Eitan's blog

Adam Hills show in London

2011-09-30T02:58:00.009+03:00

I am in London at the moment visiting my cousins Josh and Liz. Josh - my host - took me out with his girlfriend Kristin and 2 other Aussie friends - Dave and Rochelle to a comedy at Soho Theater given by Adam Hills. Adam is an Aussie comedian, and he visits frequently in the UK. It happened that we were seated in the first row. And it happened that Adam turned to Dave in the very first moment of the show. In some stage Adam asked Dave what he thinks the most unlikely nationality is in the audience. Dave looked at me for a moment thinking: "Hmm..... should I?" and he said "Israelis". Darkness came to my brain. Then came "how many Israelis do we have in the audience tonight?".
2 hands where raised, mine and of a girl in the middle. "Do you guys know each other? No? Really?" wondered Adam.
Then he googled my name from his iphone! WTF? The audience was expecting something juicy, but all he found was my latest post I wrote when I was in Moscow. He immediately realized that I was wearing the same polo like I did there two months ago.
Then I stood up, facing the audience, and was reproducing the same position, just like in the photo with a glass of freshly squeezed (Ehm) organic (Ehm, Ehm) orange juice. :-)

It was really funny - at least for 5 of us. I had a great time with Josh, Kris, Dave and Rochelle. Thank you guys! Dave, you made this evening!

http://www.adamhills.com.au/blog/?p=1023

Moscow

2011-08-13T17:12:00.012+03:00

I've spent three wonderful days in Moscow with my friend Rita, who planned and organized my entire visit. We toured all over the city together. The following map shows the places where we visited:

View Moscow2011 in a larger map

Винзавод: An old "wine factory", which was converted to host artist exhibitions, designer shops, a cinema and a square to water-fights. The places hosts interesting photo exhibitions, and designer shops as well:

From Moscow2011

Flat: In a tall prefabricated construction on the 10th floor. Beautiful forest covers a huge area next to the neighborhood. The following shot is an ad on the main street

From Moscow2011

"Acts like nanny? Spend more time with your kids!"

КАФЕ ПУШКИНЪ: Pushkin Cafe. The most amazing culinary experience I've had in the past years. A very stylish cafe with a wide range of starters and main courses, rich wine-list and excellent service. Unfortunately it was prohibited to take photos inside.

From Moscow2011

Кремль: The Kremlin

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Красная площадь:

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(G.U.M. - shopping mall)

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Стрелка: (Bar)

From Moscow2011

Cold beet soup with avocado sorbet and vodka-gel

From Moscow2011

Cold gaspacho soup

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Strelka Bar from the bridge

Арбатская: Arbat street and surrounding.

From Moscow2011

Студии Артемия Лебедева: A fantastic designer shop combined with a cafe.

Cruise:

From Moscow2011

Central hot water provider

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Me on the boat

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Institute of Sciences

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Тёплый Стан: One stop away from the flat. Small marketplace, exclusive mall, cheap mall.

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fast food

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fast food restaurant

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they were not told where to stop painting the crossing... :-)

City Space Bar & Lounge: excellent bar on the 33th floor.

From Moscow2011

Aviso de rectificacion

2011-06-26T13:34:00.001+03:00

El último lunes (12.10.2003) en nuestro diario, en el artículo “Nunca volveremos” (escritor: Juán Márquez), tuvímos unos errores tipográficos.
El apellido del profesor español conocido que ha recibido el premio especial de la Academia de las Ciencias de Oslo fue “Dr. Contreras”, y no “Dr. Márquez” como escribimos.
Tuvimos otro error tipográfico en el mismo artículo. Dr. Contreras recibió el premio en Nueva York y no en Oslo como escribímos.
El tercer error fue, en el número del instituto. El correcto número del instituto es: “Big Apple Restaurant” (El restaurant de la gran manzana).
Lo sentimos mucho, pero tuvímos dos errores más en el mismo artículo.
No el premio, pero el precio, y Dr. Contreras no lo recibió, pero lo pagó (doscientos dólares).
Lo sentimos mucho por los errores, y esperamos que no haber causado ningún malentendido.

La nutella y nostoros

2011-06-26T13:31:00.004+03:00

- Disculpe señor... ¿Las almendras son orgánicas?
- Sí claro.
- ¿Y las manzanas también?
- Sí, todas las verduras y frutas son organicas.
- ¿Organicas o naturales?
- Los dos. Naturales.
- Ese chocolate... ¿es organico?
- Sí, no. Es natural.
- ¿Cuál es la diferencia?
- Uno es natural y el otro es organico. ¿Endiende? No es lo mismo...
- Aha...Y... ese bocadillo de nutella.... ¿por qué es natural?
- Señor, es muy facil. Todos sus componentes son de la naturaleza. Vamos a pensar juntos. Qué tenemos... Harina. La harina es de trigo. El trigo es natural. Aceite de maíz. Todo es de la naturaleza. La nutella, es de chocolate, y naturalmente es natural, y es de la naturaleza, de nuestras raíces, tenemos el mismo origen con la nutella.
- ¿Qué? ¿La nutella y nosotros?
- Sí, he leido algo sobre esto...
- ¿Y el cianuro dentro también?
- Vamos a ver... ¡Sí, claro es veneno orgánico! Tenemos solo cosas naturales.
- Muchas gracias, señor.
- Naturalmente.

El "Palacio de la Papa Frita"

2011-04-24T03:54:00.003+03:00

Yo creía que mi último post iba a ser el último sobre Buenos Aires, pero, ahora, que volví del "Palacio de la Papa Frita" necesito escribir algo. Corrientes 1612. El "Palacio de la Papa Frita". Lomo de más ó menos 450 gr. Vino de .... no me acuerdo (algo con Los Andes), año 2008. Reserva. No encuentro las palabras. Perdone. El mejor. Por sí mismo valió la pena volar dos días. :)

English? Use google translate! Sorry.

El último día en Buenos Aires

2011-04-23T23:18:00.005+03:00

Este sábado es mi último día en la ciudad, donde he disfrutado mucho, y donde he visto muchas cosas nuevas, y donde gané pensamientos profundos. Hoy - sin cámera - estaba caminando en las calles de Palermo, compré pantalones nuevos, y un libro de Eduardo de la Puente, comí empanadas, y logré reservar el bus de Manuel Tienda Leon para mañana a las nueve hacia el aeropuerto.

¡Buenos Aires, gracias, chau, y hasta luego!

Colonia Del Sacramento

2011-04-23T03:22:00.004+03:00

Sin dudas Colonia Del Sacramento en Uruguay se roba todas las miradas. La mia también. Pequeño pueblo viejo con muchisimas cosas muy interesantes. El vieje con el barco de Buquebus tomó una hora a tráves del Rio de la Plata. El color del río es exactemente cómo el de la plata. Disfruté muchísimo.

Colonia Del Sacramento is the oldest town in Uruguay by the Río de la Plata. The ferry crosses in one hour. Small old town with beautiful streets, although with many tourists. But still all those tourists didn't succeed to ruin the atmosphere. I was there for about 3-4 hours, and had great fun there.

View Larger Map

Please enjoy some shots:

From Buenos Aires

Jardin Japones y Jardin Botanico

2011-04-22T02:43:00.001+03:00

Could only take photos of the Japan garden, then battery was exhausted.

From Buenos Aires

Typewriter

2011-04-22T02:04:00.003+03:00

noise from the neighbor! Haven't heard that for at least a decade and a half. I am serious. 21st century. :0

Teatro Colón y Museo de Ciencias Naturales

2011-04-21T00:05:00.004+03:00

In the morning I woke up with a slight noise of two or three raindrops. This caused me doing planning indoor things for today. When I left home the rain stopped however it remained cloudy. I made my way - through some bookstores - to the Colón Theater, which is one of the most famous buildings in the city. I took a guided tour, which took us all around the beautiful building. That was fantastic. In the afternoon hours I went over to see the National Museum of Natural Sciences, which was ok, not a big deal. It has an amazing collection of snails. Oh... almost forget: the world record of the steak tastiness was broken today - again in the Bodega en Ayacucho!

En la mañana he escuchado unas gotas de lluvia. Entonces pensaba hacer cosas en lugares cerados. Primero visité el Teatro Colón, uno de los mejores teatros del mundo. La visita tomó una hora, y la guía excplicó mucho sobe el edificio y su historía. Después tomé el Subte y viajé al Museo de Ciencias Naturales. He visto todo el museo, que me interesó, pero no en el mismo nivel que el de Nueva York.
Esta noche voy a ver un musical en un teatro en Avenida Corrientes.

From Buenos Aires

Barrio Norte and Puerto Madero

2011-04-20T00:54:00.003+03:00

In the morning I went to buy strings for Charango for a friend of mine. Amazing: here it costs around 18 shekel, in Israel 90. Anyway. I picked up the laundry from yesterday, then walked out in the city. I walked all the way up on Ayacucho (my street) to the north. There I was walking all around the northern neighborhood: Barrio Norte. Green parks with sculptures, ancient cemetery, and a Design Mall in between. Hot day.

En la mañana compré cuerdas de charango para un amigo mio, que me las pidió. ¿Qué más se puede pedir? :) Es más barato que en Israel. Yo trajé de vuelta la ropa limpia de la lavandería, y después salí en direcion a Barrio Norte. Estuve caminando por mi calle (Ayacucho) hasta Alvear. Acá he visto todos los lugares del barrio. La iglesia, el cementerio, y el centro de tiendas de diseño de cosas para la casa.

Unos fotos:

From Buenos Aires

When I took this picture I took a step back to get better angle. Then I suddenly felt that something touched my shoulder. That was only a leaf from the tree, but I instantly associated with skeletons and skulls... Hahaaaa!

From Buenos Aires

Then I took a taxi over to Puerto Madero, where I bought tickets for Friday to go to Colonia Sacramento in Uruguay. It is a World Heritage site and it's worth 3-4 hours to walk around. Then I took a walk and a wonderful icecream.

From Buenos Aires

Palermo Soho y Villa Crespo

2011-04-19T06:30:00.006+03:00

Today I spent the morning hours with some shopping in Palermo Soho. This fancy neighborhood hosts hundreds of small shops, most of them belong to local designers. This is a different neighborhood. The one- and two-store buildings are mostly renovated. Many restaurants, cafes and pubs are spread all over the area.
In the evening I went to Leil Seder of Chabad - first time in my life. This was a fantastic experience. They hired the biggest hall of Hotel Panamericano, and filled it up with at least 400 Israelis. We had an excellent atmosphere. There I couldn't take shots, sorry.

Hoy estuve andando por los barrios de Palermo Soho y Villa Crespo. Villa Crespo se llama también Barrio Outlet, porque hay muchísimos outlets acá. Inclúso compré unas camisetas. En Palermo Soho las tiendas son diferentes. Son de diseñadores locales. Sus productos son verdaderamente muy interesantes. El barrio mismo es también muy agradable. Los edificios de uno o dos pisos están en buen estado. Muchos restaurantes, bares y cafes divierten el público. Todo el día estuve caminando en el barrio. Cansado llegé a casa, y después de poco tiempo salí al Seder de Beit Jabad. Allá tuve una experiencia muy especial. Al menos cuatrocientos jóvenes Israelies tomaron asiento en una sala bonita y grande en el primer piso de Hotel Panamericano. Lo siento, pero acá no pude hacer fotos...

