Some Changes

As you may have noticed, our blog overcame some changes. The main reason for that is the new layout management system, which the Blogger site now offers. It's much easier to manage and opens many new possibilities. Also - our blog exists for more than a year now (would you believe?), and a change is always a good thing to do from time to time.
The new system may require to login through a Google account for posting new messages, so if you need help in obtaining one - ask me how. Anyway, it's mostly me and Ofer that are posting anything anyway :(

I'll use this opportunity also to introduce my new blog. It's here, and it's my reading journal. I decided I want to remember what I read, when and in what order. I'll not bother publishing there anything, but the books titles and cover pictures. No reviews or any other stupid stuff. So if you want to know what I read - come on in.
This new blog is also linked to my new toy - "Library Thing". It's a nice site that allows you to manage your home library and suggests (or un-suggests) new books. My account there lists only English books I have, since it still doesn't support Hebrew books. But they are working on it. So take a look.

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand

Another flight, another airport and I’m in Rio de Janeiro once again. This time I’m not staying at Copa Cabana but in another part of the city – Barra de Tijuca. It’s not carnaval time but the Brazilian icons I’ve missed are still available:


I sent this picture to Oren in an attempt to tease him but all I got for my efforts is the knowledge that Guarana is now also available in Boston. Well – had to try.

The TV was on and I suddenly saw our old friend on the screen (we’ve discussed him some time ago in one of the posts) so I decided to take a picture of him myself.


The business part of the trip was OK but as always what was waiting outside was a lot more promising. So out I went and I roamed the beaches of Barra.


Apparently I wasn’t the only one out and about.


I also got to spend the weekend in Rio and that’s when the beaches really filled up with people (well, it ain’t no Copa Cabana or Ipanema but it was still great):


After leaving Rio I went to the Netherlands for a couple of days, but that’s a different story for a different time.

Have fun!

Our Australian Pictures

Australia 2006

I posted our Australian pictures in this Google public album.

Australia - part II

I decided to continue the previous Australia post and tell some more about the highlights of our vacation.
So, after spending the night in Arlie Beach in the worst hotel we've ever been to, we boarded the yacht named "Dream Catcher" and took off to the Whitsunday Islands.

The sea was very windy and the skipper used the sails, which means the boat was swinging madly all the time it was moving. Alona got a bit sea-sick, and as a cure the skipper suggested some steering:
On the yacht we had our own room, which was... let's say - not too roomy. We sailed around the Whitsundays, went sightseeing and snorkeling:

After we had felt a solid ground under our feet again, we continued our way northbound, heading to Cairns. The distance from Arlie Beach to Cairns is about 750 km, so we took it in two days, visiting the Paronella Park on our way. Strangely enough this park was not listed in the Lonely Planet, we heard about it in the motel, where we stopped for the night. Nevertheless it's the most beautiful park I've ever been to.On our way we crossed countless sugar cane railways and saw numerous cane trains, which sometimes were infinitely long. They say they have more than 3000 km of those railroads in north Queensland.
Cairns is a place with a lot of things to do and to see around, the most interesting place in all the eastern coast. About this - in part III.

The last renegade is back ...

... for a visit.
I'll be in Israel from the 5th of January till the night of the 18th. The day I'm arriving is Friday so prepare for a long night partying!

See you soon after a long time (too long to my taste),
The last renegade

P.S.
That's what I'm reading now. Thought it is a nice illustration:

Australia!!!

Hello to all the fellow Bloggers (non-writing ones:)!
We're writing this from Airlie Beach. It's 5 pm, and we're waiting for our yaht trip to Whitsunday Islands, which we're going on tomorrow.
We're in Australia now for 1.5 weeks. We started from Sydney:


After 24 hours spent on planes, we finally got there. The weather was sunny, so we took a walk to the Opera House and back, then we felt tired, went to sleep - and when we woke up - this was the end of the good weather for the next 7-8 days. It started raining, wind started to blow, and we found ourselves exploring the Sydney museums...

We left Sydney 3 days later towards the north, planning to get to Fraser Island and to see some things on our way... which we almost didn't because of the rains.

We did visit a Koala park (enough of stinky Koalas for the rest of our lives) and the Australia Zoo:














And fed some kangaroos:

When we got to Hervey Bay (the departure point to the Fraser Island), the weather started to improve, so we took a 2-day tour to the island, and it was really great. It's a kind of place you usually see on a postcard:
White sand, blue water, rainforests...

After that we drove to Airlie Beach, where we are now...

Ok, the internet time is up, we'll keep you updated if we have a chance.

I Am-sterdam

Yes, I know a war is going on and I am very far away. So I will contribute to the war effort at least by showing you that there are some beautiful and quiet places in the world ... like Amsterdam!
I was there for just 3 days, but in some ways it was even more fun than a week in Germany during the world cup. Just for the simple reason that there aren't too many cars ... exactly the way I like it! You either bike or take the boat :-) I rented a bike for a day and it was great! Here you can see a regular bike traffic jam (waiting for the bridge to go down while a boat is crossing the canal).

They say that there are more bikes than people in this city. Maybe because people just forget them in the multi level parking lot ... amazing!

One thing is sure - every year they need to do a canal cleanup of all the bikes that were thrown/fallen to the water. Maybe they should send them to China to help with the iron shortage ;-) Anyhow, the canals are very useful to go from place to place (preferably with a boat and not with a bike, because bikes usually don't float that well). I was sitting in a beautiful coffee just off the canal, and suddenly some new clients arrived from an unpredictable direction ...

Actually, why get off the boat, if you can have the party on the boat itself?

