News

I haven't posted many news recently, I have been busy at work and getting sunburnt on the beach. Las week I enjoyed a full day at Arziv again, and this monday I organized another breath fire thing on Haifa beach with the local french connection. Everybody seemed to enjoy this pretty much.

Finaly my visa renewal didn't come on time so I am moving to Barcelona and going to work with the UPC folks until my work permits gets re-approved. So I won't be here for the Disneygagement, I don't know if it's good or bad, probably good for my health and bad for my natural curiosity.

Triple bang

Well, after London subway being under attack for the second time in one week, Egypt got the 4th attack in the year today. Over 88 deaths in a triple suicide bombing in Charm. Yet another slaughter signed Al-Qaeda. Many of the victims were egyptian workers...

/cry

Akko streets

Yesterday I was back in Akko, Mounir had invited me to join them to a barbecue. Ihad some time to spend before meeting them so I went and took a few pictures of the streets of that city I like so much. Later on we ate barbecue, smoked narguile... on the Arziv beach just below Roch Aniqra until 1 am. We had lots of fun, but I wish I would speak arabic, it would make things so much easier :).

Gaza on fire

This morning, going through my usual blog-browsing I noticed on Rafahpundits that things were getting very bad in Gaza.
Yesterday evenings rockets were fired by Hamas from the strip to the northern Negev. An Israeli woman died. This triggered response from the Israeli Air force which fired a few missiles which seem to have killed noone yet. The PA police in an attempt to stop the Hamas to shoot more towards Israel had serious clashes with them. Abbas who is currently in Gaza declared the state of emergency. Several militants and policemen were injured in the clashes and 2 deaths.

Some will say that Abbas is loosing control on Gaza (did he really had it), but at least this time Israel can't say the PA didn't do anything in order to stop attacks towards Israel... I really fear that the next month will be like the past days were, bloody and sad.

Department event

Yesterday evening our department had an out of site event at the beach of Arziv, northern of Nahariya. It was pretty nice, and clearly better from similar events I had been at in the US... The interresting part was when I threw Omer in the sea and he had the keys of the car in his pocket :). Few hours later we discovered that a mazda 3 alarm cannot be deactivated just using the key...

Hopefully for us after opening the wett remote command, drying and cleaning it up for 20 minutes I managed to operate it back and we could go back home. On the way back we spotted a billiard place and decided to try it out. Was our lucky day, it was the grand opening and it was free ! :).

So remember if you want free billiard throw the driver in the water with the car's keys, especially if they are absolutely necessary to start the car...

Netanya mall bomb

A suicide bomber detonated himself killing 2 other people at the entrance of a mall in Netanya, it seems civilians managed to barr him the entrance in the mall. The Islamic Jyhad claims responsability for this. Like it's going to help their cause... I just hope the fragile cease fire between Hamas, PA and Israel will remain and not get crippled further by this.

There's 1 month remaining before the disengagement, more and more people are displaying their political colors on their cars, t-shirts etc... Orange is the color of the ones against and Blue the color for pro-disengagement. I'm wearing a blue ribbon on my car, If anyone had told me that one day I would show support for something Sharon was going to do I would never have believed it... The oranges have mostly stopped their stupid protests in which they were pissing off the rest of the population (blocking roads etc..) but got stupid enough to plant a fake bomb in a bus stop in Jerusalem... Like this country does not have enough real ones...

Peace.

RC cars

Sunday is Karate day for Pierre's wife, so I often come by on sunday evening, we eat pizza drink beer and play with tiny RC cars on his balcony. I know it sounds both childish and "beauf" but we're enjoying it quite a bit :). Yesterday a couple of friends joined us so we had a race. I was impressed by how small those things are, when I was a kid a RC car was at least 30cm long, now they're like 5 long and 2 wide have lights, good steering etc. The ones we are using are ZipZaps, enjoy.

Sad day in London

This morning 3 trains and 3 buses blew off in London, 1 day after the celebration of their victory in organizing the 2012 Olympics. The BBC is posting updates as they come. Unfortunately it seems that the casualties are numerous, like the world needed more subway bombs... I'm going to stop the rant here as I could go for hours on how it is bad for everybody, especially the ones who did it...

Edit: Revendication by Al-Qaida in Europe...

Experimental salad

Today while browsing on various cooking blogs and websites to find out what to go buy to the supermarket I noticed a vietnamese salad that looked good. Because I lacked many ingredients and adapted it my way I won't call it Vietnamese anymore.
You'll need half a white cabbage, 3 - 4 carrots, 3-4 mushrooms, 1 chicken white, cashew nuts. Cut everything very finely, fry the chicken in a pan. For the sauce, press 2 lemon juice, add about the same amount of soja sauce, 4 tea spoons of sugar, 4 ground garlic cloves, 2 tea spoons of hot chili and some cesame oil (I used tehina). Cut the chicken in small pieces while still hot, spread on the salad with crushed cashews and add the sauce.

The desert is an apricot/fig/peach salad with lemon juice, mint leaves, some rose essence, sugar and a bit of cachaca.

It took me 15 mins and this tastes great.

Per request

Aaron the Truck Driver said: "I have a request.Pictures of the people who live there. The local people. Any local people."
So here is a picture:

You did say any local...
Ok, let me find real people's pics, like the ones that do work with me during a group event in western Galil:

Kineret

This was a long weekend, I spent today in northern Galil, between a Kiboutz preparing goat cheese and a "speed boat" trip on the Kineret (Tiberias lake). The picture shows the lake looking towards south-east and was take from a nice little coffee-shop lost in the mountain. 

Belvoir

Today I woke up around noon, like many weekends, but for once I was quite awake, maybe it was because I didn't party the night before, who knows. Anyway I was awake and I felt like visiting a new crusader fortress, yeah like that. I had 3 options but as it was quite "early" I picked up the farthest one that was supposed also to be the nicest one. It was build in the 12th century and as it name says, you're supposed to get a nice view from it.

I picked up the car, discovered a new way to get out of Haifa towards the west going through a road that would have its place in the "Corse Rally" (at least that's the way I drove) and 1:30 hours later I am in the Jordan Valley south of the sea of Galil climbing up a steep road towards Belvoir also know as Kochav Hayarden: Star of the Jordan in hebrew or Kaukab al-hawa: star of the winds in arabic). The castle sits at a pretty windy placeand has a fantastic view on the Jordan side and over all eastern and southern Galil from Mt Gilboa to Nazareth.


It is in a pretty decent shape as you can see on the pictures and it has a 6 to 8 meters deep moat. I was really pleased, especially that I arrived late enough to not pay any entrance fee ;). Many rooms in the center of the Castle are still covered and it is supposed to be one of the crusader fort that is in the best shape.

I had a very good time there, but had to leave because it was closing (I hate the fact that everything closes early here on fridays for shabbat, I'm always late :). I decided to take the "road" the other way which is more direct towards home. It just happens that this one is a gravel road, so this time it was more like a Morocco Rally :). On my way towards home I spotted the Mount Tabor:

And remembered that I only visited the orthodox monastery there and not the Catholic church. Hopefully it was still open and there was a lot of pilgrims singing and praying so it was also nice to the ears.

Like it wasn't already a day busy enough Raph and Laure invited me for dinner, and I'm finishing the evening with a mojito.