CISV Israel Minicamp

Hey All,

So after a fun weekend doing some different stuff I will now continue to tell you what happend. On thursday Adi was coming, one day earlier then usual because everynowandthen you get thursdays of in the army. She thought she was coming around 2-3 so we planned to go to the beach and maybe ran some errands. It turned out however that the army need Adi and friends to sit around the base and do not so much. She instead came home around 8, but when she got home I had made her dinner. So we had a nice evening anyways. Something new and interesting about this country that I have discovered in the last days has been to go get the mail, might not sound so fun but I'll tell you why. When I've been out running in the neighbourhood I've never seen a single mailbox infront of a house and that got it's explanation this wednesday when Maya handed me the keys to the their postbox which is at the local postoffice next to a small grocery store some 10 minutes walking from the house. At the post office all the boxes for the entire neighbourhood is located so there was a lot of boxes.

On Friday we did ran the errands we couldn't do on thursday and visited Adi's grandma in the hospital again, she is feeling much better. Later in the day we drove to the Kihbutz Givat Haviva to visit the CISV Israel MiniCamp for kids in the ages of 10-15. It was a lot of fun and I actually ran into two of the participants, Roi and Hila, from Israeli delegation that I had in the village that I staffed in Denmark in 2007. It was fun seeing them again unfortunately the other 2 couldn't make it to this camp and Dani who was their leader was stuck in Jerusalem. As me and Adi hadn't been planing any of the activities that took place in this camp we just sort of floated around and helped with what ever was needed, and I also got to buy new CISV-Israel comfy pants. They are awesome! On saturday midday we came back to Haifa and drove past the hospital to check on Adi's grandma and talked to her for some time. We also picked up the mail and later in the evening cooked food for Adi to take to army, she only has roughly two weeks left of training and then she will find out where they are going to place her and exactly what she will be doing.

Today I plan to run if my knee will let me, but also to learn some hebrew and in the evening sit down and listen to IF Elfsborg beat Trelleborgs FF =)

Til you read again,

Carl

Army Friends, Memorial Day and Independence Day

Hey all,

The past couple of days have been sort of hectic with a lot of different stuff going on and I will tell you all about it now. When I stopped writing last time I said that we might be heading to Tel Aviv for the night, this was in one way right we where going out only that Tel Aviv was not the goal of the journey. Me and Adi drove to a city in between Haifa and Tel Aviv where Adi's friend from the army lives to have a nice evening. Some of Adi's other friends from the army was there plus some other random people. It was fun to meet the people Adi talks about when she comes home and finally get a face on most them. The morning after we drove to Haifa and rested for the rest of the day. On sunday Adi again went to the army by train, the train station in Haifa is right on the beach so me and Maya took the chance to exercise, me running my usual track and Maya walking with a friend. Later we went to do some shopping and visiting Adi's grandma in the hospital and she was doing fine. When we got back I studied some hebrew and finished the first level in the program that I've been using for the past 2 months.

On sunday it was Memorial Day here in Israel, where they remember the soliders and civillians that has lost their lives fighting and living in the state of Israel. In the evening me and Maya went to Adi old school where they had a military memorial service for the soliders who had died that went to that school. Family members told their stories, some songs were sung and the over the PA came all the names of the soldiers that had died. All in all a pretty sad and "interesting" evening. I say its "interesting" cause as far as I know we have nothing that compares to this in Sweden, which might have something to do with the fact that we haven't seen a war on our soil for more then the past 200 years.

On monday morning I returned to the same school for another memorial service, this time it was made by the students of the school. There was a lot of people there and almost the same things transpired this time as the night before. Now you might wonder why I went to almost the same thing twice. I went to the first one with not knowing what was going to happend and was sort of impressed, so when Adi told me that there was another one, and that this was the one she had been participating in for the past 4 years so I went to see that one to. One difference between them was also that the first one was during a cool nice evening and the second one was during a warm summer morning. A result of this was that some students that had not been drinking enough water beforehand passed out or where close to as result of dehydration as they where standing at attention on a football field without any shadow for like an hour. But this was well organized as there where medics standing by on the field to take care of the people that seemed in need.

Later when I was back at the house I heard a familiar sound, a sounds that can be heard on the first monday of every month in Sweden, the air alarm. No worries tho here this noise is not to warn people of incoming missiles of planes, this noise is sort of a silent minute. As soon as its sounds everybody drops what they are doing and stand in silence, even cars and trains stop in the middle of the road or tracks and drivers etc get out in remembrance.

