Life in the Land

The Car

2006-05-18T18:12:00.000+03:00

It’s funny in life you know, the second you don’t have anything to do, all the stuff seems to happen. What am I talking about, the unexpected….fate….a series of events that occur and just throw you around like a crash test dummy. My name is Barrie Cowan……and this is the longest day in my life (for the benefit of you Jack Bauer fans!)

Events occur in real-time…

The phone rings, and in my daze of just waking up I see it is Yossi calling. I pick up the phone, speak but I don’t really know what is being said. The call ends.
14:00 is the time, still early on the scale of things. I soon realise what just happened is I have been invited to a BBQ at Yossi’s uncle’s house tonight to celebrate Yom Hatzmaut. I do all the menial tasks, showering, brushing my teeth, grabbing a bite to eat, and by 17:30 I am heading to the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem to meet with Yossi and his Mum. I get there, exchange the pleasantries and we get on our way to a place called Beitar Illit, which is about 25 mins outside of Jerusalem. Yossi is driving (his uncle’s car) and decides he knows how to get us there, truth be told I have never seen so many parts of Jerusalem, we got lost, and for an hour and a half we were trying to get out of the city. After eventually succeeding we get to Beitar Illit, and enjoy a BBQ.
That’s when it starts….

Once we had finished we were working out the rest of our night. The plan was, take Yossi’s mum back to the Hotel in Jerusalem, head to Lod to pick up stuff for Yossi’s mum to take back to England, then head back to Jerusalem to pick up more bits and pieces, head home and have a narg. Little did we know that narg was unimaginably far off in the future.

We had reached the Lod stage of our journey and we travelling back to Jerusalem when all of a sudden our conversation was stalled by Yossi’s sudden case of turrets. What had happened, we had taken the wrong lane, and ended up not going in the direction we wanted to, although not such a problem, all it meant was it would take us a little longer to get home, and back to the conversation it was. Funnily enough it seems we were never meant to finish that conversation, so much so I can’t even remember what it was about, but we found ourselves suddenly listening to the high pitched opera of the engine….it was a great show complete with smoke, smells, a real family day out at the theatre. To no surprise we pulled over, and popped the hood. Once the smoke had cleared we saw the engine, checked the oil, filled the water and thought, great, fixed, we will be on our way. Key in, turn key………..nothing. Again……..nothing. Oh dear (sigh).

We had managed, after taking a wrong turn to end up broken down in the middle of nowhere (next to the entrance of Makkabim Reut), with no idea what to do with this car. We needed a jump, it had to be the battery, but we were in the middle of nowhere how were we going to get a jump off someone – and just in case you think there is loads of traffic on this road, there isn’t it is now 00:30 at night. So as in the case of any emergency you ring a family member, in this case the owner of the car Yossi’s uncle, only one problem………no battery, and this time I mean the phone not the car. I then realised that a 10 min DRIVE down the road lived my madricha from last year, Shoshie. So of course at 01:30 at night I call her, as you do. In the midst of waking up she very kindly offers to come and meet us where we are and give us a jump, she arrives, we search her car, no jump leads. So we get in her car drive to a nearby garage (remember this) borrow some jump leads from the one person who is working in the garage and come back to the car (which Yossi had been waiting with), we put the jump leads on, and with fear of electrocuting ourselves try the engine…………nothing. As you can tell this isn’t our night. It isn’t the battery, so what is it? Well in trying the engine with the jump leads, the car started to smoke again, which was strange as we had put water in the car, and then we saw it…………..the fanbelt………ripped to shreds. It seems the fanbelt had snapped, that had been making the noise, and the rubber was burning as the wheel span creating the smoke. We needed to get towed. So Shoshie, our translator, starts calling round tow people, who apparently charge a lot more at night, that’s if they come, which none of them would as it was late…….then why be a 24 hour service I ask? No luck no-one will come.

02:35……Me and Yossi (Yossi and I) at this point took an executive decision to push the car to the nearest garage, which just so happened to be the one we went to go and borrow the jump leads, which at this point Shoshie went to return, it was a 5 min DRIVE away. We felt if we could leave the car there overnight it would be better than leaving it at the side of the road. So we did……the only problem was 5 min DRIVE away, turned out to be a 1 ½ hour push of the car, by the two of us, over a stretch of 2 miles….and the best part, yes you guessed it….uphill.
We arrived at the garage at 04:00, dead, tired, dirty. Whilst we had been pushing the car we thought it best Shoshie went home to get some rest, who at this point came back to pick us up and take us back to her house to ‘sleep’, as seen here….

Strangely we didn’t really sleep well that night, which you would think we would have after pushing a car. Now it was back to it.

