make me happy :)

... I am sure also close to where you live there are groups that are organizing drum circles. Try it. I am sure you will love it.

DREAMS HAVE A SMELL

This morning I couldn't really believe it. In Dallas was winter. Like 30F. Freezing. So when I left my place I put long jeans and sweatshirt. But as soon I open the door I found the 70F of the endless California summer. Such a nice feeling. Back in flip flop and on the beach. Absolutely stunning ...No surf yet for me, my Achilles tendon is still hurting. I just enjoyed my friends catching waves. Here is Yama waxing her board ...... and even if I didn't surf ... I loved the smells of a normal surfing day. The incredible smell of the neoprene of the wetsuit, the sex wax on the board, the sunscreen on the face, the salty water ... there is nothing like them ... the combination of these smells is like a dream for me ... it is surfing.

EUREKA

Dallas Airport for me lately means delays forever. Today I had a almost 3 hours delay on my flight to LA. An I wander in the terminal, I got 2 sandwiches and a cup of Red Bush Tea in Starbucks, I took also a picture ...... and I thought a lot about my working week. I thought to the trainings that I took this week. And I realized how "competence development" is important, and how sometimes the methods are so old and they frustrate me, how I would like to improve all this and ... finally ... EUREKA ... this is really where I would like to work in the future. I always loved to become a teacher, and I think this is really where I want to spend my future. And as soon I thought that I realized that this is really a work that will make me happy to wake up every day and will give me the chance to make the difference. And I am sure I will do a wonderful job there. I am happy!

SAD

I spent all day in the training. But I had to speak also with my colleague and friend Ismail. We were planning to develop together a business idea for our company. During the breaks I wanted to call him one, two, three, four times. But at the end I didn't do it and I didn't see him today. At the end of training I went back to the project room. And after one hour that I was there with my colleagues I overheard a piece of conversation between a couple of them that made pretty much like this "Did you hear that they laid off all this people in that department? Basically they closed that group". I can't believe what I just heard. Wait. That is where Ismail works. I check the intranet. It is all true. I can't believe it. I call Ismail. He answers with his wonderful happy voice. For a moment I hope that I miss understood what I just read. I can't ask him. He is the one who is telling me. It is all true. March 1st will be his last day in the company. I don't know what to say. I am promising him that I will help him as much as I will be able to do. But I feel useless. I think to his kids. I think to his mortgage. I think to his medical plan costs that will skyrocket because he is not anymore employed. We promise to see each other tomorrow for lunch and we hang up. I am by myself in the room. And suddenly I feel scared like I felt when I was 10 years old and my dad came home and told to my mom that the factory he was working for had the gates closed. They declared bankruptcy. My mom and my dad called me and told me what happened. Even if I was 10, I got scared. Something that I will never forget is that my parents decided to buy the newspaper every other day, and not every day as we were used. I was shocked. Eventually things turned around in the right way. My dad found a new job in less than 1 month. But I think back to that single day and I think that it changed my life forever. That is one of the reasons why I don't want to settle down anywhere and put my roots anywhere, I guess I am still afraid to find me in a situation where I can't move and I suddenly I find myself without a job. I still have my job and I should be happy, but I am really sad tonight. I think something definitely wrong just happened. And I can't do much to help a friend.

MY VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine's day. In Dallas, Texas. Doesn't sound very romantic, does it!? And in fact it wasn't. At least for me. So this is me at 9 PM ...... still in the office. All day in classroom. Trying to understand the class. At the same time trying to follow up with the impossible paper work for my Green Card Application. On top of that my laptop software problems. And the setup of the email in my new cellphone. I really hate high tech sometimes. High Tech sometimes makes my life so miserable. But I am happy anyways.I guess this is an other dot, that one day will connect will all the others ... :D

