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

Football, music, Tel Aviv

Hey all,

So I havent written in a while cause not a lot has happend since the last time I wrote. On sunday night Shay (Adi's brother) and his fiance, Danit took me to a bar where some old classmate of them was performing. They hadn't seen him in many years so it was a happy evening full of good music and nice stories.

On monday night something happend that I wish I could have seen live...IF Elfsborg( swedish football team for those who dont know) totaly ran over the opposing team Halmstad, 6-0 was the final score, a sweet revenge for the 0-0 game last weekend. This time the Swedish Radio broadcast also worked perfectly so I could enjoy the entire game. Earlier that day I had gone on a job interview in Tel Aviv and it all went well. I will need to wait for my Work-visa to start work anywhere so right now I'm just browsing the market.

The rest of the week just kind of went on by...I studied some hebrew, went running and did some laundry. Yesterday afternoon Adi came back after some days at her base where she has her course that will teach her all she needs to know. So me, Adi and Raz went out to grab some dinner and play some pool. Today was as any other saturday which means lunch with all the relatives =) and after a lot of food a well needed nap.

As you might have read or heard from tv-news or read in newspapers there is a fairly good deal of things going on in this country in the past weeks, just some examples: the UK has basically said that the Mossad(israeli secret service) are responsible for the murder of a highly ranked Hammas member in Dubai, the talks that Obama and Netanyahu ended in nothing and yesterday there was a heavy gunfight in the border area of the Gaza strip with both Hamas and IDF soldiers killed. These are things that I react to fairly strongly as they are not common for me, while the people around seems to see it as "another day" in Israel. Its going to be interesting to see how long its going to take me to react in the same way or if it will always keep thinking and wondering.

On another note I just finished listening to Kalmar - Elfsborg, 2-2 was the final result apparently not a fair result again. I say apparently as I missed parts of the game due to an again semi-working Swedish Radio broadcast. Hmmm....maybe there is a link between a good broadcast and winning and crappy broadcasts and "losing".

Til you read again,

Carl

Me and Adi at the PoolHall =)

St. Patts, Jerusalem and a Bar Mitzvah

Hey again,

Finally I have time to write after a pretty intense weekend. Last time I wrote was in the morning of St. Patricks Day, a day that I've celebrated since my internship in Ireland two years ago. So me and Adi made some calls gathered up some friends and went to a bar in Haifa. We drank some Guinness and had some Irish Whiskey, while at the bar we also met a lerprachun and some ppl with Guinness hats. All'in'all it was good evening not like in Derry but still loads of fun.

The next day I jumped on the train to Tel Aviv to met up with Adi in a mall close to her base. In this mall the swedish clothing store H&M had opened their first store like a week ago. Interesting thing, there was a long long line outside the doors, as all the people couldn't fit in the store at the same time, I'm not saying that the store was small just that was ALOT of people. For some reason H&M is exotic, cool and maybe cheaper then the rest? Anyhow Adi came to the mall and we walked to the train station to catch the train to Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv it was still some 25 degrees warm, when we stepped of the train some 1,5 later the temperature had dropped some 15 degrees and it was "cold" outside, at least in shorts. In Jerusalem we took the buss to a family friend of Adi's where we would be sleeping for the night, they gave some dinner and we talked a little. Around 11 in the evening we headed to the main event for the evening, Dani's 24th Birthday party! When we got there we met up with some of our other friends Gal, Gil and Raz and the party was on. Some hours later it ended in Pizzeria somewhere in downtown Jerusalem, we got driven home and slept for some hours before we took the buss back to Haifa in the afternoon.

During my time here me and Adi have been talking about going to the movies VIP-style and since we had nothing booked for the saturday night we got VIP-tickets to It's Complicated, not our first choice(which was Alice in Wonderland), but the movie was good and had many,many fun moments. Oyea VIP-style means that you are let into a room that has "free" food and drinks, popcorn and nachos. Also the seating in the theater was very big and comfy.

Now you could think that this was the end of an awesome weekend but as I said we have been busy. So last night the entire family with grandparents, aunts and uncles, girlfriends, boyfriends went to a family friends sons bar mitzvah. It was nice, loads of good food and nice people. Apparently we only participated in the "party"-part, because the first stages of a bar mitzvah takes place in a synagogue, where we didn't have time to be as we where as always on saturdays having lunch at one of the grandmas house. So when we got back home last night we were tiered and fell asleep fast.

Today so far Adi has gone of to the army to start her course the will keep her busy for the coming weeks, I've been down running on the beach and when I finish this post the plan is to cook some tea and study some hebrew. I will post some pics from which is soon my first month here in some time.

Til you read again,

KHL,

Carl

Running on the beach =)

Hey there,

So this past days not a lot has happend, I've been studying hebrew and I'm making progress. Actually yesterday I bought hebrew-stickers for the keyboard on my laptop so now its a bilingual MacBook! This morning I went with Adi to the train station early in the morning and as the station is next to the beach I brought my running shoes and swimwear. So after som 8 kms running and some push-ups and sit-ups i ran into the Mediterranean sea. It was actually colder then I thought it would be, but still really nice.