07:00, we were up, dropped off at the garage once again, managed to get a tow to the nearest mechanic after waiting for an hour and a half, who told us we would have to wait at least 2 hours to get it looked at even, which after he did he told us it would cost 2000 shekels which we didn’t have, so Yossi’s uncle decided he was sending another tow company to bring it back to his mechanic in Beitar, but that tow could take anywhere between 2 and 6 hours to come, and my battery was dying on my phone, so Shoshie came to pick us up again, to take us back to her house, give us some food and swap phones with me so I had battery, but then we got a phone call saying we had to go back to the car to give Yossi’s mum the bag which we took from Lod the night before, so we went back to the mechanic, gave her the bag, as she stopped on her way to the airport, we about to go back to Shoshie’s, when we got the call from the tow company who told us they were coming, but still took another hour, the tow company then took us to Beitar, we dropped the car off with Yossi’s uncle, had a bite to eat, got a bus back to Jerusalem, and then we were in the tachana, where we decided it would be a nice idea to get Shoshie a little gift, for all the help she gave us through the night, so we found a clock in a shop in the tachana, which we wanted to get engraved, which was going to take another hour, but we said fine, so then thinking everything could go right, we went back after the hour to pick it up and they still hadn’t even started, so we had to wait another hour for the clock to be done, which once it was we went to Emek Refaim to drop it off with Shoshie where she works, swapped phones back then walked back to my house, had showers, sorted out the rooms, and finally, after all this SAT DOWN AND HAD OUR NARG!!!!

(I’ll just take a few moments to get my breathe back and compose myself………ok I am done.

As you can see every possible thing that could have gone wrong with us did, but the best part was we laughed through it all, because what else can you do in situations like these. C’est la vie.

Just a couple of points to clean up, and put time into perspective as I shortened this greatly for the sake of your sanity. We finally got back to Jerusalem at roughly 19:00, finally got back to my apartment at 21:30 and finally got our narg at 22:00, by the time we got to sleep we had both been going since 09:00 the previous day and had been up for 38 hours…..making it the longest day of my life and breaking my record of 36 hours, and what a couple of days we had had to celebrate it.

The clock that we bought for Shoshie had inscribed

“To give you back the time we took from you……..Yossi and Barrie

The next day...

2006-04-29T23:31:00.000+03:00

Well I left you last time, in the middle of my two day adventure. But what of the day after last? So this is how it went.

I woke up, my arm was numb, but that painful sort of numb. There was that cold air in the room, the type you can only get before about 7.30 in the morning, 'but I am on an adventure, you don't get up early on an adventure!' I thought to myself. It wasn't until a couple of seconds later I realised the reason I had woken up was because Jonny was sitting there calling my name. What time is it? 6.45 and my head hits the pillow once again. However the point is made that we could get up now, go with the guy we are staying at and actually start our day early and make use of it, this in recent times being a very new concept to me, but you know what it might actually be worth a try. So I get up and am ready in about 15 minutes. The guy we were staying at, Yoni, studies everyday in Acko and we decided it might be fun to start our day there, having a look around Acko and see what we can find. So after being forced to drink a tea and some wafers by Yoni's father (I don't usually eat that early in the morning, not always such a morning person), we get on our way and by 8am we are in Acko and have been dropped off at the local market. Now markets can usually be a good place to start a trip, looking at all the rubbish they have on sale, but this market only sold fruit, it was terrible! So we speak to this guy and ask him what there is to do in Acko, and he suggests we go to the old city and take a look there, we are given a lift and off we go.

8.15 in the morning and we are at the Acko port, next to the old city, taking a few pictures and having a look around. We bump into a guy who has just caught the biggest fish EVER!! and can't really resist the temptation to have a picture with him and his new found friend. Okay, it wasn't the biggest ever, but was pretty damn big! Take note....

So we then venture into the old city of Acko, anyone who knows Acko will know in many areas it is a prodominantly Arab area, and so here we are two Jewish lads walking around a very Arab area, but strangely enough having the strangest sense of security. It could have been because despite common stereotypes, everyone there just wanted to get on with their daily business and wasn't looking for trouble, or it could have been because of the rather large gun my friend had, either way it was kinda pleasant to be there, the sunlight just coming up and really appreciating our surroundings. Everyone always says when in Rome, do as the Romans do......so we did.....

....we started our day, 08:30, in an Arab cafe, sitting having a narg and coffee with the locals. As we walked into the tavern we instantly became the focus, but that quickly was diverted back to the television which was blaring some form of Arab MTV. We sat for about an hour and a half with the locals, chatting talking about all sorts of rubbish, anything to try and make conversation and not get anyone suspicious seeing as though my friend had a gun and I was taking pictures of everything. Just incase you can't picture the scene of two Jewish lads from England sitting in an Arab cafe....here it is....

