Half way through and the time has really flown, to be honest everyone has forgotten who you all are at home....sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I doubt if any of this lot will turn up for the flight home, it will be me, Phyllis and and a heap of suitcases!!!
Anyways today we visited the Synagogue in Biddeford, it is on Bacon Street which thankfully even the Jewish Community find funny and was originally an Episcopal Church it is now called Etz Chaim which means Tree of Life. Like many of the group I had never been in a Synagogue before and it was good to be guided through by Beth Strassler whose daugher Sara has been part of the MICP programme. I won't pretend to remember everything she told us but it was an enlightening experience for those who attended.
Before we went inside we discovered that Zoe had gone a bit mad with the old pink hair dye, first she had tested it out on Lauren,
before giving herself the once over,
isn't it irritating how photogenic she is, apart from Gemma she is the prettiest thing I have snapped all summer.
Anyways we moved inside where Beth told the group about Kosher food and household products, and Kosher/Dairy kitchens, and Kosher kitchens and Passover utensils and how they have at least 8 days holidays for any given celebration!!!
We then moved upstairs where she let us put on the Yarmulke, I do so hope I remembered all these details correctly, Kevin models it well,
matching t-shirt too Kev, well thought out!!!
We also learned about the Tallis(prayer shawl), which Kevin also got into,
hold on a minute he seems to be getting into this whole Judeaism thing a bit too much, this is him in front of the Ark,
Beth took us through the Torah, and demonstrated how it can be chanted,
Brett requested a Bar Mitzvah but he didn't quite meet the standards,
Beth then took us up to the Ark where we saw the Torah scrolls,
She then took out one of them and showed us how intricate the handwritten scroll is,
to preserve it you can't touch the papyrus with your hands, you have to use the pointer,
It was a great introduction to a religon which most of our group had little or no knowledge of, and a big thank you to Beth...and yes those bars of Cadbury Chocolate we gave you really are Kosher 
A final pic of Fu, with his tattoo, wearing the Yarmulke of a Jew....I just fancied being a bit poetic!!
MICP treated the group to a Chinese lunch after the Synagogue visit and then we headed off to Kennebunk for a couple of host family visits, on the way we took pix of our passengers, theres Kevin the suave(he had to fight off a few interested suitors at lunch!!),
Aimee the shy(doesn't want the folks back home to see her),
and finally Brett the stunned, or should that be stoned???(I think his mum and dad should book him into rehab on his return),
Our first visit of the day was to the Vaughan family, Robin has been on the board of MICP and hosting visitors since a long time ago, in fact last year she even found room for a Spanish visitor so it is open house there, Phyllis tried to emulate the Brett stunned look, not sure how well it worked but here goes,
don't you just hate the pretty, moody look....Emos the lot of them I say.
Anyways we got them all to look a bit more happy for the host family pic,
Aimee, Robin, Brett and Ozzy (the dog)
We wandered over to the Boucher home, they are hosting Lauren, this is the first(and probably only time) that Phyllis and I have WALKED to a family, WALK, WALK, it nearly killed Phyllis, especially when she realised we had to walk back, it almost took 3 minutes!!!
Like Aimee and Brett this is Lauren's second visit to Maine and with the same host family, so she has her feet well under the table, speaking of feet these belong to her host sister Meghan, and she has them ON the table!!!
aren't they nice, now if Phyllis had feet like this I'd still give her the foot massages I used to do!!!
Anyways there is more to host family visits than feet, we had some fruit salad and learnd about Meghan's college which she is going to in the Autumn/Fall, also they may all be in Ireland this winter, I hope so, they can call by and say Hi......I'll even cook stew.
Here are the girls getting chummy on the sofa,
and mum joins them for the perfect family photo (well except Tom and Adam were off out doing sporty things!!)
Beth, Lauren, Meghan
thanks to the Vaughan and Boucher families for your hospitality.
On the way back to the car the girls and I got into preparation mode for camping, as you all know it starts with a dance workshop, so we found the nearest pole and started practicing our pole dancing routines...aren't we good,
camping starts tomorrow for 3 days
more blog soon
and TC stop calling when we are trying to do host family visits, or at least speak when we answer the phone 
