Friday, 8 July 2011

Awesome song!

Frank Turner - I'm Disappeared

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFLVlvj9osk

Saturday, 2 July 2011

Yello....

Hi all,

This seems to become sort of a monthly thing....no idea why. Anyways loads of stuff has happend sense the last post one of the more cool thing were that me and Adi and two other friends saw Bob Dylan live in Tel Aviv some two weeks ago. Dylan live is a concept that very few people know and which is why most ppl walk away from their first concert very disappointed. First of Dylan him self has passed his 70th birthday by now and as such his voice is not what it has been. Second Dylan does not speek to the crowd during the concert no Hi, no Bye and no requests thats how its been for a long time and that is how it will continue. Third Dylan will play the songs he wants in the way he wants which means that sometimes you will hear a song like Blowing in the wind like 10 times the speed it was originally written in. So you can see the problem in this going to his concert believing that you will hear him like he sounds on the old records and recordings from the 60ties and 70ties you will not get what you want, not even close. But if you on the other hand have seen live before and you are aware of this Dylan Live becomes something really great as you get hear 15 old songs in 15 new and different ways cause that just how brilliant Dylan is a musician. The general public might see this as not to beneficiary for his carrear or a good way to get and new fans but that has probably never been what he wants anyway. I saw a documentary this year about the first Live-tour he did after going from acoustic to electric together with the Band. This documentary was filmed by the Bands drummer and in the end interviewer asked him what Dylan thought about getting booed and being called a traitor etc. he answer was something like "I dont think he cared, there is something about him that you have to understand, Dylan never played for the crowd, Dylan played for Dylan and if you didn't like what you heard you dont need to come next time", egoistic person probably but most great musicians are. So in my and some other 500 ppl opinion Dylan Live in Tel Aviv was awesome! the other 20.000 did not agree =)

Otherwise life just kind of keeps on rolling I go to work in the week, me and Adi and friends do stuf in the weekend, like go to the movies, hike, cook go to restaurants etc. Life here has become "regular" maybe thats why I also not write as much anymore, cause what was strange and unusual before is now the norm. Believe me there things that are reeeeal strange and unusual toa Swede/european down here but its not as surprising any more. On another note I've been able to listen to a few football-games from the Swedish League and my team Elfsborg are doing pretty well and now aslo the qualification for the Euro-league has started. Elfsborg are in the first qualifying round and they have already beat their opponent Fola Esch from Luxembourg with 4-0 so they are basically through to the next round, just need to go down to Luxembourg and play a decent game next week.

As many of you who are reading this blog might be aware of the fact that another "Freedom Flottila"(Ship to Gaza) is heading this way and the debate here in Israel is interesting. If you listen to the government and Netanyahu there is no question the boats will be stopped if they try to enter the waters outside of coast of Gaza and hopefully be seized in a more non-violent way then lasttime(they have apparently now trained for these sorts of mission and have new boat seizing equipment). However there are also many debtors etc who call government to let the boats through and then do a thorough check once the boats dock, which in my opinion does not sound to bad as then both sides will get a little bit of what they want. Another interesting thing on this matter is that the border between Gaza and Egypt is now "open" for most goods and many people, to move over the borders so Gaza is now not as closed of as it has been. Many debtors in Israel are also asking the question why there is no such thing as "Ship to Libya" or "Ship to Syria" as these countries and its people are as of now and as of the past 6 months maybe in more dier need for certain supplies than Gaza is. If this is true I dont know since I have no stats on living conditions in either country but its seems like a fair question to me and with this little political discussion we finish this blog. if you feel like arguing with me or questioning what I wrote, you can call me, email me or Skype me.
Til you read again,
Carl

Wednesday, 8 June 2011

Fom Israel to Sweden and back again!

Hey all,

Again the blog seemed to have slipped out of my hands...whoops! Anyhow last time I mentioned that I was going back to Sweden for my brother, Axel's, graduation. In some way the graduation from High School/Gymnasium has become more of a celebration than any other graduation from any other school level in Sweden, how that happend I have no idea, if someone has an idea please enlighten me. So on early sunday two weeks ago Adi drove me to the station and I hopped on the train to Ben Gurion airport to fly with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul to Sweden. This time it was my turn to be extra checked at Ben Gurion, which means they open your check in bag and check your carry on extra carefully. This resulted in that my non-working laptop battery needed to go on an extra check and arrive some days later as its not working at all anymore, which I guess seemed mysterious to the border control. Anyhow I got to Gothenburg mid-day on Sunday the 29th of May and was met by my dad and brother. We went back to the apartment and that day was spent talking and organizing boxes of my old stuff, throwing some away and moving the rest to a different storage room.