CONNECTING DOTS

Dallas freezes. It freezes big time. I am not used anymore to this cold weather. When I left the office this evening it was something like 35F (i.e. 1C). For dinner I got a yummy and warm noodle soup in a lovely Japanese restaurant and I came back to my hotel room. But I still felt the cold. So I looked for something able to relief my mood. And I watched one of my favorites video. A very nice speech by Steve Jobs. Among others, I really love his quote ... "You can not connect dots looking forward. You can only doing it looking backwards. You have to trust that your dots will connect sometime in the future". I know it is true, I feel it. But if I need to be honest with myself, I know that I easily forget about it. When everything works just fine, it is easy to believe in it. At the same time I know that when things are not working as I like, I get scared, I panic and I forget about it. It is like, when you are walking in a narrow mountain path, at the edge of a cliff and you are trying not to think neither to the cliff nor to the wall of the mountain. And you just keep walking. It is difficult, but it is the way to do. I guess this is one of the secrets of a happy life. Anyways. I wrote too much, I guess. So, here it is. I hope it will inspire you, as much as it inspired me ...

SERENDIPITY

Serendipity. I read this word today in a paper. I am sure I already heard this word before. I am pretty sure there is also a movie called like this. But honestly I don't really know what does it mean. I close the paper and I forget about it. Tonight this word, out of the blue, pops in my mind. So I go straight to that well of answers that is Wikipedia, and I find the answer ... "Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely" ... and I realize that is it. That is the word. I love it. I love this word. It makes soooooooooo much sense with what my life is all about. I don't know about you, but my life is very much a serendipity. Like when a NENE crosses your life, and everything changes.

OUR BODY & OUR SELF

This morning I finally went to visit an exhibition that I meant to visit several times before. For some reason I missed when it was in LA. So I thought I couldn't miss it also here in Dallas. The name of the exhibition is BODY WORLDS. And in these months it is in the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science ...In this very moment there are 3 of these exhibitions running in parallel. The other two are in Chicago and Phoenix. I am glad I went to visit it. The work is definitely stunning. Basically there all these human bodies that had been "plastified". I guess the correct name for the process is "plastination". The inventor of this process is a German anatomist. His name is Gunther von Hagens. Anyways the work is technically amazing. You can see all the internal details of real human bodies. To me it was a difficult exhibition to visit. Very interesting. But difficult to digest. I think that every time I looked at the details of a human body I had in front of me, the question that always popped in my mind was "What is really a person?". Definitely I didn't find an answer in this exhibition. Actually I came out of this exhibition with a bag of new questions and thoughts. I am still thinking about them and I think I will carry with me for the longest time. But I love to carry them with me. No pictures are allowed inside, so if you want to have an idea of what to expect ... just Google (with image function) something like "body words". If you haven't seen anything of this exhibition before, you will be amazed.

DOGTOWN

Gloomy and cold day in Dallas, Texas and I decided to go to a modern art exhibition with my lovely friends Brian & Nataf. Unfortunately the exhibition was closed so we hanged out in uptown. It is really a nice part of the city. Lots of nice building, coffee shops, pedestrian areas. In certain corners I almost felt I was in Europe. Which is very very strange when you are in Texas. I loved to be out with my friends and hear about their latest trip to Japan and Thailand and all the latest news from common friends in Israel. Took also some pictures, but the picture that made me think the most is this ...... a dog park in the center of the city. I felt so sad when I saw this. So sorry for the dogs. And so sad for their owners. Probably I am just wrong. I don't want to judge anybody. I don't know what you think about pets. Myself ... I don't like pets. To me there is something wrong in forcing an animal to live with me in an apartment. For a while I even had a cat back in Israel. I didn't want it. My girlfriend wanted it. At the end we got one. I guess these are the type of compromises you need to accept in a couple. I accepted. And it was a disaster. We definitely picked up the wildest street cat ever. We gave him the name Rumi, because when we found Rosita was telling me how much she loved this Sufi poet Rumi. Rumi (the cat, not the poet) has been able to attack a good number of our friends. I think at the end, most of our friends were asking to organize dinners anywhere else, but not in our place, because of the cat. When we left Israel we left it to a friend who was living in an open area, and eventually a dog killed him (not the friend, the cat ... Rumi). I felt really sorry, but at least I knew I lived free for a while. Not in a stupid apartment with me.