From then on we proceded to walk around the markets, then moving to get pizza before travelling to Chaifa, on our way to Tel Aviv where we went to Yaffo, to look for more antiques. Finally back to home. The best part about the whole trip was that we had no plans, and you end up having a lot more fun when you just take everything as it comes. I'm hoping to do that more often before I go into the army.

From a place I shouldn't be.

On the road....

2006-04-26T22:31:00.000+03:00

I write to you from the small town of Nahariya, or a small moshav next to Nahariya. For those of you who's geography of Israel isn't up to scratch that is right at the top of Israel, any further and we would be in Lebanon. So how did I end up in this obscure place, which let's face it is just running a little higher culture and economy wise as Lod.

Well it began like this.....>>

Since I finished working for Vote Torah I have been at a bit of a loss. You see there was pesach which was good for filling in the time. I spent Seder in Herzaliya courtesy of the Kleimans, which was a lot of fun, very relaxed just what I needed after that non-stop month. I then moved on to see get a bit of a 'Free-buger and Fish' installment in Tel Aviv, staying in a rather nice hotel, which was a nice and welcome change (you see it is good to live humbly but we all like a bit of pampering every now and then, even the floor where I slept in this place was plush). Then it was back to Jerusalem for a few days where all the lads came to stay at me for a night. Then to Bayit Vegan for the second chag with some Israeli friends of mine. All in all a very relaxed Pesach, only seven days long, one seder (sorry to rub it in guys in England) and the best part was to see friends again. You see I find one of the toughest parts of being here the social aspect and so to have friends come over and visit me really means a lot to me.

Last weekend I was once again meant to return to the luxurious hotel, however I woke up Friday morning with food-poisining....and don't ask me what from, I think it was cheese, but no matter how many people ask me I am not going to have an autopsy to have it checked out!! It is really funny, you tell people you had food-posining and they hurridly ask you very worried questions, like they are worried about catching it themselves from the same food you ate, so they must rule out as many posibilities as possible.....get this people....YOU WON'T GET THE SAME FOOD POSINING AS ME!!

So after all this excitement I was back to being at a loss, I am going into the army in 2 months, a little less, and I have no idea what to do with myself. I don't want to get tied down to a full time job as I have a lot to sort out before I go in and so need the time. I wanted to travel around about but didn't really know where to go or have anyone to go with....so I became a couch junky, watching films, playing playstation etc etc etc for hours on end. People told me I should read, and I said NO! for reading is just giving up!! (I realise I just offended a lot of people)

BEEP BEEP - phone goes I get a text, one of my friends wants to know if they can come and stay at my house tonight, for all those of you who know him Mr. Jonny Daniels came to stay (he also made Aliyah from England for those of you who don't know him. So he arrives at mine and after disposing of the pleasantries the conversation starts:

Jonny: Are you spontanious Barrie?
Barrie: Can be why?
Jonny: Tell me if you are coming with me tommorow.
Barrie: To where?
Jonny: Well that wouldn't be very spontanious would it! Tell me if you are coming.
Barrie: Ok, why not!

And so here I am at the top of the country at a friend of Jonny's we have travelled today, eaten a lot of food, done some walking round, visited an ethiopian absorption centre and just generally done things that we can as we have nothing else to do. It's a really great feeling to be able to fill my time. So advice, if you get bored where you are and having nothing to do...be spontanious... get up and go. It continues tomorrow with us, who knows where it will take you!

For all of those of you who are now catching this through the BAUK website - Welcome! You can catch up with what's been going on with the previous installments if you so wish. This blog has purely been created for a bit of humour, to bide my time, and for anyone interested to know what it is like to come and make aliyah (however just from my perspective). Please don't take anything I write to seriously, and just enjoy. Feel free to continue to read this blog in the future if you so wish, and don't if you don't! All comments welcome!

From the middle of nowhere!

Thank you Microsoft

2006-04-09T14:20:00.000+03:00

I just wan't you all to know how dedicated I am to this blog! I just finished doing a whole blog and the beautiful world of Microsoft screwed me over with an 'Internet Explorer needs to close' message, why does Internet Explorer need to close!!!! I certainly didn't give him time off! Does he only work certain hours!?!

So now I am going to type it all over again... however in breif.

