Hula Hoop

We went to the north to Hula reserve and Hula lake - I heard there would be a lot of migrating birds: pelicans, cranes,...
When we were at the reserve they told us they didn't have too many birds. We still saw white-throated kingfishers, cranes, herons, and this crazy birds. However my old zoom lense does not get me as close as my new one used to.







The lake is quite nice - the round is a bit more than 8km and they rent golf carts, pedal cars, bikes,... feels like childhood, pple started racing with others, and in between you watched the lake and the birds.



We went to kapernaun afterwards and had a great view of the kinnereti - in this light you could mistake it for the dead sea.

Holiday Season

So, the last few weeks were a couple of interesting holidays - first of all, since october we are writing a new year: 5772, then there was 'yom kippur', then 'sukkot', then there were some more.
The last few days i had a very nice visitor here, who also brought me my old d70 camera, so there are photographs again!
I've revisited some of the places, got new impressions and discovered new stuff. I still have the rental car - feels good to be mobile. Anybody selling a car close to rehovot?

ירושלים, which was packed that day. I thought easter was a bad time - but we were in traffic jam all the way up to the city, in the city, and in the old town.





next to مسجد قبة الصخرة‎









more to come...

His tory

ok. no camera yet. so 2 old pics to keep the blog living. i took them in june in jaffa/florentine.
i was travelling a bit in september, spent a weekend up north in a kibutz close to haifa with a wild beach, which was great.
i joined the polish-italian community on a trip to akko with very interesting topics for discussion in the italian movie-club.
things change here all the time. people come and go. i got new flat which is great. i bought a new laundry maschine, which is even greater. the guy who came for the installation was a game. he refused to understand english, and had me call somebody for translation, just to tell me, that i will not be able to get the laundry maschine into the small space with the plumbing. and i have to remove the siphone and he wouldn't help me in any case. and he'll just sign my warranty paper.
so i did it alone, which took about 2min. i think he wanted to do something cool, like being a disc-jockey, instead of working in an electronic store. which was kind of funny, after i watched thee zohan.
i thought it's just another stupid ben stiller movie, but living here opened my eyes. most of the jokes had more truth than you'd think.

anyways, next week i'll get my old camera i left with a friend in linz and i will revive this blog.

Fancy Triathlon?

I kind of do, although i never trained it nor entered a race. But since I'm in this group in Israel I practise a lot of sports!
One of the first questions after I got here was: "Are you biking?"
Turns out my new boss loves to bike, run and swim, and many of the postdocs too. So a bunch of them got road bikes - and so did i - and we get up early in the morning, before even the chicken get up and go for a ride to the beach, swim/bodysurf there, come back take a shower and שקשוקה and start working shortly after nine. Believe me: This is the best start in a working day, ever!
So when Daniel left, Lucio and Leah had the idea of a "Team Frydman" shirt, and asked me to draw something for a shirt as a leaving present. I did an ~ Art Deco sketch using pencil and gimp[!] on a windows [!!] pc...

Dub[!]rovNick & Mt.Negro

this is zorro. brave lil' fellow always fighting with the big toms. also i think he convinced gurb that its not worth taking over the world...



beautiful dubrovnik







Following Bond to Montenegro we discovered this beautiful bay...










ahja, and since all my stuff was stolen hours before i went on the vacation, this pictures are brought to you by kevin's camera, who went on his vacation without a camera, so i could take some pictures... thanks man

Tel Dan, Banias, Nimrod, Mt Bental

Tel Dan, Banias, Nimrod, Mt Bental, places that could be paradise...

GeierValley

Was out on a little weekend adventure with the two 'other' german friends up to Galilee and Golan (Heights). Last time I've been there it was still mostly green - turns out it turned brown.


ZOOM

We went to Yehudia first, where we took a dip in the hexagon pools and in the pool below the waterfall.








Then I showed them Gamla. And guess what?




I saw a lot of vultures. There was an eqyptian vulture couple circling in the valley...










... who were joined by a griffon vulture.
They are really grand and beautiful birds!




Before we went up to Zefat, we did a small stop at the Jordan. It's not as small as I thought it would be. Some time I'd like to make a boat tour on it.

Stars

Yesterday I was planning to join a trip by the student council into the desert to see the observatory and watch the night sky. Unfortunately the spectrometer is a jealous bitch and wanted me to spend the night with her...



... but at some point I decided I've given her enough love, and let her think about something over night. She was kind enough to give me some love back in the morning.

After I left her, I roamed the campus and had an unfortunate random encounter.









I believe some days make you cuckoo...

The 1st picture is not the observatory, but the space ship looking accelerator of weizmann institute.