On monday I met up with an old classmate of mine, Ida. We spent a day in Gothenburg talking about old memories and the future while eating lunch, ice-cream, getting a hair-cut, searching for envelopes and getting a Graduation present for my brother. Later in the afternoon Ida jumped on the buss back to her University town to back up her apartment for the summer. I went back to my parents place and had a nice evening. Tuesday was spent buying, cooking and organizing for my brothers Graduation which happend on the Wednesday. All of us in the family worked hard and fell asleep fast that evening. On Wednesday my grandmother, my aunt and cousins and other friends of the family arrived to Gothenburg and we went to my brothers school to wait for them to run out of the building to sing the student song and then jump on to the truck that would drive the students all over town so that they could have a great time and tell the world that they graduated which is a fun Swedish tradition. As we were standing there waiting for Axel to come out we had flowers, gifts and big sign with a picture of him when is fiver years old, so that he could find us in the mess of other parents, sibling and relatives. Then Axels class came out of the building screaming, jumping and being allover happy. They sang the student song and then all the students ran to their families. We congratulated Axel and hung flowers around him which is also tradition, he was wearing a nice new suit and his student-hat, which is also tradition. Then all the 120 something students jumped up on the truck and started singing and screaming and the truck drove of to make a tour of Gothenburg. The rest of us drove back home and prepared the party. Later people started arriving and the entire afternoon and evening was filled with nice talks, food and drinks. Axel came home to the party and we had a toast and then later he left for the student-party in the city. Later me and my cousin also headed into town to meet up with some friends to party and do some drinking and talking.

On thursday I meet up with another friend, Erik, We had a day of playing Kubb, BBQing and as well talking about memories and the future. We also go to watch the swedish version of Big Brother which sucked just as much as the israeli one, so conclusion understanding what they say does not make that program any more fun. On friday I went back to me parents apartment and started packing my bag again as I was leavning mid-day saturday for Isreal again. In the bag I packed my clothes, some old stuff that I found and loads of chocolate, candy-cars and kabamoose. In the evening me, my dad and my mum jumped on our bikes and went to the ferry that took us across the river to the other-side of Gothenburg. When then rode our bikes to a nice restaurant were we met up with my sister, my brother had already left for Greece with his friends. After a very nice meal and conversations we rode our bikes back and me my dad watched the last half of the football match between Sweden and Moldova,Sweden won 4-1. On saturday my parents drove me to the airport and I jumped on the flight back to Israel, where Omri picked me up. But more about that later as this post is by now pretty long.
Til you read again,
Carl

Tuesday, 3 May 2011

Back to work...

Hi all,

Last time I wrote me and Adi were getting ready to pack our bags and leave for a nice vacation to Portugal. We are now back in Israel and back at work since Sunday. The vacation itself was really awesome. We met up with 6 other people from the seminar camp in 2009 and traveled around a little bit in Portugal. We saw Lisbon, Porto, Averio, Caiscais and some other small places. Overall Portugal has some really nice architecture and cool buildings and churches. In Portugal they also have good food(read all kinds of yummy meat, that is hard to get here in Israel) as well as good drinks like Port-wine and Ginja(some cherry liqueur, that I didnt try but all said it was good). They also have nice pastries and desserts like Ovos Moles and some other that I cant remember the name of right now. Portugal is also a fairly cheap country to eat and shop in compared to Israel and Sweden which was good for us. As we also slept in our Portugese-friends homes we also saved some cash and got to see how the portugese ppl live, which is a little different from what I'm used to. Many families have maids that cooks and cleans for the family while they are away at school or work. Which I guess is good but just a little unusual to me.

We spent almost 10 days together with our friends touring Portugals cities and some of its bars and had a lot of fun. After these 10 days when they all had gone home to their countries me and Adi took the bus to a peninsula-city called Peniche were we had booked a room in a hotel for the last two nights. In Peniche we rented bikes and biked around the peninsula and its beaches, we also fell asleep on the beach and got a little burnt as the weather was mischievous. Cold and nice wind that made you feel nice and not warm but the sun was still burning hard, even thou both of us had sunscreen we got burnt. The last day in Peniche we took the local-buss to a nearby town called Obidos. Obidos is a really old and nice walled city from the the early roman period. It has many different spots to visit and we bought a map of the city and walked all over it. When we were done we took the bus back to Peniche and had a nice final dinner in a fish-restaurant. I ate calamari and fish while Adi had two delicious Octopuses. When then made our way back to the hotel and packed our bags and fell asleep.

Next morning we took the bus back to Lisbon and meet up with our Portuguese friends that took us to the airport. At the airport we ran into some trouble as the lady behind the counter couldn't check us or our bags all the way to Tel Aviv, this was a problem as we only had 1 hour of layover in Barcelona. We argued with her and her manager but got nowhere except that we were informed that we weren't the only ones with the same problem. In Lisbon we ran to the transfer desk an got our boarding passes however the bags were another problem so us and two other passengers who were going to Tel Aviv as well started to argue with the clerk there and he called in his manager who said she would help us and started to talk on the radio to get our bags to the plane headed for Tel Aviv, after some time she said it was done so we boarded the plane that we were told had our bags on it but when we landed in Tel Aviv no bags. So for reference don't fly TAP in combination with Spanair or book trough Mona Tours you will run into trouble. Now our bags are here but still somewhere in this mess someone lied and screwed us over.