I spent this shabbat in Lod, possibly the scummiest place in Israel, known only for its highest drug crim rate, millwall style arab residents and Bnei Akiva Lehava volunteers. Whilst playing football in Lod on a Friday afternoon, you get to experience the one oasis in the middle of this industrial desert that is falling apart. I am talking about a brand new, well kept football and tennis courts. It is rather random I must admit, you trek thru things I cannot describe to get there and when you do it is like a little piece of heaven in this place. Realisation quickly kicks in as the ball is kicked over the fence, past the small fence of the court, past the barbed wire, past the armed guards and lands straight in the courtyard of your very own private Lod prison. Ball number four gone! Although it isn't so bad if it goes over at the other end of the pitch, you only have to crawl thru the thistle ridden wasteland.

On my way to Lod I popped by Bet Shemesh where I volunteered last year...and couldn't resist the chance to drop into my old address. Needless to say people were curious as to why I was taking pictures of their house, the neighbours dog, and the street sign at 08.30 in the morning. So for all of you who were on Lehava and even those of you who wern't, bask in its glory, you might rememeber these sights.

The last blog was much more entertaining and interesting but I am sorry I just could not type it all out again!

See you when you get there!

Closing and Opening

2006-04-03T18:31:00.000+03:00

Greetings faithful readers of my blog. Ok so looks like from now on I might actually have stuff to write about. This week is bringing to close the Vote Torah campaign that I said I was working on. It has been tough, and I have worked very hard at this project, but through the stress of it I am glad to say it is coming to an end. I hope that we did very well, as certainly my hard work I feel in this deserves it. If you are reading this and it is still Monday btw, today is the last day to register for it, so go to ww.votetorah.org.uk now and register to vote! (see always working!)

So at one point this week I got rather bored and as you know me when I get bored I have to do things, usually active things, or practical things, so what did I decide to do? BUILD. Now don't get any ideas I didn't build my dream house or anything, I built up along with my flatmate Yosef a Zula. Now for those of you who have no idea what this is, it is a chilling area (or cotching area for you southerners), generally very bedouinish including cushions on the floor, funny sheets hanging everywhere you get the picture. If you don't get the picture here it is.

It has so far been very useful, located on the balcony just off my room, we all chill out there a lot. It's relaxed, quiet and atmospheric. For all of you who are around the area you are more than welcome to come have a go, we guarantee you to have the most chilled out experience you will have all day. Even those who are not close by we invite you!

However with every great invention comes a problem.......Friday night I had the pleasure of deciding I was going to sleep outside on the balcony in the Zula, it was not cold at all very comfy and all was great but then the next night it happened.....with the snap of a bolt of lighting and some rumbling thunder came the rain, it came heavy and hard, all those in the Zula were evacuated to safety and no-one got hurt, but the Zula was left in a bad way. Re-construction is underway and we hope to be up and running again before the sunshine comes back!

So that has been the home events in the past week.

Army.......................................................No news........is good news.

Well not this week!! The good news comes straight from the army. After much battling with the army, they have finally decided they want me in, and I have managed to get my date moved to July. That's right people this time come July I will be packing ma bags and be going off to the army! I will keep you updated of course, but at the moment the only thing I know is the month that I am going in and also that I am going to be trying out for the Tzanchanim (Paratroopers) in a months time, which those of you who know me well will find funny seeing as I am terrified of heights!! Yes that is not a joke, but I don't know for some reason the thought of jumping from a plane seems quite kewl! Let's see how I feel when I am standing at the entrance to the plane!

Right I must stop writing as my head is pounding, and I am very tired I have been tidying my room and rearranging it today. And seeing as though I have now worked out how to get pics on here I will be spicing it up a little with a few, so next time you will get a show of my room. I know this blog might seem a bit all over the place and hard to read but the truth is I just don't have the head at the moment to concentrate, spell or write in any form of normal English. So here you have it.

THE END

Guess who's back,,,,,back again!!

2006-03-08T02:26:00.000+02:00

Yes that right I have returned faithful ones, to tell you the unimportancies of my life. So what is new?! I hear you cry from the stands. Well I remmeber telling you how I had become nocturnal and was working the graveyard shift at IDT. NOT ANYMORE!! That's right, for a few different reasons things didn't work out there. No I didn't get the sack! I left....and on good terms I might add they asked me to come back.

So anyways I went thru a week of not really doing anything which was fun to do again no responsibilities etc. That week of doing nothing quickly turned into a week of helping a friend move out of her apartment and store everything in my room, so I have all my life packed into one cupboard and the rest of hers everywhere else. But I don't begrudge her as much as she thinks that I do! Yes that is you if you are reading this, I am more than happy to help out.