Unos fotos de Palermo Soho:
Some pics from Palermo Soho:

From Buenos Aires

San Telmo

2011-04-18T01:14:00.007+03:00

Spending a Sunday in Buenos Aires invites the visitor to San Telmo. The neighborhood goes out to the streets on Sundays. The record of steak-tastiness was broken :)
Some shots.

Sin lugar a dudas el domingo es el día en el que el barrio San Telmo sale a la calle. Se baila, se canta, y se toca, miles de gentes están andando. Unos fotos:

From Buenos Aires

Then I walked home through Congresso

From Buenos Aires

In the evening I went to Beit Chabad to register for the Seder. That is my first time in Beit Chabad somewhere in the World.

En la tarde fuí a Beit Jabad. Esta va a ser mi primera vez en un Seder de Jabad en algún lugar del mundo. Al menos vamos a ser 300 personas, o más.

Andando

2011-04-16T22:14:00.008+03:00

tomé el aire bueno en la ciudad en mi primer día aqui. Anduve sin mirar el mapa. Solo para sentir el lugar no necesito un mapa. Anduve más de 7 horas. Comí empanadas de carne y un plato de locro en un pequeño restaurante, que me gustó mucho.
Para más informacion sobre el locro mira aquí. (Sólo para adultos :) hay dentro muy raras cosas cómo tripa gorda y otras partes de animales.)
Volví a casa para descansar un poco, pero Raymondo me llamó. Raymondo es el hermano de Eduardo, el propietario de mi apartemento. Él es un profesor de tango en la universidad. Él me llevó a una clase de su amigo, que es para los que no saben nada sobre el tema - cómo yo. Aprendimos que hay ocho movimientos en el tango, y el hombre tiene que adaptarse a los movimientos de su pareja. En la sala se escuchó la música y en los espejos pudimos ver cómo hemos hecho errores.
Ese deporte me cansó un poco. Ahora estoy en casa, y voy a buscar un espectáculo para la nohce.

Volví. ¿Cuál es su gracia? presentó Ria la patria. Sobre cosas graciosas que pasaron en la Revolución de Mayo. Divertido. He entendido más o menos, pero no todo. Después comí una Trucha ¨Lados del Sur¨en un restaurante, donde me di cuenta por primera vez que todos los comensales tenían caras Europeas.

Today is my first whole day in Buenos Aires. I enjoy it very much, I walked around the streets of the historical city center for more than 7 hours. I stopped by in a restaurant for lunch, where I ate the ¨locro¨, a local specialit. It is just like a bean soup, but it includes very strange types of meat (like gut). It was super tasty. :)
When I came home Raymondo called. He is Eduardo's brother. Eduardo is the landlord of this apartment where I stay. It turned out that Raymondo is a tango teacher in the university. He took me to a beginner's class of one of his friends where I participated in a 2 hour training with explanations about the tradition of the tango and its movements. That was very interesting. Now I came home and looking for a theater play for tonight.

a bus station:

the view from my balcon:

here I ate the locro

the locro itself:

Volando

2011-04-15T23:15:00.004+03:00

Not a big surprise, but I made it to Buenos Aires!
Alitalia at its worse and best. The flight from Tel Aviv to Rome was with a dirty small aircraft overcrowded. But the one from Rome to Buenos Aires was with a very comfortable aircraft, clean, and well maintained. That chunk took 13.5 hours. When we took off the estimated arrival time was 6:55. We actually landed at 6:56. Amazing how can they know that so accurately. I took Manuel Tienda Leon from the airport, and they dropped me just by the apartment. A relatively new building located here:

View Larger Map
I have a very nice all-included studio apartment. I went out to hunt some food and I ate asado and salad. Was fantastic.
Now very tired, I try not to sleep now until the evening.

And now please excuse me; some words in the local language.

Tuve el vuelo más largo de mi vida: trece horas y media. Pero logré dormir un poco. Tomar asiento - no quiero más, al menos no este mes, gracias. Con Manuel Tienda León viajé a un lugar en el centro de donde seguimos adelante con coches privados suyos. Después de esperar al menos veinte minutos, salimos. Hablé húngaro, hebreo, y español en mi primera hora en BA. Fue muy interesante.
- Disculpe señor. Estamos aquí hace 20 minutos. ¿Cuándo salimos?
- 3-4- minutos. Hay mucho trafico.
Dentro de diez minutos.
- Disculpe señor, esperamos muchisimo tiempo....
- Sí, sí... ¡5 minutos!
Al fin he llegado a calle Ayacucho y Sarmiento. Después de recibir las llaves salí a andar y comer algo. Entré a un restaurante muy sencillo, pero muy agradable. Comí asado con ensalada. :) En un banco cambié los billetes de cien pesos (que compré en Israel en el aeropuerto) a billetes de veinte. Compré un diario (Página 12) y leyendo he me sentado en un café. Ahora voy a buscar un teatro para la noche.
Estoy sonriendo, todo va bien, el tiempo es soleado, voy a disfutar mucho.

Heads-up

2011-04-04T18:46:00.002+03:00

Just a quick heads-up:
15-24 April: Buenos Aires

Hahaaa!

Andrei

2010-09-30T22:10:00.005+02:00

Sailing on San Francisco Bay

2010-09-30T06:27:00.008+02:00

Monterey

2010-09-30T06:17:00.006+02:00

Red and other colors of Yosemite

2010-09-28T09:36:00.008+02:00

"We don't remember days, we remember moments"

2010-09-20T04:54:00.002+02:00

... said someone famous, I don't remember who it was. And when after 3 days being here in San Francisco and posting my first post on the trip I can really aggree with him. So much things jsut happen and we don't remember after minutes, and others we remember also after years.
I'll probably never forget how a BA flight attendence made a hole in the paper box of an orange juice with her pen, yeah, her *pen*. She was looking around carefully making sure that no one is watching her. She was wrong...:)
The guy who got on to my door-to-door shuttle at Terminal 1 showed us a short clip about the fire and the smoke they had on the AA flight from Florida
I'll also never forget how I came down on one of the steepest streets of the city... Very careful small steps, when my thumb rumpled in my shoes.
The crowd the mission in a rap-style on Union Square alongside with a anti-I-don't-know-what demonstration of two dozens of people.
Also Andrej (my step-relative) with his convertable Honda is a perfect part of the city. He's very kind and a really good guy. He took me today to Pacifica, where he saw a so called "well-maintaned" car which he almost bought (but finally not, because the car was not *that* well-maintained, not even in a fair condition). Then he showed me the seashore, and his good friend Liza, who lives there. The ocean is very different than the Mediterranian. Much more powerful, and noisy. Much more unpredictable also.
I don't take shots, I'm sure that all shots the reader can find on the Internet are way better than what I potentially could take.
When I try to compare SF with NY, what I can see is that here people are much more open minded. In the restaurants they talk to each other, even if they didn't know previously. But maybe there is no need to compare between them.
Fun, great fun here, I'm exploring the entire city.
I'm reachable at +1-415-2836017, please consider the timezone!

Lindengracht market

2010-09-12T22:40:00.002+02:00

Every Saturday there is a big market on Lindengracht:

View Larger Map
They sell excellent fruits, hand-made stroopwafles, antiques, etc... we ate stroopwafles - the best ever. Cannot describe.

We ate the traditional Dutch hering with onions, drunk some wine and coffee, were hanging out all day.
I bought some cheese in Kaasenland, bought an old Standard telephone from the 50's for 10 euros. In the evening we went to the Centraal, and said good-bye. I took the train to Schipol, and the plane back home...

IBC2010

2010-09-11T02:11:00.002+03:00

Today we have visited together with Yuval the IBC expo. At RAI of Amsterdam on a huge area thousands of exhibitors demonstrated pre-production technologies of video, audio, broadcasting and editing technologies. I'm not any kind of expert of these things, however I enjoyed it very much. 3D was the main issue, everywhere 3D televisions, some of them are nice, but all of them really require the use of special glasses (which really sucks). Cameras recording in 3D, helicopter-style flying cameras, targeted microphones on special trolleys, and many other stuff. All the top end of the industry.
Today I successfully bought a pair of shoes, cool ones, really, thanks to my brother who found it. And I didn't buy the steering wheel...and probably I won't, but no problem with that.
After the IBC we have visited the Van Gogh Museum, which was very nice, and later on we ate in one of the city's best restaurants: Envy. That was super. We are having a great time together. Good night for now....

Amsterdam

2010-09-10T01:40:00.003+03:00

My bro has arrived in the evening and we met at Centraal station in Amsterdam. Huge hugs, happiness. We walked in the pouring rain the flat. Some words about the flat. It is located in a building dated back to the 18th century. When entering the lobby from the street we can find some old-style statues and arm-chairs. Then need to cross the back-side garden, which is common to 4-5 houses. Green and quiet. The flat is slightly under the ground floor has some windows on the ground level. One big space is divided into 2 parts with a cupboard and an artificial wall. Kitchen, 2 beds, sofa, etc... a good one.
In the evening we walked all over the city, we were in the red-light infamous district, and we ate in the "La Paella" excellent spanish restaurant. Yuval, thanks for the tip, really I can't understand what a such glorious restaurant does in such a dubious neighborhood.
Today we walked all over Vondel Park and the Museum district. Then we went over a street in which all shops where or antiques. We saw a cool model of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun (replaced by a candle. Then the user should turn around a wheel and entire model starts moving. Only 550 Euro, only today.
Then I almost bought an old steering wheel of a boat. Well, tomorrow I might go back to buy it, not sure yet.
In the afternoon we met Szilvi and Gazsi, friends, who live here in Amsterdam. We ate excellent goat-cheese-honey sandwich in the University's cafe, and then went together to the Library, a 7-store most modern building with a very special interior design. Wonderful weather we had today, all-day sunshine. In the balcony on the 7th floor we drunk some wine and beer, ate some wok-stuff with chicken, until we ended up in a pub quite near to where we stay.
Another beautiful day in Amsterdam.
Hmm.... that steering wheel....

Arrived to Amsterdam!

2010-09-08T16:38:00.002+03:00

I made it! Wow, what a surprise eh? KLM took me from TLV to AMS this morning. Terrible flight, very few room for each passenger.
Really. For that price they could do better. I realized the following: when someone speaks dutch to me, I'm not sure if it's English, and I just happen not to understand that, or it's Dutch, which I supposed not to understand.
At Schipol I took the train to Amsterdam Centraal, and then the tram for another 3 stops. There I met Coby and Marina, who took me to the apartment at Prinsengracht which we rented.
The flat is in a ~200 year old building in a very central location. Statues in the lobby, and a famous garden inside.

View Larger Map

View Larger Map
Then I went out to meet Yuval, a friend of mine who lives here. We met in a cafe, had some talks, ate something. Then I headed to a store called Kaseland, and bought some Dutch cheese. On my way back home bought other stuff in the supermarket. At 6 will be waiting for my brother at the Centraal

Amsterdam!

2010-09-07T21:23:00.002+03:00

tomorrow morning Amsterdam!!!!
almost 4 days with my brother :)
I'll be available on +44-78-221-38522

stay tuned!

