C.O.P.S or Shotrim ve Ganavim

This post is dedicated to Christian (Pezzini), a Blogger specialist that made Blogger available in Hebrew! Hooray!
He actually told me he pushed the Blogger localization into Hebrew so I can blog in Hebrew. How sweet! I broke his heart, by the way, by telling him I prefer blogging in English.

Christian was very disappointed that I haven't posted since the beginning of December. So when we were on the train on our way home, I told him that I had many ideas on what to write about, and showed him my small notebook I always have in my bag. I started reading and explaining my notes on what to write about and he was impressed by the Hebrew letters. Eventually I promised him that during the weekend I'll write about the Gardai and the drunk/junky greedy lady.

Sooo, you probably wonder how do policemen and policewomen (Gardai) day looks like. Here's a quick glance:

Talk on your mobile. As much as you can. You probably think to yourself: what's so interesting about that??... Patience, there's more.

Give instructions to turists that lost their way in the huge city of Dublin.

Ask homeless beggars not to beg for money on the streets. After the gardai are gone, the beggars go back to their corner, begging for money again. From what I understood, the gardai can do nothing more, even though an Irish friend told me that once he witnessed a gardai took one of the beggar's money. Keep reading, and you can get a clue on what the gardai could possibly do with that money.

While walking next to the exit of the parking lot of one of Dublin's biggest malls, there were 2 gardai directing the traffic. It probably was essential to have 2 gardai, for 1 line of cars. Did I mention there was a traffic light on the exit of the mall's parking lot? Yes, it was working that day.

This story is about a friend that lost his wallet, lets call him Conall (which is the Gaelic for Connell and means Strong as a Wolf. Approx pronunciation: Chonnell.Pronounced like the Hebrew word for parking as in the sentence 'He is Parking' + L). He's not Irish, though.
One day Conall lost his wallet. He got a call from the gardai, telling him that his wallet was found and given to them in order to give it back. He was asked to come to a specific Garda station.
Conall went to this specific Garda station, but no one knew what he was talking about.

You might think they have a kind of 'Lost and Found' dept, which makes a lot of sense. But they don't. Here's how it goes when someone finds a wallet, for example:
The concerned citizen goes to the nearest Garda station, and hands in the wallet.
I don't remember who suppose to locate and contact the owner, but I do know that the officer on duty is responsible for the found wallet. There's no lost and found thing and he doesn't have to report about the found wallet, nor hand it to anyone or anywhere. As far as he's concerned, he can keep it in his locker and forget about it (or not ;-) and let no one know about it, and do whatever he wants with it.

So Conall kindly asking the officer to investigate who has got his wallet. A quick (my addition, DB) investigation revealed that the day the wallet was handed, the officer in charge was a Kevin. But there's no Kevin in this specific Garda. So they were trying to locate the Kevin in other Gardas. Apparently there's only one Kevin in the near by Gardas. But the Kevin said that he has no idea about the lost and found and lost again wallet.

Until today, poor Conall knows absolutely nothing regarding the fate of his beloved wallet.
He did find out, though, that it was found by a neighbour. He saw one of the neighbours few days after losing the wallet, and that he told him that he found his wallet on the corridor, and since he couldn't recognize him (Conall and the neighbour never met before) he handed the wallet to the police.

I'll end this long post with a 4 short paragraphs of a daily newspaper article. Another amusing (to my opinion) Garda tale, beginning with 'Before Christmas...' (just double click the image).




Since this post is too long, I'll tell you about the drunk/junky greedy lady(yeah, right, lady. He he he) next time.

The Weirdest Thing Ever

Today, 13:00, gym showers.

After taking a shower I bent to take the socks I left under the bench, and found only 1! I asked the girl next to me: Am I imagining or do I really see one sock only?

She confirmed: One sock only…

So one of my socks has disappeared today from the gym showers.

It’s even weirder than the slice of cheese disappeared from my sandwich in high school.

Holiday, at Last! Going to Hong Kong!

Leaving to Hong Kong this afternoon! This will be my first time in south east Asia. Going to be there till Monday, December 10th. So this is my Out of the Blog message. There will not be new posts till then, if you were wondering.

I'll try to write down some posts and/or tips on my Super-Cool Google notebook!
There will be some pics as well!

But now I'll go to sleep, too tired. Still have to pack tomorrow...

No News, Some Mews and a Police Car Bed-Time Story

Whenever I go to the gym during lunch time, from some reason one of the TVs will always show the mid-day British Parliament broadcast (The house of Commons). It always looks like a big bunch of arguing teenagers. Politely arguing, though. There is a Speaker of the House, and s/he grants the permission to speak to whoever is on the list. Each one speaks for few minutes. While speaking, the rest of the parliament members in the house support or oppose the each speaker. How do they vote? Members shout out "Aye" and "No". Their votes are recorded, by the way.
That specific moment that the first one starts shouting, and everybody else join, is quite an hilarious moment, which reminds of the above mentioned high-school kids.

That's the only type of news I consume nowadays. For example, only today I discovered that the Israeli high-school teachers are on strike for 1.5 months. The Universities are on strike for a month, by the way. But what am I talking about, you probably know it already.

And as promised, a short story:
It was early in the morning, the sun was still somewhere else, only the newspaper people are at the streets, even the Cafes were still closed. Only one car was slowly driving the streets. And when we came across each other, I had to give way to that police car before crossing the street.