In the evening some friends dropped by to celebrate the evening of the Independence Day here, the 62nd one. We had a nice evening talking and drinking and later we went down to the beach to take a look around. On tuesday morning we woke up late and got prepared to go to BBQ-lunch at Adi's cousins house some 5 mins walking distance from here. At the house the BBQ was burning and a big part of that part of the family was there eating and having great time to celebrate the Independence Day. We ate a lot of good meat of the BBQ and different salads and hummus. After gaining some 2 kilos in one sitting we went to visit Adi's grandma at the hospital again and she doing better, we stayed for some time and talked about many different things in both hebrew, german and english. Last night some other friends dropped by and we sat outside talking and finishing of the Independence Day in a calm and nice manner.

On another note as there is no ash clouds from volcanos over here Maya and Moti had no problem making their trip to China as planned and they left on monday night. I find it sort of interesting that as far as technology has come that a cloud of dust basically can keep most of the planes grounded and many airports closed. I've also been told that there was a football match last sunday but I choose not to recognize it as it didn't happen =)

Til you all read again,

Carl

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Hebrew and Running

Hey All,

So another slow week has passed. I've studied more hebrew, but its hard for me to pronounce not weird sense its not even close to my native tongue =) I've also been looking into something called Ulpan, which is a school where you learn Hebrew,about the jewish life and the state of Israel and its history. Today also I took my first run after a smaller heel injury and sickness, it was fun but my body is gonna kick my(its) ass.

This week is also jam packed with Swedish football games. On Sunday Elfsborg went to Olympia in Helsingborg to face of against the current league leader. It went all kinds of bad...from the radio it sounded that there was only one team on the pitch and unfortunately that was not Elfsborg. So the first and hopefully only loss of the season has now been done. Today however it was a completely different ballgame. Djurgårdens IF came to Borås for a visit they will late forget. Altho of to a bad start, a penalty-goal in the 4th min. The players in Elfsborg woke up and before the halftime it was 2-1 and when 90 mins was up the final result was 3-1 from the radio it sounded like DIF was never even close, and yes the broadcast was working perfectly.

Tomorrow Adi comes home =) We have no real plans for the weekend but maybe we are going to Tel Aviv tomorrow...i'll let you know more later.

Til you read again,

Carl

Army and Illness

Hey all,

So the Pesach-holiday was over on tuesday morning and everyone returned to the army or to work. The week passed on as it has done the last couple of weeks, with running and studying hebrew but also helping Maya with different things. I also managed to charge my phone with credits, which is done in a completely different way from what I'm used to. In Sweden if you want to charge your phone with money you go to almost any store and say, Hi can I get credits for 100 SEK and they give you a recite with a number that you text to the company that you have. Its a different ballgame here...Since I have the company Orange I figured ok lets go to the Orange-store in one of the malls downtown, but the guy in there said no, you'll have to downstairs next to the gasstation to the cellphone store. So I went there guessing it would work like home but no, when I told them I wanted to charge with 70 NIS, he asked me for my phonenumber wrote some on his computer and two seconds later my cellphone pinged telling me that I now have 67 NIS on my phone, I asked him why not 70? and he said thats not how it works. Anyway a new experience has been learned.

On thursday night some CISVers gathered outside in a nice place to make a fire, sing some songs and here all about EJBM that some ppl had come back from. We also said goodbye to Gil who is now joining the army...Later on in that evening some of us headed downtown to bar and grabbed some beers. A very fun and nice evening! Adi came home on the friday and we ran some errands and then took a nap when I woke up I felt not so good anymore, I was feverish, had a headache and my stomach was not in sync with the rest of my body so I spent the rest of friday and saturday in bed, trying to eat and drink enough. Today I feel much better but my stomach is still not a 100% okey, next stop is some breakfast and stomach pills and keeping my fingers crossed that it will be good.

Till you read again,

Carl

Hey Again,

So we just arrived home from a 4-day trip in the north of Israel. We stayed at a Zimmer in the Bet Hillal area, a really nice place. It situated in the middle of the Golan Heights so we had "mountains" all around us and since the summer hasn't yet started for real here it the trees and grass was still green so it was a beautiful sight, we also saw snow on top of the highest mountain. With us on the trip was Yael and Yossi and their two kids Ella and Maya. Yael is originally from Germany so the kids and Yael spoke german so I have been able to train both my hebrew and brush up on my German as the kids didn't talk english yet.