Granada

2010-04-16T12:27:00.010+03:00

Our last stop was Granada. I drove the car all the way up from Gibraltar. We stopped in Marbella for a dinner in a restaurant on the seashore recommended by our Lonely Planet. That was nifty. Wonderful fresh fish and seafood with excellent service. Real dining experience.
We arrived to Granada late in the night, parked the car in the city center and found a hotel around midnight or so. They we went out for a drink in a local Mojito-Bar, where special mojitos and other cocktails are done in a most professional manner. (Mojito is an originally Cuban highball (mixed drink)). That was successful! We both liked it very much.
The day after we picked up our tourist passes from an office and went up to where the Alhambra is by a bus. After getting our tickets to the Alhambra we ate in a restaurant some goat and gaspacho soup. Alla ate torilla, as usual.
The Alhambra is a beautiful garden with Alcazar and palaces inside. We saw the Nasrid Palaces, the Generalife, and of course the Alcazar itself. Must be said that it's very nice, however I had the feeling that Sevilla's Alcazar is much better maintained and renovated.
On our last day around noon I drove to Malaga, where we took the flight to Zurich and then home.

Granada pictures:

Gibraltar

2010-04-16T11:58:00.008+03:00

Gibraltar is a very special place, because it doesn't belong to Spain, but to Britain. Our car insurance didn't take effect in Gibraltar, but I crossed the border accidentally, turned around, crossed back to Spain, parked the car in La Linea, and crossed the border by feet.
In this colony of Britain they drive on the right side, they have double-deckers where the driver sits on the left, and other strange things. Other that that it's just like Britain. They speak British English occasionally tempered by Spanish words in the most unexpected parts of the sentence.
We hired a taxi driver who took us all around for 2 hours or so. So we went up on the big rock, saw a huge cave which used to be a military base, saw the wall and the tunnel from the era of Charles V., fed the monkey colony, (almost all its 300 members), and drove back to the border through the city. The driver gave us a very detailed lecture about Gibraltar, which was really useful. He was a little bit confused if the Second World War was in the 40's or in the 50's, and asked us if we've heard about it. But other than that it was a good choice.
One more interesting thing is that when you cross the border from Spain you must cross the airport's runway. How? There is a traffic light on both sides, which turns red 10 minutes before landing or departure of an aircraft.

Map:

View Larger Map

Pics:

Ronda and Setenil de las Bodegas

2010-04-16T11:33:00.008+03:00

After Sevillia I drove down to where the legendary white villages of Andalusia are. We found some villages off-the-road where we got some authentic taste of the area. Ronda is a white town, which attracts many tourists including us. We saw the museum of the bandits, who kept the whole area scared for hundreds of years. We also saw a museum on the evidences of pre-historic times in this area. On our way to find a hotel I suddenly saw a shop of Adolfo Dominguez, where I wasted around 200 euros for some cloths. I am not a fan of shopping, but they have really cool stuff. We found a hotel in the old part of the city (after having crossed the bridge) which is located in a building dated back to 1734. This was a very special experience.

Ronda:

Senetil de las Bodegas:

Sevilla

2010-04-16T10:59:00.010+03:00

Always one of the more difficult tasks of the trip is finding your hotel in a city where you've never been, without having a proper map and with a battery-low GPS where the maps were updated 3-4 years ago. So it was in Sevilla, but finally we made it. Parked the car into the elevator which took us as a whole to -2. Alla was a little but scared, "what if we get stuck in the elevator with the car, we can't even open the doors" and similar very useful panic-agenda.
The hotel was located off-the-map, so the receptionist took the map, and draw on the counter desk the exact location of the hotel. I thought to take it with me (the counter desk), but finally I convinced myself that it was not a good idea. We took bus number 14 (oh, sir it goes every 4-5 minutes!), waited about 15 minutes, but then it took us to town really quickly.
I loved the city! Beautiful buildings, excellent cafes, huge cathedral and the highlight is the Alcazar, which is dated back to at least 1000 years ago. In the evening we went to see Flameco show with some tapas (those we ate as well).
Some pictures:

Cordoba

2010-04-14T23:34:00.008+03:00

The ride from Toledo to Cordoba isn't much interesting, but our Audi A3 did the job very well, it's a real pleasure to drive it. Cordoba is a really nice city, it has a long history of Moore and Christian occupation. Like on all cities in Andalusia all cultures left a valuable footprint on it. We arrived in the evening hours. My camera and I don't know how to take pics in the night, but I tried:

On the next day we explored the city, visited in a typical Andalusian house:

We visited a huge mosque, which was converted to a church, and is still functioning as such:

Segovia, Avila, Toledo - pictures

2010-04-14T21:57:00.013+03:00

Thanks Robi, who gave me his card reader I can upload pics finally.

On the way from Madrid to Segovia:

Segovia Aquaduct:

Alcazar in Segovia:

Walking on the walls of the Alcazar of Avila on our last rainy day:

Toledo, Puerta Nuevo:

In Toledo we entered a small tienda (shop) to hunt some chorissos and queso (cheese). Vincente sold us some food and let me take some photos:

Vincente and Alla in the shop:

Then Vicente took my camera and took the following lovely shot. The smart fat guy on the right is me.

Spain - 2010

2010-04-12T22:57:00.004+03:00

So where did I stop blogging the tour? Oh, yes, that I don't have Internet access and I don't have the camera's USB cable. Hm. So I came home to Tel Aviv with the hope that I'll upload pics soon, after all I have the camera's cable and a card reader as well. Damn, I don't find the camera's cable. Really. I turned upside down the whole apartment. No cable. And to top all that I can't find the card readers cable as well. However I did find several totally useless cables in different colors. I found that searching a cable for more that half an hour is a terrible bore. So I stopped it for today. I'll find some solution.
Anyway. Spain.
We arrived in the middle of Santa Semana: the holy week when Christians celebrate the Easter. I've never seen this fest celebrated in a relatively religious country. One of the most visible parts of the celebrations is marching on the streets in different uniforms of the Church. The uniforms differ according to the age, and the instruments they play. Drums, trumpets, cymbal and other stuff, they wear funny hats, making the streets colorful and noisy. Seems that people who are not very religious all year around suddenly feel a great motivation to demonstrate for religion. A little bit like in our Yom Kipur, when non-religious people decide to fast, or any similar phenomenon.
We saw them in Segovia, in Avila and in Toledo as well as far as I can recall from my fading memory.
Will continue tomorrow.

Internet Access

2010-04-08T09:44:00.002+03:00

It is a hard task to find Internet access here, so I promise, I´ll fill up the missing days and will upload pics as well as soon as I can. At the moment we are in Ronda, and will be heading to Gibraltar today and later to Granada. However I am still happy with my decision not to bring laptop with me. It would be nice to have it sometimes, but it would add tons of worries as well.

3rd April, 2010, Avila - Toledo

2010-04-03T16:50:00.002+03:00

Weather is rainy today and quite cold, but it didn´t leave us in the hotel. We walked to the old city, which is in 10 minute walking distance from the hotel. We toured all aroun the old city, climbed on the walls and went all aroun to the opposite side on the wall. The rain was a little annoying, but the views were fantastic. Interesting things we ate: torrijas, tortilla, media-noche, jamon, and many more. We´ll be driving today to Toledo in an hour or so.
Pictures will come as soon as I find a place with card reader.

2nd April, 2010, Madrid - Segovia - Avila

2010-04-03T16:39:00.003+03:00

Wake up late as expected. Drove all the was to Segovia. The GPS map was a little outdated, so it took us quite an effort to leave the city in the correct direction, but we did it! The road goes up the hills, up to 1800 meters altitude, snow, lots of people , big traffic jams. Segovia is a wonderful little town north-west of Mardid. Roman aquaduct, wonderful old-city, and nice sunny weather. Pictures can talk more. Oh no, I can´t believe it. I brought the wrong cable from home, and here they don´t have card reader. Auch. Pictures will come.
In the evening we drove over to Avila, another nice town. Went to eat Castellian Soup, which is cooked with chorrisos, eggs, and is served with bread inside it. That was good. Weather is chilly here, but we are dressed well enough.

1st April, 2010, Tel-Aviv - Frankfurt - Madrid

2010-04-03T16:29:00.003+03:00

Here come the update, this is my first opportunity to use Internet, so I owe 3 posts now.
In the morning I organized myself and the family, and drove down to the airport with our rented Skoda Favorit. Returned the car, sent the family home, and waited for Alla to come. She really came, and we took the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, where we changed and took another flight to Madrid. I was a little bit worried about the short commection, but it didn´t turne out to be a problem. In Barajas Terminal 1 we found the Europcar counter which was closed. Ehm... Ok, I thought that´s my first option to try my Spanish in produnction, so I asked the lady at Hertz who told me to take a transfer bus to terminal 4. So we did. ¨Unfortunately¨ they didn´t have any car from the economy class, so they gave us an beutiful, black Audi A3. The only problem was that I couldn´t start the engine. After about 5 minutes it tuned out that must kick down the clatch and then it starts. :) GPS worked as well, took us without any problems to the hotel which was quite neer the Airport. BTW the car stops the engine each time it doesn´t move, and is in neutral, and the clatch is not pressed. When I kick the clatch down it starts the engine. Haha! Great fun once you understand the concept.

Heads-up - Spain, again

2010-02-16T23:05:00.002+02:00

This is just a heads-up, on my upcoming trip to Spain.

The plan:
1st April: Alla - a good friend of mine - and myself will fly to Madrid (via Frankfurt) in the evening hours.

We'll rent a car for the whole period. We'll begin our trip in Segovia and Avila, two small towns next to Madrid. Then on our way to the south we'll be stopping in the ancient town of Toledo.

In Andalusia we'll try to see as much as possible: Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada, the area of the National Park Sierra Nevada, and maybe Gibraltar as well.
On our way home on the 10th April we'll fly out from Malaga (via Zurich) back home to Tel Aviv.

My Spanish is getting better from day to day, I hope I'll manage to speak as much as possible during the trip.

I'll try to update my blog from time to time to write about our adventures, funny stories, and will try to upload some pics as well.

Back home

2009-10-07T23:06:00.000+02:00

Successfully arrived!
Some pictures:

Museum of Natural History

2009-10-03T05:04:00.002+02:00

Today Gabo took me over to Brooklyn, he dropped me by the 18th ave, where I took the subway to Manhattan. At Lafayette Broadway came a power outage, and the train stuck. Fortunately we were in a station. So I decided not to wait and walked all through the east village and then took another subway up to the west side where I visited the Museum of Natural History. This is one of the most amazing museums I have ever been. It covers tribe traditions from all over the World, including Natives, Mesopotamia tribes, Siberia, Africa, Inca and many more. Besides that I saw the exhibition of meteoroids which hit the Earth. Fossils of dinosaurs, a huge stuffed whale, and many other interesting stuff. I spent there more than 4 hours. After that I walked all around the West Side. In the evening I met Tomi, Josephine, and David for dinner on the 58th street in an excellent restaurant.
Tomorrow is just a half day, not enough to get in Manhattan, so I stay here. I leave around 6pm from JFK to Milan, and back home to Tel Aviv.
Pictures will come. Really. I promise.

