How not to Write, Part II

Apparently, some haven't read, nor implement, my How not to Write lesson from last June.

I wonder, though, how long does someone have to live in the US, illegally of course, without knowing how to spell EUROPEAN...



In the picture you can see Ellen, our expert copywriter, pointing the fatal mistake. It is fatal, taking into consideration nobody have stop this from becoming a big sign alongside one of the main roads in Las Vegas.

By nobody, I mean the copywriter (he he he... yeah right. The copywriter of this sign was probably the grandfather of the owner, still living in Israel, who probably doesn't know how to spell his own name in Hebrew, not to mention English), the designer, the company which print the sign and probably others as well.

At least they had a great OrangeNana juice - orange juice and Limonana barad. Yum yum! Seriously! I had 2 (and had my reasons :-)

And please, don't be caught in my next How not to Write.

How not to Write

Please note that the correct spelling is: Restaurant.

i.e: A food service establishment that provides seating and serves food and beverages to be consumed on the premises.

Close enough, but not quite yet... again: Res-tau-rant.

I 'm quite sure everybody knows how it should be spelled.... Everybody except for the talented artist who's responsible for this graffiti.......

How to Scare Families Away

If you are under 16, please don't read that post (even if you think you are more mature than that).

Yesterday I went with Ellen and Or to Max Brenner, which is a great Chocolate Bar. We were eating the most amazing deserts, drooling of melting chocolates (I dealt with the white chocolate while Or and Ellen were after the milk chocolate) when a family with two kids sat at the next table. The younger one was no more than 1 year old, and had the scariest face I've ever seen (for a baby). I couldn't decide whether he had a scared or scary look. The other was a 3 or 4 years old girl. She looked OK, by the way.

I was a bit afraid of the little boy, and told Or and Ellen that he scares me. I almost certain I said it out loud. So in order to help the family move a table, we started saying things that the parents probably didn't want their kids to hear, because they moved to another table eventually... No more than 5 minutes after they sat next to us!

You probably ask yourself: What did they talk about?
well, we started saying things like:
"I think she's bi-sexual!"
"He met his boyfriend when he was working in a restaurant. They make such a sexy couple!"
"I don't have a boyfriend, I have something better called dildo!"
"My boyfriend just loves anal-sex!"

You probably noticed that Ellen has so many links in that post and ask yourselves why?..
So here's the answer you're looking for: I'm trying to beat Ellen DeGeneres.

To Be Continued

The Sociology of the Israeli Dubliners

Just like every other place on the Globe, Dublin has its Israelis. And we all know that Israelis that live in the same place know each other.

So here's the story about how Dan got himself familiarised with the Israeli Dubliners:
Before Dan moved to Ireland, He knew a guy that his wife started working for Dublin Amdocs offices. The wife have been to Dublin for a month already when Dan first met him. He was supposed to move there soon.
As you all know, It's been 4 months since Dan relocated to Dublin, and he's in touch with that couple since.

On Easter Monday, the day after we were back from our Easter holiday (Ellen, here's what you, and probably many other fans, are waiting for: The debt from my previous post), they invited us to join them to Dublin's Botanic Gardens. We decided to join, although we had the cunning plan of staying home and getting lazy.
We got our first impression when we were walking into the Cafeteria. It felt like walking into a Geriatric Institute, thanks to all of the old people (some on wheelchairs) accompanied by their sons, daughters and grandchildren.
But we really enjoyed the gardens. By us, I mean Us the girls. The guys were just enjoying talking business, the stock market, politics and Irish girls of course. To be precise, the conversation over the Irish girls was about the outrageous training suits they just love to wear. In fact, all 4 of us took part in that conversation over that high-importance issue. Every suit is in one color only, but it comes in many different colors, in a variety of fabrics, and they really like the velvet-like fabric!!! Most of the time it shows their bellies, and sometimes it's a huge belly and in some other times it's just a big belly. And that, i must say, is the real Irish culture shock. I apologize for not taking a picture of a girl in her brown or orange velvet-suit, to demonstrate you.
After the gardens, we went to a retail center, and then we went to eat in an Indian restaurant. Since the amazing Diwali was closed for the afternoon, we had to settle for not such a good restaurant, in the Temple Bar area (and that says it all...)
After eating and talking some more about the Israeli and Irish economy, work, stock-market, and this time we all took part, we went home. That day outside lasted 8 hours!

The following week they invited us and another Israeli couple for dinner at their place. That evening we were revealed to some important facts about the Israeli Dubliners.
There are 2 major groups: The Amdocses and the Intels.
The Amdocses are very connected and stay in touch, even organizing events, such as the Israeli independence day they celebrated with BBQ in the park.
The Intels, however, are mostly married to Irish, so they stay among themselves, and don't like to join those get-togethers, or stay in touch with those who doesn't belong to their group.
The rest are somewhat like Dan, who is an only Israeli in their company. That was the situation with the other couple that was invited that evening. Those Israelis are usually familiarize with the others through someone they know (or knew) from Amdocs.

Now I just want to apologize for not writing, again, for such a long time... I feel like I have so many things on my mind when I'm not in a relaxing vacation, and I'm not even in the mood to write and practice my writing.
I promise, again, to try and get over it!
We'll see how it works.

The Southern Feast or How I Spent my Easter Holiday

As I promised, I'll tell you a little bit about our Easter holiday and our trip to the south of Ireland.