On another happier note I'm coming to Sweden soon, I'll land in Gothenburg on the 29th of May and stay for a week to celebrate my brothers graduation and meet family and friends. Also last night me and Adi booked tickets to see Bob Dylan live when he comes to Israel in the end of June. For those of you who know me you know that I'm a big Dylan fan so that made me real happy. Well this became a rather long post....and now I have to get back to work. See all of you soon.
Til you read again,
Peace,
Carl

Friday, 15 April 2011

packing, packing, packing....

Hey all,

So yesterday I had my last day at work for the coming two weeks as we are now on vacation =) In Israel its Pesach and in most of Europe Easters is coming so me and Adi took some extra days and made a longer vacation. We are going to Portugal to meet up with some friends from the Seminar on sunday so right now we are packing, making laundry and packing some more. In Portugal the sun i shining and its warm and nice, which is a good change from the last weeks weather here.

On another note apparently the Bieber-fever has reached Israel as well. Last night when I took the train home from work the train was attacked by some 500 12-15 year old girls who had just been to his concert in Tel Aviv. This made the train warm, sweaty and late not the best combination and as we stepped of the the train in Haifa it also started smoking and burning. Something that is not to unusual in Israel the past couple of months as there has been a few train fires and collisions. In Sweden the trains dont run cause its to cold here they dont run because they are to old or its to warm outside....how about inventing a train that is weather resistant? or is that to expensive maybe? but somehow I guess in the end it will serve the better cause as they are safer.

Also the swedish Allsvenska has started and Elfsborg has so far one win and one loss. However they have a pretty rough start against all teams that are thought to be in the top when the series end. Last night the Stanley Cup playoffs also started and Montreal are playing Boston, an original six rivalry =) and it couldn't have gotten a better start 2-0 to the Habs at the Boston Garden! Thats all for now,
Til you read again,
Carl

Monday, 4 April 2011

Time goes fast...

Hi again,

So I realized that I hadn't made an update here in the blog for some time. Its not because nothing has happend more because of the fact that time has gone by pretty fast. I work all week long and come back to Haifa late at night so during the day there mostly no time to write and in the weekend we are busy with other things.

At work nothing is really new, same procedures as always just that some ppl leave and some new ppl come in. Two weeks ago we had a Company Purim party in Tel Aviv that was a lot of fun. For those of you who don't know what Purim is, you can read about it here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim. What this meant for the party is that everyone dressed up in different customs not to much unlike Halloween but not only in scary customs but also nice an fun ones. For the party each department of the company had also made a funny video, ex. a day at the office, lip-syncing to different songs etc. We in the Poker support made a lip-sync video to Lady Gagas Poker Face and won the second prize in the competition =) The party overall was fun and it was nice to see ppl from work outside of work and with a drink in their hand.

On another note me and Adi today got our tickets to go to Portugal during Easter and meet up with some friends from the seminar camp here in Israel in 2009. Its going to be a good 10-day of fun a relaxation. I've never been to Portugal so if anyone has any recommendations your more then welcome to tell me.

For you swedes back home you might be glad to know that I'm coming to Sweden in the end of May early June for my brothers graduation and to visit you all so If you wanna meet up let me know.

Now I gotta get back to work,
Til you read again,
Peace
Carl

Saturday, 5 March 2011

1 year anniversary and more...

Hey all,

Its been two weeks sense I last wrote and some things have happend. First of all me and Adi had our 1 year anniversary last friday, we went up north to Metula which close to the border with Lebanon. In Metula there is a special place called the Canada Center which is a building full of fun =) dontaed by the jewish communities in Canada. Inside there is a spa, an ice-hockey rink, bowling lane, swimming pool and much more. We went skating which was alot of fun =) It takes me back to the winters on the lake were I grew up playing hockey and skating all day when the ice wasnt to thin. We also bowled some which I wasn't to good at this time...We also visited the SPA got a nice long massage, some time in the sauna and in the Jacuzzi! After a day of fun we went to the Zimmer which I had booked in Kefar Juval. A Zimmer is basically a sort of a luxurious cabin including nice breakfast.



Random people skating at the rink

Our cabin

Our breakfast


On saturday midday we left the nice cabin to go back to Haifa, we stopped in Rosh Pina to try the best sushi in the north at a restaurant called something like Javier. They had good sushi and it also gave us some ideas for our own sushi making. The working week passed on as usual except for the thing that my new cellphone arrived from the UK via Ebay, so now I'm the proud owner of an ZTE Blade/San Francisco running on Googles Android system. I'm still learning all the things about it and I guess it will take some time but right now I'm very satisfied. At work we also recorded a video for a Purim competition so our Support-team plus another team decided to do a lip-sync video to Lady Gagas Pokerface. A cameraman and crew sowed up and we preformed all over the building and hopefully it will win us a nice price =)

This weekend me and Adi made some sushi as usual as well as playing some xbox. Maybe later we will go to the movies and see one of the Oscar-winning movies or just have a nice calm evening here watching the Big Brother or something else.

Til you read again,
Carl