Central Park, Metropolitan Museum, MoMA and much more

2009-09-30T06:59:00.005+02:00

The day before yesterday in the morning I took the Long Island Rail to Penn station. There I took the subway to Harlem. Not that I wanted to get there, but it just skipped on most stations, so I had to take another train back to 72nd street West side. There I saw the building in which John Lennon lived, and where he was murdered. Just opposite the house in Central Park I was the "Strawberry fields" and all other John Lennon related things and good atmosphere with guitars and singers. From there I walked up inside Central Park to the Belvedere Castle, from where I could see the most beutyful view of the whole park. Later on I visited the Metropolitan Museum, which was much bigger than I estimated. I think it requires a month or so to explore it, so I scanned some exhibitions in 2 hours. Then I met Tomi and Alexandra and we ate some cakes in Demo - a Wiener cafe. There was the huge Apple store just opposite the cafe, so there was no choice, I went there to see with about another 300 people in the same time. Then the Sony shop at 54th was the dessert.

Yesterday I visited the Intrepid, the huge aircraft carrier which parks on the Hudson river at 46th street. That was a great experience. I went all around the huge ship, up to the captain's deck, and down to the hangars. On the deck I saw many aircraft of which the carrier could take one hundred. Interesting film is shown in the theater about the history of the ship which served in the Second World War, and Vietnam as well. In the afternoon I went around Broadway, walked from 86th street all the way down to the Village. Bea came to meet me at 7, and we went to Caroline's comedy. The guy on the stage began with good jokes about Jews, and other people in New York, and then went over to some more sensitive stuff. After talking about the sensitive stuff 5-10 minutes he suddenly asked a girl sitting in the audience about her age. Guess what the answer was? 16! So he became very embarrassed, confused and switched to different topics. But this thing actually has ruined his show. But altogether it was funny.

Today I visited the Museum of Modern Art on the 54th street. That was a little too complex to me to understand this kind of modern art. But I enjoyed very much the exhibition on interior design as well as the museum shop at the end.

I also succeeded to buy pants, a pair of shoes and one t-shirt. Great success.
Tomorrow is my last whole day in the city. I hope to visit Guggenheim Museum and/or Fritz Collection and/or Natural History. I'll see how much I can do in one day.
I enjoy New York very very much. Pictures will be uploaded sometime. Please don't ask about this, please. Good?

Baltimore, DC, New York

2009-09-29T07:05:00.004+02:00

Finally posting. Yesterday Mark, Alina, Yonatan and myself visited the Baltimore Aquarium. This is one of the biggest aquariums of the World. Excellent dolphin show, big sharks, and many other funny creatures. The exhibition of the jelly fishes was the most interesting. We walked all around the inner harbor of Baltimore, ate sushi creating some ecological imbalance in the sea.
Today Alina helped me in some shopping, I bought two shirts, and I finally know what is my size! I am however still completely unable to buy jeans or dockers, I am a complete misfit. Alina dropped me at a bus station in Reston. The bus took me to Falls Church where I took the metro to DC. In DC dropped my backpack in a locker, and went for a walk next to the Capitol Hill. Then I saw the Postal Museum, which was the closest museum to Union station. This was very interesting. Another non-boring museum, you know, one of those few. It introduced the history of the US Post and mail services. A very special point of view on the American history.
At 4 I took the Amtrak to New York Penn Station, where Gabor picked me up, and we went to the 42nd Street tower bar, up on the 48th floor. This is a restaurant which turns around in 360 degrees in one hour. So we saw Manhattan at night all around. On the napkins there was the map of the important buildings on the view illustrated, so we could identify most of them. Too late now for pictures. But they'll come.

Washington DC and Reston

2009-09-26T22:49:00.016+03:00

On Friday morning I checked out really early from the hostel on 11th street in New York. I walked in the chilly morning to 4th West subway station with my backpack and trolley. It was still dark, late night pub visitors were spread out making their way home. I took the A train to Penn Station 34th street and took a train at 7:17 to Washington DC. The ride took three and a half hours, well, this is the disadvantage of the cheapest ticket. We run over Philadelphia and Baltimore before arriving to DC. DC's Union station is one of the most wonderful stations I have seen.

As you can see I began taking shots. I met Mark and Alina who picked me up at the station. We went to a walk in DC parks. We saw the monument of the second world war, and climbed up to George Washington Memorial.

Today we have visited the Air and Space museum. There are actually two of these. One in DC itself and the other is next to Washington Dulles airport. We went to the second one where the Enterprise space shuttle is exhibited. I sat in a simulator which simulates the Enterprise liftoff and landing. That was amazing. Now heavy rain outside, and the evening is yet to come!

Washington square

2009-09-25T06:57:00.002+03:00

It's the second evening when when I put the final chord on my day with some guitar music. All kind of spontaneous players sitting all around the square with the big marble arch on the side and an illuminated fountain in the middle. People just start playing something and then others come to join them for singing, drumming or playing another guitar. Others just walk by, and stay for one song or two. While playing and singing it's really hard to think about that the square once served for public executions. [for clarity: I didn't play. I just sat there and enjoyed how others played.]
Today I explored Queens with a friend of mine who lives there. He took me to Kew Gardens, Jamaica Hills and many other neighborhoods of Queens where the Jews rule. In some places there is a majority of Jewish shops, restaurants and residents. Then came back, ate a huge lobster on 6th avenue, and hung out in the village in some bars with live music. This is to compensate the kosher part of the day ;-)
Tomorrow I'll be off to Mark and Alina in Reston, VA for the weekend. Keep tuned!

Ray's pizza and others.

2009-09-23T23:32:00.003+03:00

I must inform the reader with great disappointment that the famous Ray's Pizza 6th avenue corner 11th street doesn't rock at all. It's a big big slice of pizza with tons of oil on it. I really don't understand why is that so famous.
Anyway. To the point.
Yesterday evening I was hanging out quite a bit. I began in a Cuban Restaurant in the east Village where I wanted to order:
- Excuse me, Sir, what is a paella del choriros?
- It's just like paella de vormachinez but a little more spicy.
- Which is?
- Oh. sorry. vormachinez is with crullos and fartios, you know sir, fish!
(Oh, fish I know that!)
- Ok, that will be fine.

That was a fantastic paella. Rice with kinds of fish. Tons of primiadilez and kelisavertos in it ;-) or something similar. Next place was a live music bar, in a basement of a building. Good music, much fun. Then the Fat Cat also with live music.
Today I went to "track and trails", a sports shop in the downtown. I finally bought a couple of things: a small backpack, a raincoat, and fast-dry pants.
I ate lunch at Balthazar on Spring street, quite close to Broadway corner. That was a fantastic place. If you don't like gourmet food, turn to the next paragraph. Entree: Oysters: 6 fresh oysters samples: 3 from the West- and 3 from the East-coast. All of different types. Then I ate a huge beef steak fillet made medium-rare which tasted awesome. That was really delicious. Dessert I choose Pavlova with warm berries. That was the best Pavlova ever in my life, including all New Zealand and Australia. Fantastic.
After having eaten all these I went to Wall Street's museum of American Finance. All about stock-, bond- and commodities exchange, their history. The dollar, notes and interesting facts about them. This is one of the few non-boring museums which I rarely see.
Later on I walked all the way up to Chinatown and Little Italy. Chinatown is just like Hong Kong, Chinese occasionally tempered by a little bit of English. Amazing markets selling unknown fruits, and all Chinese stuff. Just one street ahead I crossed to the other side and found myself in Little Italy, where the best Italian restaurants are located.

Hanging out

2009-09-23T01:33:00.003+03:00

Yesterday I took the subway all the way down to the financial district. The first thing I saw was Century 21. I went in, which turned out to be a mistake. So cheap. On the other hand they don't even have fitting rooms. Strange. I left the zone of Century 21 quickly. I saw the are of the ground zero, and the memorial. I walked all around Wall street and other small streets of the neighborhood. Then I took the Staten Island Ferry from the terminal. Not that I had something to do on Staten Island, but it goes quite close to the statue of Liberty. So I saw it twice. I saw New York from a very special view from the sea. In the afternoon and evening I walked all over the streets of the village and Chelsea.
Today first thing in the morning I went up to Empire State Building. I was there at opening. So I didn't wait in any queue. Now I saw how big and tall actually New York is. The building itself is amazing as well.
Later on I walked around the east side of the Midtown. In the after noon I took a bus to the Jersey Gardens Outlet. This was quite a disappointment. It's a huge area of bullshit with a few good stuff inside. The thing is that in order to reach the good things you have to jump into all that other stuff. The reader can replace some words with others. I don't want to violate bolg regulations. So I ended up with 3 pairs of socks. That's the whole deal. In general I can say the the sellers in NY don't know even their own stuff. The mix real shit with valuable goods, and sometimes it seems that even they cannot differ between them. Then I returned to the hotel to search the Internet for some sports stuff. It pointed out some stores here in Manhattan which are supposed to sell those things. When I called them to ask if they have it they just said "Eh? What? Huh?". So it works. I hunted some strawberries from the deli, which I'm going to eat soon. Then I'll be heading out for dinner.
One more strange thing. New Yorkers don't wait for the green light when crossing a street. They just walk. Even when cars are coming they cross if there are enough cheeky people who cooperate for red light crossing. Sometimes a policeman stands in the middle, but it seems to me that he defenses the cars from the walkers more than the walkers from themselves.

a less formal day

2009-09-21T16:11:00.003+03:00

Yesterday I didn't post, but here it goes now.
In the morning I walked around Whashington Square, when came the phonecall from Szilvia, a very good childhood friend, who invited me to come to visit them. So I took the subway to Grand Central and then the train to Croton Harmon. They live in a very nice house with a garden. We went to soo the Pow-Wow not far from their place. Native americans (Indians) were dressed and were dancing their traditional folk dances. All kind of native handicrafts were sold, I liked the fox-faces, but no, I didn't buy one. The fox was inside.
Then a bried BBQ in the garden and I hopped on the train back to Grand Central. That was a very nice day. In the evening I went to the Commedy Cellar where all kind of commedists showed up on the stage making a really good time for the audiance. It was really funny, not that I can citate any of their jokes.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please!

