I'm insanely busy here in Israel and I'm going to be leaving a hunch-back because of all of the super-duper-heavy equipment that I'm schleping around, but just cause I have a free moment, I thought I'd mention that the game on the back of my cereal box this morning looked really fun, but I couldn't play cause it was all in Hebrew. bummer.

I've been working long days lately and going a bit crazy. But the other night I was on my way back to my flat and stopped by to visit a friend and have a cup of tea. By the time I left it was close to midnight and I was walking through the deserted streets of Haifa all by myself. And I just as I was thinking that I feel safer in Israel than in almost any other place I've been, I walked around the corner and saw two elderly women, 80 if they were a day, sitting on a park bench chatting softly at midnight. And then I thought to myself that I actually feel safer here than ANYWHERE else I've ever been. And maybe that's strange. But then again, I tend not to watch the news when I'm here...

I'm safely in Israel now, in the northern city of Haifa working on a video project here for the Baha'i International Community. And it's strange to be here, or rather, it's strange to be back here. I've been here so often in the past few years it's a second home for me now. Which of course is a little strange since I don't speak a word of Hebrew...
But as you all watch the news of Suicide bombings and helicopter-gunship missile strikes, you should think of me, sitting in a traffic jam in the heat of a beautiful October afternoon on the Mediterranean coast trading stories with my South African co-worker. She's been here since July and shared the following little traffic story from a couple of months ago: She was sitting in the back of a taxi in a giant jam on a blistering summer day and everyone was edgy and hot and wanting to be anywhere but where they were. And a truckdriver who had, no doubt, reached the end of his tether started honking his giant truck horn. Brrrrraaaaa Brrraaaaa Brrraaaaaa. Of course, nothing happened when he honked his horn except that everyone around him got even more edgier and annoyed, but it obviously made him feel better because he kept doing it: Brrrrraaaaa Brrraaaaa Brrraaaaaa.
Suddenly, a young Israeli guy with no shoes and some scruffy cut-off shorts jumped out of his dumpy little compact car that was parked right next to this monster dump truck in this sea of glistening, blistering cars. And he started to jump up and down in front of the monster truck, trying to get the attention of the grouchy truck driver. And this went on for a bit: Brrrrraaaaa jump-jump-wave Brrraaaaa jump-wave-jump Brrraaaaaa jump-jump Brraa Braaa wave-jump Brrrraaaaaaa
Finally the truck driver glances down and notices this little man jumping and waving and gesturing madly far below him. And he stops honking and rolls down his window and the little Israeli guy yells up to him and continues to make strange gestures and dances around a bit and the whole time keeps glancing back to his own little dumpy car.
The truck driver leans out his window and stares. Then he smiles. Then he starts to laugh. And the two of them sit in the middle of this enormous, endless tangle of cars and laugh at the jam and the heat and the Brrraaa Brrraaa Brrraaa and the jump-jump-jump and the little joke that they've just shared.
And the little Israeli man dashes back to his little car and the truck driver rolls his window back up and sits quietly watching the cars grumbling around him. Pretty soon the cars begin to crawl, then they begin to disperse and the truck driver opens his window again and waves after his friend and another hand stretches out of the dumpy little car as it pulls away.
At this point my friend, who watched this whole exchange from the back seat of a taxi, leaned forward and asked the taxi driver what the two men had said to each other.
"Well, the horn was so loud you know. And that guy that jumped out of his car didn't want the Brrraaa Brrraaaa Brrraaaaa to wake up his baby daughter who was asleep in the back seat."

So, last I blogged, I was peeking in windows in Singpore during a little shopping spree. Well, at the end of the spree, and with minutes to spare, I arrived at the Singapore Airport with 59.6 kg of luggage and three carry-on bags (another 20 kg I'm sure) and sauntered (well, staggered perhaps) up to the ticket counter to catch my flight to Tel Aviv.
I was catching a Thai Airways flight up to Bangkok and then connecting to an EL AL flight to Tel Aviv and when the nice Thai Airways ticket lady saw my pile of bags on her scale, she turned to me and said ever-so-sweetly "You seem to be 40 kg overweight with your baggage. You may either repack your bags, leave some behind or pay us..." type-type-type, "$1,200 Singapore dollars." ack.
And then the nice ticket lady smiled at me and said in a sweet little whisper, "I'm only charging you for 30 kg."
So I smiled my charmingest smile and begged the nice Thai Airways ticket lady to be gentle and understanding and perhaps bend the rules just for me.
And of course in Singapore the rules really don't bend much.
But the nice ticket lady went off and came back smiling even sweeter and said in her conspiritorial whisper, "I've arranged so you only have to pay for 25 kg!" smile smile smile. still $1000.
So I asked the nice lady to check all my bags up to Bangkok please and I would argue and haggle with the EL AL staff in Thailand.
She seemed a little disapointed in me, but checked all my bags through to Bangkok and only charged me $200 and sent me on my way.
And this is the little tip for today: When flying EL AL airlines, the national airline of Israel, they couldn't give a rat's behind how much luggage you're trying to sneak on to their planes, as long as it doesn't have any explosives in it.
So when I got to Bangkok and the new nice ticket lady there pointed out that my bags had only been checked as far as Thailand I merely smiled blankly at her and wondered aloud: "I wonder why the nice ticket lady in Singapore would have done such a thing?" and the new nice ticket lady smiled back and replied: "That's ok, I'll just check those right on through for you and you can pick them up in Tel Aviv."
"Thank you new nice ticket lady. You have yourself a wonderful evening."
Of course, the danger of flying EL AL is that a big tough security man might come onto the plane and inform you that security has found what appears to be a computer hard drive in your checked baggage and will be holding it back to examine it. But they will be happy to send it on the next flight (which is, of course, five days from now).
But that's ok, because you trust them and they give you a little form to fill out and tell you to go to the lost-and-found once you arrive in Tel Aviv and they'll sort it all out. And when you arrive in Tel Aviv and wander over to the lost-and-found, the cranky lost-and-found lady checks your little form and gives you a bigger form and asks you to get the big scary customs men to sign it.
Now, another little tip for today: If you are coming from Singapore with a kajillion dollars worth of new fancy video equipment that you just bought the day before, getting your bags searched by big scary customs men is not such a good idea. So when I sauntered over to the customs area with my big form and my kajillion dollars of gear, one of the big scary customs men came running over, jumped infront of my baggage cart and pointed to his big metal table.
I immediately whipped out my big form and asked him to sign it and when he told me that I needed to come back to his big scary metal customs table after I had dropped my form with the cranky lost-and-found lady I promised I would and displayed my ever-charming smile to reassure him.
Of course, as soon as I had dropped my form with the cranky lost-and-found lady, I snuck back over to the customs area, waited until the big scary customs man was busy rooting through someone else's underpants and dashed through to the safety of my waiting friends.

Before I left Malaysia for Singapore, one of my Malaysian friends told me that she thought SIngapore was the closest thing to a Utopian society on earth. And I have to say that I agree...as long as all that Utopian society wants to do is go shopping. And of course, doesn't mind living in a giant shopping mall.
But, Singapore is also home to all of the coolest gadgety things around that every geeky boy dreams about. For instance: Lets say that you live in a fancy apartment in a nice quiet singaporean neighbourhood and one day they decide to build an elevated train that goes right past your window. And so now, every saturday whle you sit in your third floor apartment in your underwear watching survivor reruns and picking cheese doodle crumbs off your chest, 1,235 trains worth of commuters will be watching you do it. Aha, but in fancy schmancy singapore, when the train goes past your apartment (and everyone else's apartment) the windows all magically turn white! I have no idea how this works, but it was the coolest thing I've ever seen.
There I was, cruising along on the train, enjoying the view and suddenly, everything turned white. For a second I thought it had just gotten really foggy outside...but then the windows went clear again just in time for me to miss seeing all those old portly singaporean men sitting around in their underwear watching survivor reruns....

I've been so slack in the blog department lately.
Since the last post I left Yasothon, got sick, stayed sick in Bangkok for a couple of days (at one point stumbling down a little seedy alley behind my little Thai friend, feverish and delerious, looking for a little Thai clinic where the doctor wanted to shoot me up with anti-biotics (one shot! no more sick!).
Then I caught a quick flight down to KL and spent a couple of days floating around and running some errands and stuffing myself with last-minute Malaysian food and now I'm a couple hours away from jumping on a plane to Singapore.
All packed (almost) and ready to go.
After a couple of days in Singapore stocking up on electronic gagetry, I'll fly off to Tel Aviv for a few months of relaxing next to the mediteranian and eating all the Shwarma I can get my hands on...