So things quickly picked up on the employment side of things... I was asked to co-ordinate and contact British passport holders to vote in Israel in the World Zionist Organisation Congress. This involves most of my time but is some nice kesef coming in. Which btw if you are British and haven't already, log onto www.votetorah.org.uk to vote, it's simple, easy and very important! Really I am not just saying it, all the information is on the website, and if you would like to know anymore go to the 'contact us' page and drop me an email. Similarly and this is a serious outcry, if anyone has the names, numbers and/or email addresses of Brits living in Israel, either having made Aliyah or just here for a shortwhile, please send me them so that I can email them, and give them a chance to vote in this important election. Over 1billion dollars in funding is at stake here! I will be happy to give anyone more information, just get in contact, please!

Army........................................no news

Social........well my social life has taken a bit of a downer recently, but I am starting to build it back up again. Saw a friend tonight haven't seen since Lehava last year, so that was nice. General chilling, you know how it is.

And well that is about it for now.

Watch this (space)

Life has changed

2006-01-25T00:04:00.000+02:00

Before I start I'm going to say to all those who are thinking that I have had enough of Aliyah, don't worry, this isn't the case. It's just that the way my life runs at the moment is very different to how it has in the past.

I'll start with the basics, in the past two weeks since I last blogged, really not much has happened, I haven't been anywhere exciting and havent done anything exciting. So I am sorry to dissapoint, but who said that everyday was going to have something major going on, sometimes no news is good news.

Ok and here is some news, I'll start with the army - I got a new giyus date after battling to get it changed, and I am now set to go into the army in November, which still isn't early enough in my opinion so the battle continues.

Apart from that the reason my life has been so uneventful recently is that I began work at IDT. This means that every night at about quarter to nine, I leave the house, take the bus and begin my 40 min journey to the IDT building, which is conveniently situated in the middle of nowhere. Once there we spend roughly an hour and a half doing nothing, we are subjected to plentiful breaks, and its a general laugh around and joke. Generally the work atmosphere is good, the team is very diverse and friendly, and we have a lot of fun. This is still in the training stage do not forget. In about a week and a half we will be beginning the sales process and trying to sell away the AOL product. As the work is this time of night, and being the nature that it is, I generally spend my days sleeping and not doing much else, it's a tad annoying but it is paying for my aliyah, so I'm not complaining. I also only get one free night a week, so the bottom line is this job is killing my social life, but we can all do with a bit the old kesef (money) instead of that for a little while.

Anyways in the interest of keeping this short and not rambling on trying to cover the same topic in four different ways I am going to end this blog as I must get back to work now, the teacher has just walked back in, and back to it.

More to follow...

I have returned

2006-01-11T22:21:00.000+02:00

Well I know it has been a quiet period recently, and you have all been sitting at your computers endlessly waiting for me to add a new post, and so I will reward you with a superlong blog, which I hope to keep as short as I can, cos' let's face it I have to type it all out.

So where did I leave off...ahh yes, shabbat in the flat, well that was very nice in the end. A load of people came round we made a big lunch which everyone brought bits and pieces for and it was a nice chilled atmosphere and a very chilled first shabbat in Jerusalem.

Later on that week my friend Mr. Robert Pearl (you should be lucky you got a mention in my blog, cos you never read it!) came to Israel, so I went at 4 in the morning to pick him up from the airport and came back with him to Jlem. After not having slept that night I was looking forward to a good sleep, but of course with it being his trip to Israel and being as excited as he was we decided we wouldn't go to sleep so we decided to walk round Jlem at 7 in the morning, needless to say not much was open and it wasn't long before we ended up back at the flat. So we spent that week eating at every restaraunt in Jlem, good on the stomach bad on the bank account, and in the nights we would watch the football at the local haunts, meet up with people, our madricha and also our american from the programme last year, Mr. Yonah Zeryker.

Shabbat was spent with again at Shoshie (the madricha's house). Very chilled once again and it was like a mini reunion which is always fun.

Then the real fun began, a four hour journey saw us arriving to eilat, where the weather was considerably better than in Jlem. Robert has a flat there, which is where we stayed for 8 days the reason I say 8 days and not a week, is cos when your are in eilat, everyday counts. The weather was incredible I was living in shorts and t-shirt, in the beginning of January!! Schedule was as follows :-

wake up - 11am
lunch - 12pm
sunning by the pool - 12.30pm -> 3.30pm
afternoon meal - 5pm
dinner - 8pm
out for the night - 10.30pm -> late

it was the best week I had in a while, especially after having such a hectic few beginning weeks I needed the relaxing break, and opportunity to do completely nuffin. Got a bit of a tan which is always a bonus when coming back to crappy weather Jlem.

Since I been back this week then it's been sorting out my life ~ army, work, ulpan.

Army____ got my giyus (entry) date to the army, 5th March however one problem, it's in 2007!!!!!!!!!!! which I wasn't very happy about as one of the major reasons for me coming here was to serve in the army. So I am currently in the process of trying to have it brought closer.