2009-09-20T06:30:00.009+03:00

This was my first whole day in New York. It's easy to get around, I don't even need the map. I toured over the village, drunk a terrible lemonade for which I even payed 3 dollars. Went up to the Times Square, then walked back to Union Square. Great sunny weather, a simple t-shirt did it. I had lunch in an Italian restaurant serving gorgonzola cheese with portebello style mushrooms and excellent salads. At the nearby table an old man was eating colorful candies for dessert which he pulled out from his jacket's pocket. :-)
I saved my eating capabilities to the evening. It was worth it all.
At 6 I went over to Tomi's and Josephine's home on east 70th street. They are very kind people. The jacket was on place, good that I bought it with me. I was glad to see that not everybody was wearing a tie. There were 17 guests which were served by 2 housekeeper ladies who were hired for this purpose.
The evening began in the hall of the kitchen where we drunk some wine, ate some cheese and other stuff. Then we went over to the piano room where Sarah - one of the guests from Boston - played Chopin in remembrance of the 200th birthday of the composer. Then we went up to the dining room where the table was already organized. The guests were from the Goldman Sachs (Josephine's work), from the UN, and other respectful employers. Tomi and Josephine sat on the opposite sides of the long table (actually of the room). On the walls of the dining room remarkable paintings were hanging. I thought it was a nice two stories house, until Tomi decided to show me around.
Ok, dear reader, just sit back. This house has six floors. Each floor serves different purposes. A floor where Tomi works, 2 floors for sleeping and bathrooms, one for the living- and dining room, one for the kitchen and the piano, and one... I forget, but there were six. The floors are connected with a wooden two staircases and an elevator, which was the original elevator of the building dating back to its construction in 1910. By the way the house is located just opposite of Woody Allan's house.
Some words about the menu: Soup with traditional kneidelach, then meat with meet: roasted lamb, duck breast, chicken items, salads, potatoes, etc...
The dessert was made of 5 courses: pears with cinnamon, Pavlova, honey cake, and another 2 kind of cakes.
We killed'm all :-)
Then we were sitting in the living room where the impressive china collection is located with Herendi chinas all around, and paintings on the walls.
I have never been in such party in such castle in my life. That was an real experience for me.
Shana Tova!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I was walking around without my camera, which turns out to be a great fun. For photos of New York use Google. They are far better than the ones I make. So I decided to get rid of the camera for the first days.

I made it!

2009-09-19T06:22:00.002+03:00

Successfully arrived to JFK with Air France via Charles De Gaulle. I even slept a little bit on the plane. From JFK I took the Air Train to Howard Station where I bought a train ticket together with a one-week subway ticket. During the ride I figured out where to get off. I came up at West 4th street where I asked two girls for directions. Where is north, east, etc. They told two totally different things and they started to discuss with each other that if north is there then the opposite direction cannot be west, it must be south. Anyway, I figured out the directions alone. Found the hotel on 11th street between 5th and 6th avenues. Nice place. I went out to grab some food. I found a place named something like "7-day open food restaurant", ate some fish and now I am back to the hotel.
In the restaurant I heard an excellent joke, which was told at the table next to mine.
- Wh*&^*$#)%&*@)( the parrots and $(&#*(&$#@ so then the man came and said (*&$(*#&%*@&*(#$&
- hahahaaaa!
Good one, ain't it?
Now crashing to bed.

zero sleeps

2009-09-18T01:54:00.002+03:00

two so to say irregular things in my backpack:
- a sport jacket
- a made-in-china colorful big farm tractor

New York, here I come!

12 more sleeps

2009-09-06T22:16:00.002+03:00

to New York city!...
Come on, come on... augh it's still 12... faster please!

23-25 July, Riga

2009-07-27T21:44:00.004+03:00

3 whole days I had to explore Riga, I enjoyed it very much.
Air Baltic has absolutely no problems with the service on board, because there is no such. 4.5 hours without a glass of water!
But the upcoming 3 days were a real compensation to the inconvenience.
Enjoy the next slide show!

Going to Riga, Latvia for the weekend!

2009-07-19T22:36:00.003+03:00

Yeah, traveling again to the duty free!
Leaving Tel Aviv with Air Baltic on Thursday early morning, landing in Riga around 10am. Then come 3 whole days in Riga. Flight back home the night between Saturday and Sunday.
No, I don't take the laptop with me, I'll be on HOLIDAY (even if it's short). Photos will be uploaded on next Sunday, after getting back home.
Some maps for the curious reader, who is waiting for the stories and photos impatiently :

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

16 April 2009, Barcelona, Milano, Budapest

2009-04-16T22:31:00.002+03:00

In the morning I went for a walk in the city, without any particular purpose, just so. I bought about 1.5 kg chocolate, ate 4 grilled squids on the market, drunk some fruit juice, went back to the hostel, took then metro to Catalunya station, and from there I took the Aeropuerto bus to the airport. At the airport I checked in with the Lufthansa automatic checkin machine, which scanned my passport, understood my name, let me choose seat, and printed out two boarding passes. Inside I discovered that they owe me 17.5 euros of tax return. So I went back out, convinced the officials to stamp and sign on the form, took the money at the counter, and went back to the transit. Short connection in Milano, and back to Budapest now.

15 April 2009, Barcelona

2009-04-15T21:37:00.013+03:00

After yesterday´s pub it was a complex decision to wake up at 9, but I managed it. At 10 I was already in the Guell Park, the most marvelous park I´ve ever toured. Gaudi´s house is also there, which was designed by himself. Pictures talk more than words.
I also visited today the Museum of Catalonian Art. The permanent and temporary exhibitions include Baroc, collections, Modern Art with some masterpieces of Picasso, and a photo exhibition from the period of the Spanish civil war.
For lunch I went back to the market, where the best food is. I ate seafood, of course; I hardly touch meat, because the seafood is so good and so fresh that it somehow always wins.
In the afternoon hours I visited the Casa Batllo. This building is one of Gaudi´s masterpieces, a legend of art. The guided tour, which costs a fortune (16.50 Euro!), took me over a discovery tour inside the brain of one of the genius architects of all times. See pictures!

14 April 2009, Barcelona

2009-04-14T22:09:00.012+03:00

I began my day with the huge church of Sagrada Famila. This impressive architectural creature´s building began in 1884 by Gaudi, and is still far from its end. I was queuing up for about an hour, and then got up with the elevator to one of the towers of the temple. In the basement all the miniatures of the plans are exhibited. Those towers are by the way appx 170 meter high.
Then unfortunately I found the main street of shopping. That terrible mistake cost me a fortune. But money was spent for the best things, believe me! I explained myself that anyway I´d have to buy something for the summer... So I did it here.
In the afternoon I expored the market of La Rambla. Colorful, tasty stuff. Ate some fruits, and some grilled squids.
In the evening I went to España square were I found amazing view on the city by sunset. Tomorrow I´ll have a busy day, it´s my last whole day here. Enjoy some pictures of today, another beautiful, sunny day in Barcelona.

tapas!

sagrada familia

one of Gaudi´s creatures

market!

my squid, just a moment after removing it from the grill

Plaza España

13 April, 2009, Barcelona

2009-04-13T19:25:00.014+03:00

In the morning hours...oh...I was sleeping :-)

Around 11 I left the hostel and explored the Gothic quarter of the city. The amazingly narrow streets, lead me to very interesting places. The city was conqered many times during its history. This time by the German tourists. I visited the Placa Reial, the big Catedral - Casa de L´arcadia, and an ancient synagouge. Wonderful plazas are untouchable, and many of them are closed to veichles traffic. I made my way down to the seashore promedare, which is full of excellent fish and seafood restaurants. They are quite expensive. Finally I found a cheaper one. There I ate the best paella. A pan of rice with excellent souce with some fish and seafood baked in it. Real joy for the tounge. Beatuiful, sunny weather today :-). I saw the Arc de Triomf, the Ciutadella, and finally ended up in the Museum of Picasso. This museum is dedicated only to Picasso´s works who lived in Barcelona for some years.
A picture is hanging on the wall over my monitor in the internet cafe, the guy on it has four eyes. I think I´ll move to another computer... But this has nothing to do with Picasso.
Done. Much better.
Now heading for some tapas bar dinner.
Barcelona is great! Just the spellchecker doesn´t work here. I mean it does, for Spanish. 95% of the words in this post are disspelled! hehe. Picures:

La Rambla, next to the hostel

Kind of breakfast

Old city

Next to the seashore

port and restaurants

a typical starter

this is paella

sand-art

12 April, 2009, Madrid, Barcelona

2009-04-13T18:58:00.013+03:00

In the morning I checked out from the hostel, and took the metro to Atocha station. I locked my backpack in an automatic locker and went to visit the nearby Museum of Reina Sofia. This museum is dedicated to modern art. They have a remarkable collection of Salvador Dali, and many other artists, most of are not in the understandable category. But that´s art. At 12:30 I took the fast renfe train from Atocha station and after about 3 hours I was in Barcelona Sants. This supersonic :-) train´s speed was always between 280 and 310 km/h. On the way I saw small villages passing by in the constantly changing landscape occasionally interrupted by beautiful castles, and also by footprints of evil industries. In Barcelona I walked down on the La Rambla street to my hostel. My room is actually in an appartment on the 5th floor. There is an elevator in which I didn´t fit in with my backpack. Yeah, good food in spain :-) .
In the afternoon I saw the wax museum, and evening hours I went for a walk in the small streets of the old city, until I saw that a classical spanish guitar concert it about to begin in a nearby church. Without a second of hasitation I payed 15 euros for the ticket, which made the evening one of my best experiences in Spain. Manuel Gonzalez, the famous guitar player played pieces of various Spanish compositors. Fantasia Española, Siutes of Isaac Albeniz, Recuerdos de la Alhambra (Dreams from Alhambra) were just a few of them. That was *really* fantastic.
A nearby tapas bar put the final chord on the day with excellent drink and food, tempered by most meaningful discussions about the financial crisis with some British and American guests. After solving all problems of the World I went back to the hostel.

Inside Atocha Station, Madrid.

Renfe train at the Atocha station

I met some old friends in the Wax Museum of Barcelona

Rain in Barcelona

11 April, 2009, Madrid

2009-04-11T18:47:00.021+03:00

Today in the morning hours I've visited the Museo Nacional del Prado. I saw the permanent exhibitions of this huge museum. Well, could not cover all of it, but I did see the most important masterpieces of Bosch, Francisco de Goya, Diego Velázquez, Peter Paul Rubens and some of Rembrandt. Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. From the Prado I walked through the Praque del Retiro, a huge park with lakes, modern statues, and tons of squirrels in it. I saw the used-book sellers, I walked via Puerta de Alcala, Banco de Espana and Calle Gran Via. For lunch I entered one of the most famous and authentic tapas bars: the Malaspina. I ate some of those tasty tapas with cheese, meat, anchovies, and other toppings.
In the evening hours I walked all around the small streets of Calle Mayor, and Calle de Segovia. This area is located between the Palacio del Real and Plaza Mayor. Wonderful streets with excellent restaurants. I went back to Plaza del Mayor, one of the amazing places of Madrid. I entered two places tonight. Both of them were authentic pubs where I ate mussels and giant shrimps and drunk beer. Heared football game broadcasted by the radio, standed and sat with all the locals. I also discovered that when I speak French with pronouncing out all the vowels and consonants it simply becomes Spanish and they understand me. Hm. So I ordered in Spanish. Some pictures of today.
book sellers. cheap!

the park

modern art statues in the park

Banco de España

tapas at Malaspina

inside Malaspina

an avarage restaurant on Plaza del Mayor. Yami...

and another one...