That moment changed everything. I just gave up and admitted defeat in my own private war against Irish car drivers. And I became one of them, the passive, frightened, miserable, running from the cars like a rat that is being chased by a cat, Irish pedestrians.

Answers to Some FAQ

Hi all,
Sorry it took me too long to answer. I'm just too busy, and somehow it doesn't surprise me.
Ireland is very nice, yet a bit retarded in certain ways, but you cannot have it all. So at least work is fine. There's a lot to do, but I enjoy it and it's very interesting. I love the people I work with, the food at work (which is a huge problem, but at least we have a free gym, and I'm there almost every other day), and the feeling that we are really being taken care of.

The most important thing is earning Euros and living in Ireland. It really makes everything else and other places to seem so cheap. And helps admitting that Israel is not such a bad expensive place to live. especially not Tel Aviv. And I'm serious. Try to pay no less than 1200 Euros for 1 bedroom apartment (and at least 1500 for 2 bedrooms). And the obvious thing is of course being closer to the rest of Europe and the lack of El Al presence nearby. It may be the main reason why the flights are cheap.

It also feels like people here are planning their next vacation all the time. So am I. That's what happens when people have so many free days a year (excluding National Holidays!). It also seems like I have been abroad (of Ireland) every month since I moved here. Yes, we already have plans for the next vacation which will be on 1-10 of December. We will be in Hong Kong. We already booked flights (even cheaper than what it would have cost in Israel) and hotels.

So... Those are the only updates I can come out with for now. Feel free to comment (or send an email) , and I think I'll use my blog for future updates for my dearest friends. Don't feel bad if it takes a while till you hear something back from me...
By the way, I can read and write Hebrew on my laptops, so don't write in English I you don't feel like (Unless you comment. Lets be fair towards my non-Israeli fans).

And to my dear friends that miss me, I really miss you and all the fun we had. And since you miss me in the office as well, maybe you better send me you CV??? Take a day or 2 to think about it.

And... Don't forget to check out the pics from Oslo, on my blog!

Pics from Norway- There seems to be a problem, so the pics are not shown. Try again later...

The Norwegian Palace's Guards look younger and more beautiful than the English ones.

This definitely looks like the dressing code in Nils Holgersson

Amazing views and landscapes


I am always told not to have the sun in front of me when taking a picture. But I always try. It came out good with the Norwegian sun.


But also strange road signs
To the wonderful Lobster Family: Tommaso, Vesna, Helena, Dave, Paul, Isabelle, Emmanuelle, Louise, Lutz, Carlos, Kirsten and Adrian!
Emmanuelle, Dave (checking his new, home-made boobs), Helena and me imitating the family portrait above us.


Me and Tommaso, LobsterPapa



The Norwegians love sculptures.
And so do we:


Before:


During:
And after...

We also love animals





And what do you think of that dark, frightening and terrifying pic?
And remember the small details! The Norwegians are the champs!
In that museum, the vikings have blond hair. Of course (I know it's a bit blurry, but if you make some effort, you can see the dummies' hair is blond)...

Air Bus

One of the great advantages of living in a European country is of course the possibility of cheap traveling. The low-cost airlines, to be precise. One of the biggest dreams of the average Israeli.
So guess what, after being in London last month I'm going to be in Oslo the coming weekend. We are going to be 13 friends from work, and probably we'll spend most of the weekend trying to work it out so that everybody will be content. But who cares? In that case its the company that counts.

Besides, I'm sure I'll be in Norway again one day, hopefully on February, to see Northern Lights. That has been one of my dreams ever since I was a child. One of my favourite book I liked to read over and over was a children's science book, and when I was reading about the northern light for the first time, and looking at the attached pictures, I decided that one of my goals in life is to witness this amazing phenomena.

But that's not what I want to talk about. Lets go back to the subject, this weekend in Oslo.

The flights are cheap indeed, cheaper than flying from Tel Aviv to Eilat.
But there is a catch. Probably there always is... It's possible to find and book a flight for 0.01 Euros (yes, 1 Euro cent), depends on when you travel and how much time in advance.

The reason we go to Oslo is the cheap flight (and lets ignore the fact that Norway is a very expensive country, even more expensive than Ireland). But in our case, we discovered we have to take a bus from the airport to Oslo, around 2 hours journey, and will cost us 35 Euros each, one way. so that's the money we were trying to save by booking cheap flights. Damn!

Oh, yes, 3 more things. Fees, to be precise:
Luggage fee- 6-10 Euros for each bag you check in, depends on the airline and whether you pay in advance or at the airport. Luckily, passengers can (still) take carry on luggage for no extra fees. 1 for each passenger, and depends on the size of the bag.
Check in fee- only the online check in is free. otherwise pay extra 7 euros.
Credit card fee- 6 Euros for each passenger. One can avoid that fee incase s/he pays with Visa electron. Otherwise, no one can get away with this.

So eventually the amount of money we spend in order to arrive to our destination is reasonable enough, definitely not cheap.

So the lesson for today is that there's no such thing as free meals (except from Google). Unless, of course, you get your flights to London Gatwick for as little as 10.02 Euros (0.02 Euros for the flights and 10 more for the Credit Card fee) or Edinburgh for 20 Euros.