Work____got myself a Job, working for IDT a telecommunications provider that has a call and projects centre here in Jerusalem. There I will be dealing with AOL customers, their subcsriptions and their accounts, I will be that friendly voice for AOL customers on the other side of the phone-line. The only thing is that as it is dealing with America, the shift is from 10 at night till 6 in the morning, the advantages however are that there is a gym in the building that is free of charge to all employees, the pay is good (that should really have been the first advantage) and they are sorting out ulpan for me, possibly even private tuition, so not only am I killing two birds with one stone, but I don't need to type a third paragraph about ulpan! woohoo.

Right I am stopping there as there isnt really much more news for the moment, but I will keep u updated!

Veni Vidi Vicci!

Nearly a month! And what an expensive week!

2005-12-23T02:15:00.000+02:00

Although I am not trying to relive the gap year I spent last year I seem to keep up ending doing things with this year's lehava group, but this is just generally due to the involvement I have with them. So like I said I was going to spend Shabbat with the Hachsarot, and I did, from all over the world. It was actually quite fun in the end, much better than ours were when we were there! It was also a really good opportunity to speak with the group and see what they were really thinking of their year off. Luckily this week we got back to Jerusalem relatively early so I was able to go and spend some time out meeting up with a few people I haven't seen in a while in the city centre. So that was a laff.

Sunday --> I don't remember if I had said in my last blog and I can't be bothered to check but I had a guy I was going to see about getting a desk and chair, because up until this point the room has been a little bare, it still echos when you speak, as there isn't enough stuff in it. Anyways back to it....so I went to see this guy, proper don he is, and he sold me a brand new desk and a proper big black leather office chair for nothing at all basically, he even decided he was going to help me take the stuff back to the flat in his car, so I slipped him a little extra cash. He is a computer technician and since then I have stayed in touch with him to ask him various questions about our computers generally to do with our internet which we have now fixed. He also lets me know if there is any other items going cheap in the area, so score there!

On buying items, I managed to aquire (is that how it is spelt?) a toastie machine and speakers for completely free this week, so I am rather happy bout that!

Tuesday saw me miss my alarm in the morning to wake up an hour later 10 minutes before I was meant to be at a local park to go give a speech. Yeh so basically as I am still intouch with my friend who runs the Marva (army programme I did last year) from the Jewish Agency in Israel (as part of his army service), I gave him a call to meet up. Upon doing this he asked me if the next morning I would come to the park and give a speech about the programme and my Aliyah to a group of people from Eastern Europe, who are looking to be shlichim in their own countries, the purpose to give them information on the programmes so they can sell it back home. Went well, I got the public speaking thing down to a fine art. I hope. With this I have also been asked next week to go to a fundraising dinner in a very fancy Moroccan restaraunt in Jerusalem to speak to a bunch of prospective doners from Australia who are looking at giving funding to the Jewish Agency for their programmes. When the big guns from Australia come, they call in me....hmmmm.

Wednesday....what a day! I spent the whole day in town running backwards and forwards trying to take care of a certain project that I am looking into....it took about four hours before I finally got it sorted and in the middle I had to run to the eye doctor to go and have my eye test so I could fax the results to the army and get on with that....and then it happened...

I walk into the building, which buy the way looks like something out a film you would see as a secret service headquarters or something (very flashy), I take the lift up, I decide floor one, why not? get there, walk to the desk, give the girl my note,......she looks at me....tells me I need the next floor.....but just keep staring....at first I thought she might be intrested, but then she drops the bomb....I'll translate her words to English (because the rest of this blog is in English anyways)....say it in an Israeli accent ---> "Errm...you do realise that this apointment was for yesterday?" my jaw drops, DOPE! so basically I went, was on time but went a day late..anyways I'm going back Sunday just lucky they could fit me in so soon.

Thursday inbrief..

Went to ulpan to try and get in, having to go back another time to speak with them.
Had lunch with mate from UK who is here at the moment. My first burgers bar surprisingly, still as good as I remmeber it.
Had a gradnpa afternoon nap.
Went out with flatmates to a couple of bars.
Writing this blog and realise how disjointed it must all sound because it is nearly 3 in the morning.

This Shabbat I'm spending at the flat, we having people round for lunch, my first as a host, fun!