10th April, Madrid

2009-04-10T19:14:00.017+03:00

After the secretary from the Cameri theater rang me up at 8am asking if I want to make a permanent ticket, and I was unable to answer her question I wake up, and went out to the streets of Madrid. The first attempt to begin my day ended up with my almost immediate return to the hostel to take my umbrella. The second attempt took some more time, after about 10 minutes I returned to take my sweater. The third one was most successfull. I went all the way up from Puerto del Sol and made my way to the direction of the Palacio Real de Madrid. This is the The Royal Palace of Madrid . Queuing 1 hour was worth it, dozens of rooms of the royal family are open to the public. They are richly decorated by many artists such as Goya and Gasparini. I liked very much the room for Sunday breakfasts of Carlos III., the Gala evening room with a huge table with many chairs, the outstanding collection of armour in the Royal Armoury displaying arms and armour that belonged to kings of Spain and other members of the Royal Family, from the 13th century onwards. Then I went to eat something. One of the strange habbits of the spanish is that they eat while standing. Everybody drinks beer, and eat tapas, jamón. Museo Del Jamón is a chain of restaurants. Amazingly crowded, extremely tasty. This is the real taste of the city. Eat what they eat, drink what they drink. So did I. Afternoon I went to the Atocha station and purchased my ticket to Barcelona for the 12th. Went back to the hostel touching wonderful places. All buildings are in excellent condition. In the evening I went to see a flamenco show in a theater. That was fantastic. About 50 minutes of pure beat, music and amazing dance. 4 girls and 2 boys were dancing. 3 musiciants made the music: Guitar, violett, drums, and one singer. It was really fantastic. After the flamenco show I did my traditional restaurant-hunt. It turnes out that in the best restaurants they can have those stupid colorful crazy gambling machines at the entrance. But once you go inside you can get the best salmon fish on the planet Earth. I know people who evaluate a city by its restaurants. I also know others who evaluate restaurants by the salmon they prepare :-) . This chioce was the winner. Some pictures of today.

standing and eating

Her Majesty, Great Salmon The 1st. /aka The Tasty/ (21:50, 10th April, 2009 - 22:05, 10th April, 2009)

Museo Del Jamón

each and every street is marked beside its name with a relevant painting

Plaza de Mayor

Home, sweet home. Palacio Real de Madrid.

Ate some of these...

social workers trying to convince a homeless woman to come with them to a hostel

9th April: Budapest, Frankfurt, Madrid

2009-04-09T23:48:00.006+03:00

3 cities in the very same day... I took a flight around noon from Budapest to Frankfurt. 2 hours waiting proved me that I do still understand and speak some Deutsch! Arrived to Madrid around 6pm. I saw several airports in the World, that one of Madrid is really huge. Finally I took the metro with two changes to Sevilla station, where I searched the hostel. After successfully hving found Astoria, and Astorias, I finally found the Asturias which was proved to be the correct one. Didn't waste too much time in the small but confortable room, began exporing the city. The location is very central just a 5 minutes walk from Puerto del Sol. The city is clean, with very nice buildings. I ate tapas in an authentic restaurant called Cantin Alhambra. Some pictures:

8 April, 2009, Budapest

2009-04-09T00:30:00.009+03:00

I came over to Budapest in the early morning hours. In the Dan Lounge I met Oren and Yael, a couple I met in the Australian outback and tracked together 2 days. That was a really nice surprise.
In Budapest I took a shuttle to my parent's house. Everybody happy, even Frici the cat. Excellent food, good afternoon sleep in the living room. Seder evening we held - in our way. It may not has been with all the details, but the main meaning - the kneidelach (did I get it well?) - was well understood by all of us. Now crashing into bed.

קולות בלילה

2009-04-03T15:44:00.005+03:00

היום הייתי בהצגה בתאטרון הקאמרי. יחד עם נורית, שיזף וצחי צפינו במחזה חדש של יהושע סובול: קולות בלילה.כעס, קנאה, הומור וסודות מן העבר, צפים על פני השטח תוך כדי עימות נוקב.
ממחזותיו האישיים והמרגשים ביותר של יהושע סובול. אב ובנו יוצאים למסע לילי של סגירת חשבון. האב, לעת זיקנתו, בורח מהבית אל תוך הפרדסים החשוכים ומבקש את מותו. הבן, במירדף אחריו, מנסה להפיח בו מחדש את הרצון לחיות.
וחסר פשרות. מחזה-מסע מטלטל על אהבה ופרידה, על הפחד לאבד מול הרצון הנואש להיות חופשי, ועל ההבדלים בין שני בני אדם קרובים כל כך ושונים כל כך, כמו שרק אב ובן יכולים להיות.
קאמקרי 3 הינו אולם מיוחד במינו. כל כיסא עומד בפני עצמו ומסתובב 360 מעלות. המחזה מתרחש מסביב לקהל וגם באמצע. התמונות המוקרנות על הקירות שמתאימות למיקום של הסצנות והקולות הנשמעים באיכות גבוהה
מאוד ממערכת הסראונד באולם משולבים היטב עם משחקם הסוחף של אלי גורנשטיין ועודד לאופולד.

אגב, יהושע סובול גם ישב בקהל. תודה לצחי מילמן על הכרטיס!

הצגה מיוחדת מאוד בבמוי וביצוע נהדרים. מומלצת בחום.

--א

Earthquake in Nothern California

2009-03-30T21:38:00.007+03:00

Today at 10:40 a 4.3 magnitude earthquake hit Northern California.
I learned about this from twitscoop.com. Well not the details, just the initial fact.
Twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets on twitter every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. It permanently updates the main screen:

The more a word is used in tweets the bigger the font is on twitscoop.
For more detailed statistics you can get the timeline graph which looks like this:

We can clearly see when it began: as it happened more and more people set their tweets with the word "earthquake".
Anyway, we hope everything is OK over there.

The Following gadget

2009-03-29T23:05:00.003+03:00

I've just added a following widget to my blog.
You can see Friend Connect's new feature: the social-bar on the right side pane.
The feature is a bit like the news-feed on Facebook. Each reader can follow up other readers' activity. You can use your Google, Yahoo, Open-id or Blogger account.
You are invited to follow!

Boffin

2009-03-27T17:30:00.005+03:00

I've read about Boffin of last.fm on webisztan.blog.hu - well, before clicking on that link you'd probably want to learn some Hungarian...
Boffin is a project on last.fm, currently available in its alpha version. It is based on a simple idea.
At the first use Boffin scans your computer searching for music and some metadata on the music. Then it reaches Last.fm/Audioscobbler's database and tries to categorize each song. It creates a cloud of labels.

Pick on one or more tags, click play and Boffin will play only songs of the specified categories.
The idea is cool, much better than shuffle of iTunes. It works on the local disk, but you get it just like a radio.
I downloaded the mac version. Honestly it was disappointing. Got an error during scanning, probably because of some file names in Hebrew (?). I permanently get an error on "cannot create playlist". Then I tried to rescan my computer and then it hasn't found anything...
I am also unclear on some of the labels like "wtf" or "acid jazz"...
Good idea, but still plenty of work to be done.

I backed up my blog

2009-03-25T21:02:00.003+02:00

It was quite easy.
http://eitanschuler.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000 page lists the latest 1000 post feeds of my blog. Then I used the DownloadThemAll! Firefox add-on. Selected all feeds.
Meanwhile I did a mkdir /home/eitan/blog .
In DownloadThemAll I selected all posts.

And pressed "Start!" It created one html file for each post under /home/eitan/blog. You can directly tar and zip it as well.

Oh... this post is not included!

Command-Line-Fu

2009-03-23T23:35:00.003+02:00

A friend of mine, Sina, found this: www.commandlinefu.com

Command-Line-Fu is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. Delete that bloated snippets file you've been using and share your personal repository with the world.
Many interesting ideas. My pick is "rotate-a-video-file-by-90-degrees-cw".
mencoder -vf rotate=1 -ovc lavc -oac copy "$1" -o "$1"-rot.avi

שיחה באמצע היום

2009-03-15T23:54:00.002+02:00

צהרי יום:
- הלו
- שלום, מדברת גבי, קצינת הקישור שלך
- שלום גבי
- אל תפחד, רק רציתי לוודא שהכתובת שלך שרשומה אצלנו נכונה, האם זה עדיין רחוב הציונות 5?
- לא, כבר לא.
- אוקיי תודה, רק רציתי לוודא, ביי!
- שלום....אהה ...רגע אולי את רוצה לדעת את הכתובת החדשה?
- זהו רק רצינו לוודא שהכתובת נכונה, שלום!
- לא, היא לא נכונה!
-אהה... לא?
- לא.
- מה אני חירשת?
- ...
- המ... אז מה הכתובת?
- ....

--א

Heads-up: visiting Spain in April

2009-03-14T08:47:00.005+02:00

This is just a heads-up on my next trip. The destinations are Madrid and Barcelona. I start my trip with a family-visit in Budapest on the 8th April. The plan:

8th April morning flight from Tel Aviv to Budapest, Having Seder-night of Passover with my family.
9th April: taking a flight to Madrid, arriving in Madrid in the evening hours.
9-12th April: touring around Madrid, and maybe half day in the nearby ancient city of Toledo.
12th April: taking the fast AVE train to Barcelona.
12-16th April: touring around Barcelona.
16 April: flight back from Barcelona to Budapest.
16-18th April: continue family visit in Budapest.
18th April: midnight flight back to Israel.

View Larger Map

I don't take my macbook with me, but I'll try to update my blog from time to time with some stories and pictures.
Stay tuned!

רחוב ובית ח.נ. ביאליק, תל אביב

2008-12-19T14:53:00.006+02:00

היום טיילתי להנאתי בתל אביב שטופת השמש. רחוב ביאליק הוא בעיניי פינת חמד במרכז העיר הסואן. הוא לא רק מתוק אלא גם טומן היבטים היסטוריים רבים בחובו.

המקום היה אחד הרחובות המרכזיים של תל-אביב גם בשנות העשרים של המאה העשרים. הוא יוצא מאלנבי ומסתיים בכיכר אשר בו נמצאים בית ביאליק, בניין הערייה הישן, וכן מרכז המוסיקה.

קצת היסטוריה:
חיים נחמן ביאליק, המשורר הלאומי הפך לגיבור תרבותי וספרותי עוד כשחי בבאודסה ומאוחר יותר בברלין. גועגועיו לארץ ישראל משתקפים בשירתו לאורך כל השנים. כשהחליט לעלות לארץ מאיר דיזנגוף הזמין אותו לגור בתל אביב. הוא נענה להזמנה כמובן. את הבית בתל אביב - לימים מקום מגוריו - תכנן עוד בברלין. הבניין בן שתי קומות מתעפיין בסגנון האקלקטי המשולב בתוכו סגנון אירופאי ומוטובים מזרחיים כאחד.
חזית הבית:

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

פינת אוכל. הריצפה בקומת קרקע טרצו איטלקי:

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

הול כניסה. העמודים מקושטים עם קרמיקות המתארות את שבטי ישראל ואת החודשים העבריים. הזמנה מיוחדת מסדנאות בצלאל.

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

חדר עבודה. בתמונה שמעל שולחן הכתיבה ביאליק ורבניצקי עובדים על ספר האגדה:

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

הם יושבים ממש ליד השולחן כאן:

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

הספרייה.

From רחוב ובית ח. נ. ביאליק, תל-אביב

ביאליק חי כ-8 שנים בבית הזה. הוא היה אישיות מאוד מקובלת ופופולרית בארץ. אנשים באו להתייעץ איתו במגוון נושאים. כאשר זה הפך למטרד בעיניו הוא עזב ובשנתיים האחרונות של חייו התגורר ברמת גן בפנסיון בסמטה קטנה היוצאת מרחוב ביאליק.
עובדה מעניינת שעוד לפני שביאליק הגיע ארצה קראו לרחוב הקטן בתל אביב בשמו.