We left Dublin at around 12:00, heading south, towards Cork county. As we approached the big city (Cork), the direction road signs became lousier. So we were taking some wrong turns or just not taking the right ones. I must admit- that was no surprise. We were driving and we stopped at the more interesting places on the way. The road lead us to many villages and towns, since the national roads in Ireland goes through the center of each and every one on the way.

When it come to cities, luckily there are the Irish Roundabouts. Ahhh, the magnificent Irish Roundabouts! Now, let me tell you a bit about it: they are quite wide, with 2 or 3 lanes, sometimes there are traffic lights at the enterance and sometimes even along the roundabout.

One of the places we had a stop was a village near Cork, a very touristic one, called Blarney. Why is it so touristic? because it has a castle. One taxi driver told us we should kiss a certain stone at the castle, but he forgot why... Back to Blarney and its castle. So what do they do? Charge 9 euros per adult only to enter the castle and it's gardens. Does that worth it? Don't know. We didn't even hesitate and decided not to pay. 9 is far too much for just another castle that looks exactly the same as other Irish ones.

There was a shopping center pretty close to the castle's entrance. Since it was made especially for the tourists, they sell Irish gifts only. Besides all that, there are many pubs.

Then we continued towards the coast, and this time we passed through another touristic village called Kinsale. It is s supposed to be the culinary capital of something (of Ireland or the county). But we weren't hungry, so we didn't eat there. Which will turn out to be quite a fatal mistake. We continued driving along the coast, tying to find a nice B&B to spend the night. It was around 18:00, and we found a great B&B in a place called Kilbrittain. Don't get too excited, the initial Kil comes from the word 'Cill' in Gaelic, and means Church. Our room's window was facing the Celtic Sea, that will soon merge with the Atlantic Ocean. how Amazing was that! An hour or so later we started to feel hungry, so we got into the car and drove to the near village, and then to another one, only to discover all the restaurants are closed. Even the hotel's restaurant was closed. Then it hit us! It was Good Friday! Easter! We already knew the poor Irish are not allowed to consume any alcohol that day, but no eating, as well??? Eventually we came across a convenience store, so we ended up eating sandwiches ans dairy. Certainly not the kind of dinner we had on our mind that day. But we are lucky we were able to buy something to eat. By the way, remember the alcohol restrictions that day? We noticed the alcohol shelves at the supermarket were covered by a plastic covers...Sounds familiar?

It's getting too long, so in brief- the next day we were doing the Ring of Kerry, where I took the amazing landscape pics I attached to my previous post. Been to a Natioal Park near Kilarney, a very nice town. Then we drove in a very narrow national road, and again, you can find a related pic in my previous post. Then been to a Village called Kenmare, and this time we ate there, not waiting for the evening hours, affraid we'll stay hungry...

At the late afternoon hours we were in a town called Waterville, because at the east side of it there's a loch, and at the west side there's the Atlantic Ocean. It was a beautiful town, but we decided to driver further mre for a hour or so, and then find a place to sleep. And then we were in Cahersiveen, a disgusting town, with dirty, old and ugly B&Bs, not to mentin the horrible hosts. I'm tellng you so you can learn fom our mistakes. After that we drove for another 30-40km, to the next town, Killorglin. a very nice town, definately unlike the previous one. There we found a very nice B&B- Grove Lodge, with the nicest hosts ever- Delia and Fergus Foley. We enjoyed our staying there. We also ate at a good Indian and Pakistani Restaurant, and we had a long talk with the nicest waiter ever- Manny (NOT to be pronounced like Money!).

The day after we were heading back home, had a stop in Kilkenny, the town where you can smell the beer in the streets. Probably becaue of the tens of pubs over there (and only 2 or 3 restaurants). Oh, and there's a castle as well.

By 20:30 we were home, so tired and exhausted, thinking we have 36 hours until tuesday morning, which means 36 hours to relax, sleep, watch TV and eat, without even leaving the house.

But we were sooooo wronge......

Salad is not food enough

Why is it that every time I go to a restaurant and ask about a vegetarian dish, they say proudly: "we have salads!" ??
The fact that I've decided to not eat "food" that was once alive does not mean I will eat like a rabbit and only have green leaves.
Yes, it means I don’t eat chicken, or even schnitzel (some people don’t find it fleshy enough), I don’t eat fish, even though it's very very healthy, and I don’t eat any animal that produced or sucked milk. I think that covers it all.
Another important rule of mine is that I don’t eat anything that originated from water e.g. ocean, sea, lake, river or even a puddle if possible. There are no exceptions, except rice.
If you were wondering, sushi is also out of the question, even though they are filled with vegetables.
Yes, I eat dairy and I eat eggs. Chicken eggs that is.
So I say NO to salad.

When the waiter adds: "we have a vegetarian pasta!" with the same enthusiasm and proud tone as mentioned above, I think to myself (sometimes out loud): if I wanted to have a good pasta, I'd have gone to an Italian restaurant. Besides, usually my own pasta is much better than the none-Italian-restaurants pasta...
So only sometimes I say no to pasta.

So what bothers me the most? The fact that most waiters and chefs think I should eat vegetables. Can't they be more creative? Are they afraid of the challenge of feeding vegetarians? They are mislead if thinking they can feed carnivores with a big piece of meat and some mashed potatoes, and they’ve satisfied everyones needs.

Us, the vegetarians, are human-beings, and we also have needs, a bit different than others, but still, we don’t ask for a lot…