Something else that needs a report is the fact that last monday one of the most important sports events of the year started, Allsvenskan. Elfsborg played away at Stömvallen in Gävle and drew 0-0. Not a bad result if you think of the players that were missing cause of injury or illness, but apperantly there were some good chances for some players and a goal or two would not have been unfair if you look at the stats from the game. I wanted to listen to radioreport from the game but the all mighty Swedish Radio apparently screwed up there chords somewhere cause they had cancelled the broadcast. Lets just hope it works for next game.

Tomorrow me and Adi are going to Jerusalem to celebrate Dani's birthday, so next blogpost will probably tell of more fun stories from the way there, Jerusalem, the party and the way back, maybe also I'll try to figure out how to post some pictures.

Til next time,

KHL,

Carl

CISV Israel JB-MInicamp

Hey again,

Yesterday me and Adi came back from a nice weekend with the JB chapters of CISV from Tel Aviv and Haifa. We were some 30 ppl between the ages of 16-24 that all gathered to see what could be done about the JB in Israel and what they could bring with them to IJBM later this year. For me it meant except for a lot of hebrew (and awesome translators thanks again!) and new ppl, that I got to reunite with some of the awesome people from last summers seminar here. I met Dani(who has a birthday today so....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), Gal and Gil so together with me and Adi we had sort of a mini-reunion =) During this weekend I also learned that CISV Israel's JB works differently from the JB I remember being a part of some years ago in Sweden, but they seemed to have a good handle on it...as far as I could understand.

Today me, Maya (Adi's mom) and her father (Adi's grandfather) went to the Interior Ministry to get new id's and passports but also to figure out what I need to do to get a work visa, it turned out to be pretty simple but its gonna take a "long" time before I can get one...so I might be staying here for sometime =) sorry swedes...or anyone else missing me, but guess what...you can come visit! we'd love some visitors =)

One another note....they have awesome Sushi in this town, which is maybe not the first thing you think of when you think of Haifa or Israel for that matter. But there again its a coastal town so why not.

til you read again,

KHL,

Carl

Military Ceremony and Boats....

Hey all,

So on Sunday I went to see Adi "graduate" from her base training at her base some hours south of Haifa. I call it a "graduation" cause thats what it looked like except for not throwing hats in the air and all the guns and tanks present. It was interesting to see even tho I didnt understand what they were saying over the speakers but I talked to people there and we shared views on military, mandatory service etc....lets just say that the view of most of them are different from the ones back in Sweden.

So in some way Adi got a vacation from the army for two days, wehoo!, so yesterday we slept in and ran some errands that we had to do. Today however we went to Herzelia ( spell?), anyway its a place with a big marina, lots of hotels and a big shopping mall. We saw alot of sailboats and yachts and it made us think about that later in life getting a boat and travel around the world and visit as many CISV-ports as possible =) Today we also went to Adi's grandma twice, first to leave some of Adi's militaryclothes that needed som stitches and the second time for early dinner. At the dinner you could say that there was three discussion going on as in Adi and her grandma talked hebrew, me and Adi talked in english and me and her grandma talked german...it was really fun and interesting as one part always asked what was talked about.

After the dinner me and Adi went to a CISV-Haifa JB meeting about their next MOSAIC-project and the idea is sweet. In Haifa there is an organization that takes care of kids from broken homes. The plan is to go there and with a lot CISV-spirit and love bring them a different and fun activity then what they are used to...sounds awesome right? ill update you on how it will go.

But anyhow in the activity and also the night before we met up with some friends of ours and another member of the WATN-seminar camp, Gil. So tonight me, Adi and Gil went to a nice place here in the hills of Haifa, with a great view of the city, the beach and the ocean to drink some beer and talk about memories from this summer. It was awesome....and now its time to go to bed...what happens next is unclear...but the stories will end up here for sure!

til you read again =)

KHL and laila tov,

Carl

Family Dinner and pool

Hey again,

So its the end of the weekend here in Haifa, tomorrow everyone is of to work, school or army. I will continue to study hebrew, yesterday I bought another learning book to add to the computerprogram that I have used so far. The book is great it has all the words in english and what all the hebrew letters sound like and how they are written in print and regular.

Today Adi's grandma,grandma and grandpa was here for family dinner which is common thing here in Israel I've learnt. On the saturday you gather all the family members you can and cook alot of good food, I've been full now for almost 6-7 hours. We also used their new grill for the first time as we grilled some nice pieces of kebab, burgers and meet. Most of the older generation here that I've met dont speak english but many of them speak german which is the way for me to talk to them, so not only will I learn a new language but I will also hopefully get to use and improve my german skills.

Last night me, Adi and some of our friends went to a pool-hall to play some pool and drink some Goldstar( local israeli-beer). Me and Adi won one of our three matches, I didn't remember that I was that bad at pool... maybe my skill will come back to me after som practice. Now I'm of to bed, tomorrow holds more lessons in Hebrew and celebration at Adi's base as they finnish the first part of their training.

Laila tov,

Carl