תמונות נוספות
כאן

ויקיפדיה על בית ביאליק
כאן

21/10, Seoul, Tel-Aviv

2008-10-22T07:03:00.005+02:00

In my last day in Seoul I went to the electronic goods market. In one of the shops I pointed on an iPod Touch asking for the price in English. The guy who didn't speak a word in English took an small interactive dictionary, and signed me to wait.
I waited a minute or two, during his search.
Finally he showed me the word which he was searching.
The word was "dough".
- Dough?... I mean how much does this iPod cost... - I asked with a bit of hesitation.
- Yes! - came the enthusiastic answer, and showed me again the word "dough" on the screen of the useless gadget.
- Oh, dough! - I pretended that I understand him - Ok, Thanks!
- Thank you! - came the polite answer in Korean.

On my way back I met Juppi, an ex-colleague from ExLibris at the boarding in Seoul. Small World.
I am at home now in Tel-Aviv, just wanted to add this last post in order to have the whole story of my trip. And now guess what?
Going to work.

The best bier

2008-10-20T14:35:00.003+02:00

This was next to the restaurant's name.
I asked what are beer options, so they gave me The beer: 'hite'.
On the bottle stands:
Hite: Clean, Crisp and Fresh!
So I drunk it, then I saw the next line:
(Fresh Taste Keeping System)

WTF?

20/10, Seoul

2008-10-20T11:24:00.002+02:00

I'm still in Seoul, today I tried to do some shopping. I was in a very cheap market where each street was dedicated to one product. The street of the shoes, of the coats, etc... I found there nothing. So I went to Myeong-Dong's streets where I finally bought a shirt. Then visited some department stores where the only English speaker was the paging system. These people cannot admit that they don't understand any English, so they try to guess, but that doesn't work either. The foreign language here is Chinese in which I am still not perfect. But now I can read well the "100% cotton" sign.
I am now heading out for some dinner. Tomorrow morning I'll check out here, leave the backpack at the reception and will walk some hours before my flight leaves back home.

19/10, Seoul

2008-10-19T12:31:00.017+02:00

In the morning I took the subway to Gyeongbokgung, the royal palace. Beautiful pagodas, and palaces with awesome gardens in between them. Changing of the guards. The place was established in the 14th century. Then visited the nearby National Folk Museum, which relics from the prehistoric age to the modern times related to life, culture, clothing and food of Korea. Ate some pancake-like stuff, and walked down to the Changdeokgung palace. An English guided tour just began, so I joined it. The palace was the resident of the royal family for hundreds of years. They even had floor-heating hundreds of years ago.
From the palace walked up to the Bukchon, a traditional Korean village which became a part of the big city, but succeeded to preserve the old look and style. Amazing area.
I am never tired when exploring new places, so I continued to the University area (Daehangno), which became the youth culture center. The streets are full of open-air shows, theaters, restaurants and pubs.
Some pictures:

18/10, Seoul

2008-10-18T13:18:00.003+02:00

I landed in Seoul after a 11 hours flight from Sydney around 6am, but look, who is complaining. It was a bit difficult to find the backpacker, but finally it turned out that it is located in a very central location in the city. I got a clean ensuite room on the 6th floor. I went to explore the city. I did 2 markets (Namdaemum and another one), had an excellent korean style lunch with kimchi and grilled beefsteak. The grill was built in the table itself.
Afternoon I went to the area of the CheonggyeCheon stream which became one of the attractions of Seoul in the last years. Very nice walkways on the banks, and lots of people relaxing and having a Saturday afternoon walk with the families. The city is a bit like Tokyo (oh, now you know :-) , with one difference: it is on the planet Earth (I consider Tokyo as another planet :-). Very clean, well developed, many unidentified objects [ fish, seafood and bizarre stuff] swimming in all kind of sauces in the market.
As to the irregular names of the places - do not try to pronounce them, call them A or B, I've just looked them up from the map.

17/10, Sydney

2008-10-17T10:30:00.002+02:00

Leaving Australia in an hour ... :-(
Tomorrow in the morning I'm in Seoul, and on the evening 21st at home in Israel.
Today morning I took the Melbourne Skybus from Freeman Lodge to the Airport. Then came the disappointment... The Jetstar flight was late with about 2 hours. I read the Time, ate, sat, walked around like a cut snake, and still nothing. Finally arrived to Sydney around 2pm. I put my backpack in the cloakroom [the lockers don't work, so it is just like in the theater :-)] and took the train to Circular Quay. I ate sushi in an ace restaurant over the harbour, walked around the Rocks again. Then I was sitting on a bench, looking at the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House for about half an hour or so with some lemon sorbet in my cake-hole [mouth] hearing a guitarist playing and singing Aussie folk songs. I gave some coins to the guitarist who put the final accord on my wonderful trip, returned to the airport and now waiting for boarding for the flight to Seoul.

Some more pictures

2008-10-16T07:39:00.011+02:00

16/10, Melbourne

2008-10-16T06:59:00.007+02:00

Today is my last full day in Australia... :-(
Could stay more...
I've been having great fun here, saw beautiful places, cities, landscapes and even underwater views.
I'm still in Melbourne, I went to the market in the morning, ate some strawberries, and later on some oysters.
Then went to the modern art museum at Federation Square, and saw there some exhibitions.
Tomorrow I take a morning flight to Sydney. I'll have some hours in the city and then in the evening I'll be heading to Seoul. In the next days I won't be available on my mobile, because there is no primitive GSM network in Korea any more. But stay tuned, I may post from Seoul as well!
Some pictures from the morning market:

15/10, Phillip Island

2008-10-15T15:08:00.004+02:00

After a morning laundry and some walk on Bridge road exploring some outlets I visited Phillip Island. The island is located about 2 hour ride south-east from Melbourne. Beaut landscape, of green fields, cows, lambs, and other tasty stuff. We saw kangaroos, wombats, wallabies, and other aussie stuff in a park and some of them in the wild. Tasted wine in a windary. On the island there is a colony of small penguins. Hundreds of them came home tonight to their nests, and families. We saw them coming out from the water walking home. They were cute. We were not allowed to take photos of them.

14/10, Great Ocean Road

2008-10-14T13:14:00.011+02:00

The Great Ocean Road is a scenic road south-west of Melbourne, and is considered as one of the most beautiful roads in the World. Today I went to an organized tour on this road and I can say without any doubt that the above statement is really true. It is one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen. Some taste:

On the last picture you can see the "London Bridge" of the Great Ocean Road. The arc which connected between the island and the continent has crashed in 1990. Fortunately noone was injured.

13/10, Melbourne

2008-10-13T09:48:00.002+02:00

I walked in the morning to the Victoria state parliament building, where I discovered that a guided tour inside the building is just about to start. So I joined it. The wonderful building really desires to host the state parliament. We went to the green and the red rooms where the decision makers do their job. The old guide lead us all around while explaining how the house works. His explanations were tempered by occasional cynic comments on politicians and funny stories. Jutka, thanks for the good advise that was really worth a visit. Then I took the Circle tram to Dockland where the Central Pier, New Quay and Waterfront City are located. The port was built around with modern office and residential buildings. The interesting urban styled area is colorful and full of good restaurants.
Afternoon I visited the Immigration Museum, which scans the history of immigration to Australia from 1788 to the present day. The nice exhibition explained general historical aspects as well as some points of personal view of those who have settled in Victoria emphasizing the multicultural history.
Now I'm heading back to Dockland for some dinner. Tomorrow Great Ocean Road.

12/10, Melbourne

2008-10-12T10:27:00.011+02:00

In the morning I went to the handicraft market on the Yarra river next to the Hamer-Hall. Nice stuff, but nothing really special. I crossed the river next to the aquarium, which is the biggest one in Australia. (not including the Great Barrier Reef :)
I the liked very much the walking fish which has 4 legs and she walks on the bottom of the sea and the transparent fish of which I could see the bones inside because its transparent. Really funny creatures.
Then I made the brilliant conclusion: let's eat some fish!
So I jumped on the circle line tram which took me quite close to the Queen Victoria Market. A very authentic market which has a huge hall of meat, fish and seafood, and an open air part in which souvenirs, cloths, and veggies are sold. I bought Tasmanian Smoked Salmon with some bread and I ate the delicates on a nearby bench.
I am now in a St. Kilda internet cafe, well no coffee here just Internet, but it's enough.
Some pictures of Melbourne:

11/10, Melbourne

2008-10-11T13:46:00.003+02:00

Today I explored central parts of Melbourne. In the morning I walked from the backpacker to the city in about 15 minutes through the park. I walked around the city, saw chinatown, a muslim demonstration opposite the Victoria State Parliament, ate some sushi in a Japanese fast-food restaurant. Afternoon I crossed the river and went up to top of the tallest building in Melbourne. A 360 degrees view on the city finally with a simple map I had clarified the directions for me. I saw the view in daylight as well as after dark. Both are amazing. An excellent Italian restaurant serving ace seafood put the final accord on this day. Believe me, the chef's blood is worth bottling! They're a legend! Yeah, I forgot the restaurant's name [That's probably because of the Victorian red wine I drunk. They really have some good ones.] , but you can find her on the riverside opposite the aquarium.
No skype here, sorry, tomorrow I'll try to upload some pictures.

10/10 Cairns, Melbourne

2008-10-10T14:00:00.002+02:00

English breakfast and fruitcake in Cairns next to the backpacker. Then the shuttle took me to the airport. On the way I said hello to the "raw prawn" restaurant, which is probably the best restaurant in Australia. We just passed it with the shuttle. Out of 3 evenings I ate there 3 times. Excellent seafood and fish never disappoint. On the airport I bought a dictionary of the aussie slang; a small pocket book which I read on the flight to Melbourne. Occasionally I laughed out loudly seeing the most visible aussie expressions.
"Due to the high density of flies that inhabit every nook and cranny of the entire continent, Australians have developed a highly efficient method of speaking that involves opening the mouth just enough to speak the words while minimising the risk of flies intruding into the mouth cavity. The result is the peculiar Australian accent called 'strine'. Australians love colloquialisms and word plays. The results are often very funny, picturesque and invariably robust. Appreciating Australian slang leads to a better understanding of the Australian personality and the Australian sense of humor. It requires a healthy tolerance, a creative mind and a sense of the absurd." (Down Under - Slang Dictionary)
In Melbourne I took the airport shuttle to the city and from there I took the free courtesy bus to Richmond which is quite close to the city and the St. Kilda as well. I stay here in a backpacker which is really cool. I had dinner in St. Kilda in an Italian restaurant.

Some highlights of the pocketbook:

fossil: old person
bee's knees: the greatest
blue arsed fly: very busy
blue heeler: policeman
cake-hole: mouth
chew and spew: take-away food
duck's dinner: drinking without eating
hit frog and toad: depart
ace: excellent

And the winners are:
acting/going the raw prawn: pretending to be ignorant
be able to eat the crutch out of a low-flying duck: very hungry
/Thanks, Ben/

Can't write here the better ones...!