Ok just a couple of more points one serious and one not so serious and I'll go!

serious first...for anyone who has been trying to get through to me on the 0161 number it hasn't been on as we have had problems with our internet, but we bought a new router so it now works and will be online, so people from UK who want to call me on 0161 number you can now! If you want the number email me or something. And remmeber it costs you like nothing from UK if not free, so its worth givin me a call.

not serious....I really hope people dont mind but next time and from hereon that I write blogs I am going to use 'cos' instead of 'because', that is cos/because I find it a very long and hard word to type when I am writing these blogs. We apologise for any inconvinience this may cause.

more to come, CIAO

p.s. it was a really expensive week

1 week to go

2005-12-15T23:28:00.000+02:00

It's a bit crazy when I sit and think of it that I have now, by the end of this week, nearly been here a month. That's four weeks, 30-something days! So how has this week gone, I hear you shouting from the stands!

WEEEELLL..... I spent a very nice and relaxing shabbat in Chashmonaim, seeing some friends I made last year, and staying at my madricha-from-last-year's house. Sleep was good, weather was good, food was good, couldn't really have asked for much more after the crazy events last week. This week brought things back into the hectic life....thing is it's never meant to start that way but always ends up like that. Everyday I set myself a task in the morning so I generally get up early get going with things, thinking that I will be able to get home by the afternoon and relax for the rest of the day. HOWEVER it always seems to be that things take longer than expected and it's 17:00 before I get home. I can see that all of you with jobs are rolling your eyes, but I don't have a full time job yet so that is just the way it is, I might as well enjoy my time whilst I can. Soon I won't have much free at all.

So back to goings on...there is a website here in Jerusalem, that has basically a forum for people, anglo people, in jerusaelm. On this forum you can ask for advice, sell things, post up job opportunities etc...So I basically found on the site a person looking for someone to put up some drawers and tables. Upon arriving there I saw the DIY disaster monster had already popped round to say hello, and I got quickly to work. Of course like I said nothing ever goes to plan and after what should have taken a few minutes I ran into trouble, the screws supplied with the drawers didnt fit in thru the wholes. Because of this I left went to find new screws a couple of days later and went back to finish the job today...all done and it is a bit of cash in the pocket, which was well worth my time.

Then back in the house we cleared it all up because the landlady is coming tommorow and well keeping her happy...always useful.

But then there was wednesday. After being called by the army last week as I said, they called me into the army office on Wednesday of this week. So off I go at 8 in the morning and the day begins...I guess this time I was stupid for thinking it might be over quickly. I'll spare you the details of queues etc. In room number 1, I was questioned about my family, personal details etc. In the second room I had to go thru a series of medical tests and check ups, this heading towards my profile, which I am now waiting to find out. After this I was interviewed by a not bad looking female israeli soldier, I must say! This trying to basically find out what type of person I am, and looking to see what I want to do in the army. Finally I had to do a psychometric test on a computer, lots of pictures, patterns etc trying to decide what comes next....and by the end of it my head was spinning, not the easiest of tests I have ever had, but what is done is done....again I'm waiting for the results. So now it really is a waiting game, to find out when I will be going into the army, and we can just hope!

So time for bed because tommorow I am travelling to spend the weekend at the Bnei Akiva Hachsarot...I can't remember the name of the place, but it isn't Jerusalem so have to catch a bus early. The shabbat is all of the groups in Israel on Bnei Akiva schemes coming together for a shabbaton.

Toodles

Settled In

2005-12-08T21:16:00.000+02:00

Episode 2! So here I am 13 days after making Aliyah, and most surprisingly I have made quite a lot of progress at settling in. After those hours of cleaning and moving my stuff into my new room I have been interior designing and buying stuff for my room. Among my ever diverse purchases was a washing basket, bin (ooh the excitement), some coat hangers (are you on the edge of your seat yet?). But even with these aditions the room was still looking reasonably bare so today I went and bought a big black piece of plastic card which I am making a collage of pictures on, to make it a bit more homely.

My flatmate Yosef returned from the UK last night and since we have already been redesigning the whole apartment itself, lots of moving around which I put mostly to us just not having enough to do! But again just trying to give it that lived in homely feel. Among our new additions we had an Israeli landline put in today, so that means I am expecting lots of phone calls from all of you in Israel and also those of you in the UK. I can give you a telediscount number which will make calls to that number 2p a minute from the UK> I don't want to post the new number on the blog for privacy reasons, but if you fancy giving me a call just send me an email and I will give you the new number. The funniest thing is that it is thru the cable company HOT and because of this the number begins with 077, which is rather strange as it looks like a UK mobile number, but it isn't so no worries for you to call! Be in touch.

So hmmm what else has happened this week?
Well I was told today that the first weeks of making Aliyah are the most expensive in your life, I see this to be true, but in all fairness its all stuff that is needed and won't need to be payed for again in the near future, so it's worth it.
Wednesday was my chill day, first since being here, of which I spent most of it watchin 24, im up to 15:00 in the afternoon, and it's getting very good!