TWO ITALIANS & A POLISH

Dallas, Texas. 9PM. Radeck is Polish. Riccardo and Andrea are Italians. They meet at the front desk of the hotel. Radeck works here. Riccardo and Andrea are living here for the time being. Their heart is back in Europe. But their feet are here in America. An they start discussing about everything. Politics. War. Global Warming. Stock Market. Dream. WWII. Economy. In the meantime customers pass by the reception, they listen to pieces of our conversations and look at the three funny Europeans like they are from an other planet. The three Europeans could care the less and continue their discussion. This time is time to speak about Education System differences between Europe and US. Again about Global Warming. Equal opportunities. Retirement Plans. Social Security. Radeck likes to fake the Marlon Brando - Vito Corleone voice. He is funny. Most of the time the three of them laugh, even if they don't agree on anything. At the end Radeck comes out with a comment that explains a lot about what is this country all about. "Guys, even if we don't agree on anything I am really glad we had this discussion. I never had such a discussion in years here in US". I am not sure if I need to be glad or not. I decide to be glad. So, this is the end of the discussion ......... Riccardo and Radeck are still in the Hotel Reception. I am too tired, I am on my way to my room. Good nite America.

BIG DADDY'S

Figure out this. It is 8PM. Riccardo & I in f*cking boring Irving, Texas. No alcohol sale permitted inside the city limits. So, what do yo think we are going to do? Just cross the city border, get into Dallas, Texas and stop in the first alcohol shop. Did you figured it out? So here are the pictures of our searching nite ... and yes, they asked my ID ... just in case I wasn't 21 yet ...... yes, this is America ... :)

RESTROOM CLEANING PROCEDURES

This is America. The funniest country in the entire World. The country who sent the man on the moon, but needs to write instructions for everything, even on how to clean the restrooms ...... I know I am a joker ... but this is all true.

DALLAS SUNRISE

Hawaii is really far away. I left Monday early morning with a red eyes flight. One day in LA. An other red eyes flight. And here I am in Dallas, Texas. In 2 nites I slept something like 8 hours on airplanes, and today I landed here sooo early that when I got to the office around 6.30AM ... I managed to see the sunrise ... a wonderful sunrise ...... when I saw it I felt I was still in heaven ... and probably I am ... I think it is because I have sooooo much energy in me ... probably too much ... really dangerous for an outspoken person like me ... :X

RED LAVA in HAWAII

I think I looked at these picture at least 100 times already. I look at them. I see myself in the pictures. And I can't believe it is me in the pictures. I can't believe I was there. But I close my eyes and I can see the red lava flowing into the ocean. I can hear the noise it is doing. I can still smell it. I was there. Definitely, I was there. I open again my eyes and I see again the pictures in my camera screen. And I smile. And I think that smiling guy with camouflage pants is most definitely my hero. And I see myself. Probably you think I am just full of sh*t. But believe me, I am not. I am just happy, sooooo happy that I can't even describe it. I live for my dreams and being there and feel the heat of watch the lava dropping into the Ocean, was one of these things I always hoped to do before I would die. And I did it. And I am so happy ... so here are some of the most amazing picture of my entire life. Starting from one of the endless signs that was telling me that I was doing something stupid and dangerous ...I knew I was going to do something stupid and dangerous, but I thought ... what the f*ck, if I have to die ... I want to die here and not in a hospital bed! So I didn't care about the signs and I did continue my hike till I saw this ... and I felt I was living a dream ...... and I went down, with my friend Tina and there we met other guys who were doing the same dangerous, stupid and moooost amazing thing of their life ... watching the red flowing lava from 1 foot away ...Last but not not least ... in the Hawaiian tradition what I have seen is the perpetual battle between the volcano Pele and her sister, Namakaokaha'i, deity of the sea. Before I saw Pele and Namakaokaha'i battling each other, with my eyes I thought all this was a stupid myth, but believe me, when I was there I felt that something magical was happening. And I just loved that. And yes, it was pretty hot. The lava was something between 1000F and 2000F. And yes, because I am what I am, I did an other stupid thing ... I through a banana into the lava and it did fry ... :D