And even when you drive a car in Amsterdam ... it is usually quite small! (that's a real car, I swear)

Yes. And there was also the world cup going on, not a big deal other than some footballs here and there.

Even in the red light district people were looking at the TV monitors instead of the windows. Go figure!

And ofcourse I couldn't leave Amsterdam without some Jewish tourism, so I went to visit the old Jewish quarter. When I stopped to look at this building that used to be an elderly house (check the sign above the door), I found this two nice dudes having their dinner outside. Isn't that beautiful ? :-)

One general thing about my trip in Europe ... the weather was excellent. I didn't have one drop of rain in 10 days. When I was in Netherlands, it was raining in Germany. When I was in Germany, it rained in Netherlands. And when I was back in Amsterdam ... guess what, it was sunny Again :-) That is why I chose to go to the artificial beach, just in the middle of the city (as usual, nothing compares to the beach in Israel. But it was still fun :-)

As you probably noticed ... I wasn't on any of the photos above, so just to prove you that I actually was in Amsterdam myself, here is a picture of me doing some juggling in a local music festival.

That's it for now. I'll try to post some more pictures from Berlin in the near future.

Stay strong!

Nights out and nights in

As part of the “lets fuck the employees” theme going on in my company the management decided to throw us a little party (keeping in line with the previous analogy this would be the “vaseline”).
As part of my “take anything you can” attitude I decided to go, since we were going to have a special show in the party – Dani Litani and Dani Robas.


I could also take one person with me so I decided to take a world renowned D&D fan.


Just so I don’t get beat up I’ll also put the picture she took of me that night:


The party was held at a rich man’s house. Well, mansion would be more appropriate. With that nasty event behind us we met at my place the following evening for a now traditional cook out:



I am now in Buenos Aires and will stay here for the rest of the week.

Football Fever

I successfully managed the torrential Mumbai rains and made my way to Germany. Several hours by car took me from Frankfurt to Enschede in the Netherlands. Yes, Enschede. I know it sounds like a disease or some obscure and painful medical procedure but that’s where my sister and her family live.
Even though it’s a small place, even there you could feel the effects of the football fever that had spread through Europe:


Little did I know that this was just the beginning.

After a great weekend in Enschede I made my way back to Frankfurt. I got rid of the car and my bags and made my way to the center of town to see “the crazy soccer people” (as the helpful tourist information lady so delightfully put it).
The streets were full of people and buildings wearing flags (Italia was to play Australia in the world cup). But this was just the prelude to the real show. In the middle of the river those crazy Germans built two huge screens on which the crowd could watch the world cup games. Luckily for the Australians neither the screens nor the engineers who built them were Israeli.


Anyway, I couldn’t go on without having my 15 seconds of glory – so here I am on the big screen:


Really, it’s me:


All in all it was great. I spent half a day there and the atmosphere was just amazing with thousands of people cheering on.


And so I left Germany behind knowing that more interesting countries were soon to come.
To be continued…

Bomb Ay

I've been in Bombay the entire week now. As promised - it's hot, humid and polluted. I have had almost no chance to actually see the place (and so have almost no pictures at all) but I hope to be back here again.

I’m writing now because I’m leaving tonight for Europe and I have one thing to say – it’s raining like crazy outside! It’s raining cats and dogs! It’s raining some rats too I think! With this kind of rain I can totally understand how someone could walk on water.

Well, more to come soon!

Ofer's Birthday Mystery Revealed

For all those who still don't know and wonder about those mysterious teasers, here is the complete report regarding Ofer's birthday present(s).
So, what are those teasers and how can so many different objects be connected to one birthday present? The answer is simple - there were 30 birthday presents! He has turned 30 after all. (Credit for the idea goes to Gal).
I don't know if any of you ever tryed to buy 30 presents, but I can tell you - it's not simple. You have a budget, so you have to buy a lot of cheap stuff, lots of crap in other words. But it has to be nice crap!
So there were some funny scenes during our searches, like Gal holding a keyholder (price - 12 shequel) and saying (with all the shop hearing us): "This is nice! Pity we can't afford it!". I thought people would come to us offering food and shelter after this :)
Wrapping 30 presents is another difficult task:
And that's how they looked on a caffe table when we went celebrating:

So, about the teasers:
First is an eye of a toy fish (I'll post more about this fish later).
Second is a close shot of an axe. Yes, you got it right, we gave Ofer an axe for his birthday. It may seem strange at first, but already today it was used. And I have to say - now gathering firewood for our kumzitz is much much easier. Please notice the creative wrap of this present.
Third is a big box with a really tiny crocodile keyholder in it.
4 is a sharpening stone for the axe.
5 is a plastic cap (so that Gal wouldn't be able to break it for a change) and a waver for grill (last time we were grilling we had problems with it).
I will not post the entire list of the presents, it's too long. But maybe Ofer will post something about some nice applications of one of them.
And this is Ofer unwrapping the presents:

Yes, we know it's hard work! Suffer in silence! Wrapping was harder.

Of course we couldn't afford 30 candles :)

So, who's next?

Gal's Local Tornado

Since Gal is still to be taught how to post pictures, I was asked to post those photos of Gal's new dog - Vika.
So - this is Vika:

And following this picture of the mess she produced in Gal's apartment I propose to rename her to Katrina:

Teaser #5

Ofer's birthday: too much colors

Teaser #4

Ofer's B-Day: Stone? What?

Teaser #3

Teaser #3: only 3 more to go till Friday

Teaser #2

Here is teaser #2 for Ofer's birthday present:

Happy Birthday, Ofer!

And here is a first teaser for Ofer's birthday present: