Life is nothing but a holiday

Last few weeks it has truly seemed that I’m here more on a holiday then on a business trip (note the correct form since you cannot come to Israel for a work trip without a ton of paper work). I checked from my bookkeeping that during the last three weeks there were six days off – meaning I had three days of work per weeks. Boy it’s hard! But still I look quite pale compared to locals, something I need to pay attention before I come back home.

The most important holiday was Yom Kippur – time to search for yourself and the holy books of Jews. Guess which one I did? Well neither but only since I didn’t have any holy books – I had a book by Kurt Vonnegut – A man without a country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_a_Country). Hardly any masterpiece of modern literature and not even among his own books. It was actually the last book that he wrote before dying two years later. But that book didn’t help me much in self search nor was it meant to. During Yom Kippur there was also at least one other who didn’t obey the rules of the holiday. In Acre there was an Arab driving thru the Jewish area and his car got stoned! And naturally the young Arabs wanted to pay back this compliment by burning down Jewish stores. This led to the Jews nearly hanging the driver and a whole week of chaos in the city. The last word from the city is that things are getting slowly back to ‘normal’ there.

There is also some other news to this category. Israel is starting the change to winter time now which means there will be some rain and the degrees drop to around +25. This is actually very nice since there will be some clouds and after the rain the air is fresh. But one night as I was out side about 10 in the evening I heard what at the time though to be a storm – some light and loud bangs. The next evening as I was leaving the office with Hamed (an Iranian guy working here) we noticed the same thing. But now with some distinct gun firing noises. I tried to look from the Israelis’ newspapers what had happened but surprisingly there was nothing even remotely close on them. Finally few days later I read from the Finnish newspapers that in Hebron (a city in the West Bank) the Palestine police/army forces are trying to get the area under their control and arrest the ‘terrorists’ of the Islamize party Hamas. I think that city can be erased from my ‘places to visit’ list.

And since I’m in such a good pace of complaining about everything why stop here! :D
You think that now after a month of driving here I’d be use to the crazy way of driving here but you’re wrong. Now as it’s the winter time and it has rained on few last days the people go crazy on the road. It’s a bit same as the Finns are with foreigners– you may pretend that you’re cool about it but inside you’re freaking out. Well same here but only on the road. The traffic is jammed on intersections and junctions, people change the lane constantly (well that was also before but just wanted to mention that again so you don’t forget it :). And since I’ve become practically Sam’s personal chauffeur (after I told him that I did my army time at the 4th detached motor company) I’ve been doing nearly all of the driving back and forth to work. Take this morning for example – Sam had the car keys but he gave them to me and asked if I could drive since he had a banana! And the best part being that he put the banana to the dashboard and sat calmly next to me the whole ride and took the banana with him to the office. Life is good as long as you have little thing to complain about! That’s my new slogan.

This is all the whining I’m gonna make you bear this time. Until the next and maybe some happier news – your man from the Holy Land!