We arrived at the Zimmer sight, which is a gathering of houses and room with nice gardens and a common area, on friday afternoon and unpacked our bags and then went for dinner. Once we where back me and Adi sat outside our room in the night talking about many different things having some wine and smoking some shisha....allinall a nice day. On saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast around nine. Afterwards we went walking next to a river that ran close by, it was really hot outside so I had to use a lot of sunscreen not to get burnt and it succeeded. When we came back in the afternoon we where all tiered so we went for a nap and showers before dinner. The dinner was at a really nice place with a great view over the river, the food was also really nice. In the evening me and Adi watched a movie from the Jacuzzi that was in our room =) reallyreally nice...and the evening ended out on the porch with leftovers from the restaurant.

The River

Me and Ella

Adi outside our room

Yesterday we woke up and had breakfast outside with and decided on what we would do. Later we drove to a memorial for a Helicopter Crash that killed 73 soldiers in the area in February of -97, when their two Helicopters collided in mid air. Later me, Adi, Maya and Moti rented two 4-wheel ATV's and drove on a guided tour in the area. It was really nice I have never drive an ATV before, it was scary at first but I got used to it pretty fast and then it was pure joy! When we got back to the Zimmer we where really dirty cause all of the dust and sand that the ATV's had been throwing around so we looked really tanned, before we showered. Later that night we went to restaurant and then up the mountain to the Nimrod Fortress for a guided tour in the dark. The view from up there over the valley in the dark was really nice. The castle itself was built but the son of sultan in the mid 13th hundreds, and it was built to protect from outer threats as the mongols had just pillaged their way through some years before. The tour was in hebrew but I found signs in english that I could read and Adi, Moti and Maya also translated a bit. We got back late at night and fell into bed immediately after a long day.

Driving ATV's

Today we packed up all our stuff and headed home to Haifa as the Pesach holiday ends today. On the way home we stopped in an older city, where all the houses where in stone, all the roads where of cobblestone and there where narrow passages and lots of stairs. A nice places but it was really hot. We had lunch that we got for free sense the waiter and kitchen failed to gives us the food we asked for and also undercooking some of it, but it was a good meal nonetheless. So now we are back in Haifa tiered but happy.

Til you read again,
Carl

Pesach, Zihkron and the WaterCompany of Israel

Hey All,

Right now its the Pesach holiday here in Israel which means that many people have vacation, some stores are closed and that you can't buy any bread that is leavened. Since I wrote the last time a couple of things have happend. On monday all of the family(uncles, grandparents, cousins) gathered in the apartment of Adi's grandmother to have the special Pesach-feast meal. For someone like me that has never done it before it was really nice. Everyone was sitting around the table and the oldest man at the table read from the Haggadah, the book that tells of the jews escape from slavery i Egypt. During the reading you drink some glasses of wine and in the middle of the story you eat the great meal. Which is a lot of typical good food, when the food is finished the story continues and ends with a lot of singing and a last glas of wine. It was a really great night and we had a lot of fun and ate very good food.

At the Pesach dinner =)

Last night me, Maya, Shay (Adi's brother) and Danit (Shay's fiance) and her family met up in a city next to Haifa called Zihkron where there was sort of a carinval/market in the main street to celebrate the holiday. We where also there to check out a band for Shay's and Danit's wedding later this year. It was fun evening seeing a lot of people, music and art in the street.

Local band playing old jewish songs on the street in Zihkron.

Today me, Maya, Danit and some friends of Maya went to the WaterCompany of Israel to get a tour at their site. As you might know there is a lack of fresh water and fresh water sources in Israel, they have ONE larger lake compared to Sweden that has well over 7,000 lakes, so they have to have really good technology to be able to clean and find it the little water they do have. The biggest sources is the ground water that has to go through many cleaning stations before it can be used, the second source is the lake. Because of the lack of water there is only one company, which is owned by the government that has the right to work with this. The tour was all in Hebrew but thanks to some translations, pictures and models of the plant I understood most of what was going on. After the tour we went to some small village close by and ate really-really good Humus, with pita, meat, sallad etc.

As I said in the beginning its a holiday period here so tomorrow most of the Ronen-family are going north to what you in Israel call a "zimmer" which is a large cabin in the nature. Exactly what is going to happen there I dont know, but I've been told that there is a pool, a river and that it has beautiful surroundings so I'm guessing its going to be awesome, I'll let you know what happend when we get back.

Til you read again,

Carl