Yesterday I went to the Lishkat Giyus, which is the army administration office to put my name forward for the army. Usually it seems to take them quite a long time to contact you to come back in to go for you next meeting but surprisingly enough they called me today, just a day later, to tell me to come back in next week, so I already have my next meeting, and I hope things continue to move this fast.

Apart from that the week has been very quiet, not that I am complaining about that as soon it will start getting busy! very busy! I'm going to be spending the weekend in Chashmonaim, about 40mins outside of Jerusalem, so that will be nice and chilled, and then that will be already two weeks here. The time goes fast, and it is still very surreal and has not sunk in at all. In time I'm sure it will....so until then I am going to carry on being domesticated and go and sort out a few things around the flat. Hope all is well with everyone else....till the next time!

BBFN

I've arrived!

2005-12-05T00:00:00.000+02:00

I never really understood what this whole blog business was until upon arriving to Israel several people kept trying to explain to me how much easier it was than writing 15,000 different emails. And waddaya know, it is! Don't get me wrong I am not looking for an easy way out of the personal approach and you will still be recieving personal emails from me, with all the little in-jokes that we all have. But this way I can in one go let everyone know what is going on with me, without having to repeat myself or go throught it numerous times. Also as most of you know I am now on skype, my name for that being 'bdcowan', without the quotation marks. Also hoping to have very soon an Israeli number, and an English number that people in the UK can contact me on at national rate as though they were calling to Manchester, but I will explain that nearer the time. So fine not to ramble on let's get down to business.....if anyone isn't sure about anything I have just said then email me, if you are reading this then you will have recieved it in an email and so will have my address.

"I've arrived!" - So what is that all about then? Well for those of you who don't know, last Monday 28th November, I moved country, making Aliyah to Israel. Once arriving in the airport, I was taken thru the Israeli passport control and up into the Misrad Haklita (Ministry of Absorption) office. There they took all my details down, gave me a bunch of free books, a calender, and 1250 shekels...not complaining! As an Oleh (Immigrant) I will recieve benefits from the government of a wide variety for the near and further future. One of these was a free taxi which after 20 mins of office work in the airport, brought me straight to my new apartment in Jerusalem. The apartment is very nice, rather homely, clean, nice size, nice rooms.

So what have I done over the past week since I got here, well one would think it would be a breeze, but think again! I started off on my first day waking up at 7am and not being able to get back to sleep, call it what you like, excitement or whatever, but I still wanted to sleep. When I eventually got out of bed, I went to Beit Bnei Akiva, where the new Lehava group (the scheme I was on last year) lives to say hello and make a couple of surprises. Worked a treat! The next 'm couple of days proceeded to see a few people that I had to see now that I'm over here, and then it happened......Thursday came!

A day I probably won't forget for a while. I rose at 6.20 in the morning, to get to the office where I would recieve my citizenship card at 7.30 in the morning, where at that time I was third in the queue, and the office doesn't even open till 8! By 8.10 I was back of the queue, that's what you get for being too British. Anyways to cut a long story short 3 hours later, a few arguments and a couple of burst blood vessels, I left with the shakes having gotten my Teudat Zehut (I.D./Citizenship Card). This then allowed me to open a bank account, get medical insurance membership and sort out various other paperwork bits and pieces. By 3pm I stopped to meet a friend and it was at that point i realised i hadn't sat down or eaten since 6.20 that morning....so i called it a rap for the day and went with him for something to eat.

Shabbat was spent in Kiriyat Shmuel, a province of Haifa, where we took part in there Shabbat Ha'irgun. This was certainly an experience, but a very friendly one, and the whole group (being Lehava that is who I went with) enjoyed it! The reason I am spending so much time it may seem with the new Lehava group, is no not to try and relive my memories thru them, but I am currently running a scheme where I act as a kind of 'big brother' to them, if they need anything, want somewhere to stay, chill, come for a game on the PS2 etc, or just need someone to vent to on the phone....well that is me....so I am starting by getting to know them.

Which brings me to today....a day spent cleaning my room, which the person who was in it before me left to me last night....followed by moving in all my stuff. The result a very clean and tidy but bare looking room, bare i hope not, clean and tidy...well my mum hopes it will stay that way...like I said...we'll see.

So i guess that brings me to the end of my first BLOG, still think that is such a random name...yes I type as I think, I'm not trying to write a novel so I don't need to worry about sounding like a bestseller! I hope that has given you an insight into what I have been upto so far since I have been here, like I say hopefully contact will stay as normal as before, but this is just an easy way to put it all together....let me know what you think anyways by leaving me a comment.....Untill BLOG 2: Return of the letters! <<<>

Off to bed, ttfn!