9/10, Cairns Rain Forests

2008-10-09T08:10:00.009+02:00

After an excellent hazelnut-cake and tea for breakfast in a cafe I took the skyrail from Cairns station. The Skyrail is a cable car which took me just a few meters above the most beautiful rainforest. This is exactly the end of the dry period of the year, so no rain, just the green forest. It takes about 1.5 hours to get to the final destination: Kuranda. There are two stops where I got off for a short rainforest walk, which were guided by rangers. Kuranda is a small village in the mountains. I saw a wildlife park there including one of the biggest butterfly sanctuary of the World, koalas and birds. Obviously this small creatures didn't pose themselves well to the camera, they cannot say cheese and cannot smile... There are some huge ones, others have very special patterns on their wings. The village is full of galleries of beautiful aboriginal art. The way back I did with the historical scenic rail.

8/10, Cairns, Great Barrier Reef

2008-10-08T10:21:00.006+02:00

Today I took a boat to the Great Barrier Reef which is the biggest and the most beautiful reefs in the World. Indeed. The boot took us about 40km to the outer reef, where we had scuba diving in two locations. Tons of fish of all kinds around us and beautiful corals. Mostly we moved between 8 and 12 meter depth, which enabled us to be underwater for 30-40 minutes in both dive. The corals twinkled with all colors of the rainbow, with small colorful fish in between them. No pictures from underwater, you must believe me that part of the story :)
Some pictures from the boat:

There is a huge saltwater swimming pool on the seashore, at least 200 meter long. Some pictures:

Some more pictures of the Outback

2008-10-07T11:14:00.005+02:00

Uluru at sunset:

The Kata-Tjuta (Olgas):

Pictures from the Outback

2008-10-07T11:00:00.005+02:00

Kings Canyon:

Uluru:
Uluru:

7/10 Uluru, Cairns

2008-10-07T10:27:00.003+02:00

The alarm rang at 4:30, no, not by mistake, I really had to get up for the Uluru sunrise view. The shuttle took me from the Outback Pioneer hostel where I stayed. [a simple backpacker accommodation for a 4-star hotel price.] We got quite close to the huge red rock and located very well. Around 5:30, just before sunrise the rock began to change colors: from black went to gray, and then it slowly became red. Indeed was worth the early alarm.
Flight to Cairns, still on the ground, standard security blah-blah...
"In case of loss of pressure in the cabin, the oxygen masks will drop..."
The flight attendee demonstrated how to put on the mask, when dozens of peanuts cashews and other kinds of nuts fell out of the demonstration mask covering our heads, laps, and the entire aisle. Obviously everybody laughed including the poor flight attendee who was unable to finish the security instructions.
Cairns is a nice tropical town with a wonderful seashore.
Tomorrow I'm heading to the Great Barrier Reef.

4-6/10 - The Outback

2008-10-06T12:26:00.005+02:00

Oh the Outback!
Central Australia, big big desert, some people, wild.
Kangaroos, blue-tongue lizards, strange animals, red sand, red rock, strange people, great fun.
1st day: Palm Valley
2nd day: Kings Canyon
3rd day: Uluru: the great red rock.

No mobile coverage, no internet connection up until now.
Pictures to come in the next days, no card reader/usb here.
Today I saw the sunset over the Ayers Rock, tomorrow at 5am sunrise from a different lookout.
Amazing.
Afternoon I have a flight to Cairns, I'll try to upload pics from there.

3/10 - Alice Springs

2008-10-03T10:40:00.009+03:00

After an early wakeup Jutka and Stan dropped me at the airport from where I came over with a 3-hour flight to Alice Springs. Very little airport of a small town in the middle of nowhere. The timezone difference between Sydney and The Alice is 30 minutes. Cute, isn't it? Never saw such a thing. The backpacker picked me up from the airport. I saw the Museum of Central Australia the geological exhibition in which meteor parts were shown and the creation of the craters was explained. I saw the aviation museum just nearby where Kingsford Smith, his achievements and his rescue in the 'Coffee Royal' incident were explained and documented. The aboriginal influenced Australian art exhibition "Ocean to Outback" was very much impressive and I saw an aboriginal art gallery as well. I saw those paintings and sculptures and just couldn't leave the museum until I was forced to :). Unfortunately they closed at 4pm. Hot, but beautiful here. Beers and talks in the evening with all the tourists in the backpacker was also fun.

2/10 - Blue Mountains

2008-10-02T15:45:00.005+03:00

I took an organized tour today to the Blue Mountains. It is really blue when you watch far. The blue color originates from the eucalyptus oil's chemical process when hot. Ough - that was not very scientific.
We began the day in the Olympic Park where the games took place in 2000. Very modern huge area, which was built brand new for the games. From there we headed west to a village called Leura located 1300 meters above the sea level. Lovely cherry blossom. Excellent patisserie. Then we took 2 cable cars and one crazy train down to the rainforest. The train descended in the most crazy angle I've ever seen. We took a wonderful walk then in the rainforest on wooden walkways. After lunch we visited Echo Lookout where the most beautiful view on the Blue Mountains is.
Then we went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park where we saw around 100 kinds of native aussie birds and cute Koalas, which I touched for the first time. Fantastic, so cute. Finally we took a ferry from the Olympic Park back to Circular Quay.
Wooo. All these in one single day... ;)

From Australia

1/10 - Sydney

2008-10-02T15:23:00.004+03:00

In the morning I went to a cruise on the Harbour. An explorer ship took me all over the interesting points of the bay including Fort Denison, Shark Island, The Luna Park, and finally I got off in Darling Harbour next to the warships and the submarine. I felt that I must see them, so I entered the National Maritime Museum, bought tickets for the destroyer and the submarine. Patiently heared some explanations from a navy veteran old man, he thought he was speaking English, I didn't. Very interesting ships, amazing insight to what used to be the permanent lifestyle on the HMAS (Her Majesty's Australian Ship).
After lunch at home Jutka and Stan took me to the Gap and to Bondi beach. The Gap used to be the favorite place for suicide jumpers, amazing ocean view with huge rocks on the seashore. Bondi - is maybe the most beautiful beach I've seen.
We ate in an ex-Hungarian (Jewish) cafe which is currently in Russian hands (Jewish).
On the way home we went over the Italian neighborhood and crossed the military bridge [I can't remember its name].

From Australia

30/9 - Sydney

2008-09-30T15:32:00.004+03:00

Rosh Hashana morning, I went to a synagogue! We drove up to the orthodox one, there were not enough parking lot near, so we parked in a walking distance of 5 minutes. The huge temple was full of a couple of hundreds of families. Not that I am a big expert of that, but the pray and the tunes were just like I remember them. It seemed to me that everybody speaks either Hungarian or Hebrew.
Ben came over for lunch, after which we headed to the Koala Park to see native ozy (Australian) animals. The Koalas had their extra delicious dinner - eucalyptus leafs - they were awake and even jumped from one tree to another. We saw kangaroos, and kangaroo-crossings with special birds, worms, mice, and some other kinds.

For dinner we have sacrificed a cow to our god and ate its meat with some lecso and other stuff. Yami.

From Australia

29/9 - Sydney

2008-09-29T16:21:00.004+03:00

I had a very busy day today. In the morning Stan dropped my on the south side of Harbour Bridge. Through the historical cute streets of the Rocks I went to the bridge climber's encounter and registered my first bridge climb. After taking a mortgage for paying the entrance fee I was dressed in a funny grey dress. Noone can take anything with him. No cameras, no tissue. The climb leads on the metal skeleton of the bridge up to the top of it which lies 134 meters above the sea level. We were secured by a sliding plastic which rolled all along the metal rope on the climbing path. Great fun. Stairs, narrow wood and metal passes. Bellow us 80-100 thousand cars a day crossing the bridge. The view from the top was fantastic. Clear weather, and great feeling.

From Australia

Afterwards I took a long walk in the City an the Royal Botanic Gardens.

From Australia

In the evening we celebrated Rosh Hashana with a 5 dishes delicious gefilltefish, soup, chicken roll with apricot and many other stuff prepared by Jutka and Stan during the last 3-4 days (literally!). Participants: Jutka, Stan, Jesse, Ben, Suzie, Matt, Sharon, Alice, John, Julie, Judith, and myself. Wow that's a lot. yea.

From Australia

28/9, Sydney

2008-09-28T14:45:00.004+03:00

Yesterday I fall asleep like a log and slept 12 hours continuously. Well, that happend after 2 nights when I didn't sleep properly. Chompsky the cute dog came over to my room to say hi. After breakfast we went for a walk in the neighborhood with Stan and Chompsy. Burning sun, nice neighbors, 1M$ houses, strange animals all around. After we for home Ben and Suzie came over and took me out to the city for some sightseeing. We saw the north side neighborhood of the Harbour Bridge, where the prome minister's house is located. We had lunch just near the Opera House watching the amazing view of the harbour. Then we drove all around the city ending up on the east bay's well-off locations.

From Australia

Arrival

2008-09-27T06:54:00.006+03:00

It's all about making a history. I was on the first flight ever which departed from Tel-Aviv and landed in Seoul, South Korea. Is this called an aviation pioneer?
Ceremony at the boarding gate in BenGurion airport. 200 people or more: ambassadors, ministry of transportation, all kind of representatives having speeches, drinking champagne and wine, eating cakes. I went approached the separated area slowly. Suddenly an official person asked me:
- What do you represent here?
Without hesitation I answered:
- I represent the passengers of the first flight to Seoul.
- OK, come in.
So I had a nice beginning.
Approaching Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport was a sightseeing tour. I saw the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and another 20% of the central Sydney.
Jutka and Stanley waited for me at the airport about an hour or so, but finally got home with them. Instead of going to sleep we ate breakfast and then went for a walk with Chomsky, the cute dog.
We went to Dobroid Point which has a great view to Manly, its port, harbour- and ocean side beaches. The took a wonderful walk in Manly. Saw a handicraft market, nice downtown with nearby beaches. Photos to come.
Very tired now, but I should not go to sleep in order to solve the jetleg until tomorrow.
Jesse, my cousin took me out to one of the less known beaches of Sydney. We went over Neutral Bay and then left... ok, I don't remember the exact name of the place, but this was really nice. We talked a lot and ate calamer-n-chips in a kiosk.

3 more days to liftoff

2008-09-22T21:55:00.004+03:00

It's getting closer and closer...
Now it's even closer than it was when I wrote the previous line!
Time elapses only in one direction and not in the other. Right?

Heads up: Australia

2008-09-06T11:28:00.006+03:00

Less than 3 weeks from now! :)
It's not only about "paying off" my debt to Australia, where I am going land on the 27th September, but also bringing true an old dream of mine.
I almost went there in 2005, but finally I got "only" to New-Zealand, landing on the "wrong island". :)

My schedule in a nutshell:
27th Sep. - 3rd Oct.: Sydney, staying with Jutka and Stanley
3rd Oct. - 7th Oct.: Alice Springs and Urulu with a 3-day Emu-run tour.
7th Oct. - 10th Oct.: Cairns (scuba diving / snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef and touring the tropic rain-forests)
10th Oct. - 16th Oct.: Melbourne and 2-3 days on The Great Ocean Road

On my way home I make a 3-day stop in Seoul, South Korea.
I am leaving home on the 25th September in the evening with a direct flight to Seoul.
Arriving back home to Tel-Aviv at 21st October late in the evening.
Now excited. Very much.
As usual, my blog turns to a diary during the trip.
Stay tuned!