welcome to israel.....

i thought that the security in jfk airport would pretty much be at the top level. i mena that is where new york had the big twin tower episodes. the security we went through to get to new york pales in comparisin to that of tel aviv.

when we arrived at the airport in london they had this whole section of the check in sealed off patrolled by men with guns. then we had to line up and indiviualy go to a person standing behind a pulpit thing ( like a music stand for music paper) and they asked me a series of questions...

"when do you decide to come to israel."

"who are you seeing in israel"

"are you jewish"

"are any family memebrs of your jewish"

"are you christian"

"why are you coming to israel"

"what is your mothers maiden name"

"where will you be staying"

"do you speak hebrew"

"where do you work"

"have you ever been to any other countries in this regoin"

"where did you met your friend that you will be starying with"

"can we have his contact details"

"how did you buy your ticket"

"what will you be doing in israel"

"how old are you"

i think you guys get the idea.

i did get a bit annoyed with the girl who was asking me these questions when she frowned down upon me for being athiest, but ither than that they were polite.

then we get escorted over away from everybody else.

then they take all our bags off us.

then we have to be asked all these questions again.

then i had to be taken aside and patted down.

take my belt and shoes off.

they basicaly put there hands inside of my underwear and did everything but a complete strip search.

then we had to wait in an another area away from everyone else for the plane.

then we had to get searched again.

then they returned our bags which had been opened and everything moved and searched.( they neatly repacked it though so that was o.k)

after we finshed the INTENSE security checks, i did feel abit sorry for one other guy who got interigated slightly more than us and he was a palestinian.

Having said that, everysingle security officer that dealt with us was 100 times more polite and curtoues than ANY airpot staff member i encounterd in new york.

the trip home had the security check even worse because by then they were in the middle of a full blown war.

i had to watch them go through all my stuff and got interviewed for 45min. i had to show photos of where i'd been, give them alijah and eyals telephone numbers, show them reciets. they kept asking the same questions again and tried to trip me up so i'd make a mistake. like ask me a completly irrelvant question like " what did you have for breakfast this morning?"

it was intense but after being there i can understand the need.

i will just put one more picture up before i run off to work.

this is a photo of the war planes that were on the tarmac as we left tel aviv on our return to london. our plane had to sit and wiat while one of them took off.

xO

ook just want to let everyone know that i have been trying to do an update but blogspot page is down and it wont let me upload nay photos.

how annoying.



xO

just thought i would add in a quick preview of my next trip that i will be doing the updates for shortly, now that i have the ball rolling in regards to the blog again, so sit tight boys and girls- here is a quick glimpse of what lies ahead.................

destination: ISRAEL

WORLD CUP SOCCER MADNESS!!!

so back home in oz i would only ever watch the soccer when it was world cup time and only ever when i was at the pub drinking with mates.

the english are completely mad for soccer. it is the sport of europe. london being i believe anyway, the capital of europe, when the world cup was on the city was mad.

mad.mad.mad.

everywhere you look you can see an english flag.

when the matches are on, its quiet on the street. EVERY bar is showing the soccer ( which i have gotten in to the habit of calling "football")

but unfortuatly there are just NOT enough bars to cope with the amount of people wanting to watch the matches.

i took this photo from the window of our office at work, there is no one out the front of our bar because you cant see the screens from the street and we had security at the door to stop anymore people coming in.....

and iot wasnt even one of the final games!!!!!!

xO

PARIS PARIS 111

later on in the day we went hunting for McDonalds. being on a budget and not speaking french, we were limited in what we could eat. we got a really shitty deal when we exchangedour english pounds£££ over for euros$$$ so everything was expensive.

it took us two hours to find a maccas. TWO HOURS. that is a long time. the french eat well. and with food like this - they dont really need mikey Dees.

the next thing i wanted to see was............

"ladies and gentlemen....welcome to the moulin rouge!"

we once again didnt go inside but just posed for poxy tourist photos all which i look like a tool in so im not showing ou them!!!

the last thing on our agenda for the day was too make our way to Momart. This is the artist district of paris, where toulese le trec was famous for hanging out with his easel and where all the bohemiens did their thing. it is on a hill of paris and we had to basically drag poor sebastian the whole way there, whinging and bitching and moaning.

sebastian was dragging his heels up the stairs and everytime he got to the top we would say "that was the last flight of stairs, we promise" and then we would trun the corner and see yet another set of stairs!

but despite all of his whining when we did get to the top and suddenly the buildings parted and you could see all of parisin its beauty- we all gasped and said .....WOW. that was So worth the trek.

the next time i go to paris i will watch the sun set there, but that will be for another time!

xO

PARIS PARIS 11

well as you can see from this photo the second day in paris was BEAUTIFUL as well. the eiffel tower is just so huge and amazing looking. we decided to venture to the top but we were not going to wait for the queue

So instead of taking the elevator up we thought we'd take the stairs as it is cheaper and the line much shorter. For a normal person this would be o.k i guess but i should have just waited for the elevator because once you are in the elevator your stuck there untill you get to the top. when you take the stairs you can turn around and go nback anytime you want including the moment you feel like you are too high- which for me, was as just a few stairs below the decks. if you look at the bottom of the tower, i got to just where the bottom arch reaches its peak.

you see, its not like its a building- in reality i guess its just a bunch of scafolding and its all outside and you cant pretend not to look down while your climbing because you can see out everywhere!!!!

i took heaps of tower photos though so here are some of the high lights.....

every one has to take one of these stupid tourist photos. its cumposalry! for this shot i had to get alex to lie on his back on the ground and i lent over him with my hands behind my back. it was the only way you could get me AND the tower in the shot.

this here is a shot of the army guys carrying AK-47's patrolling around the base of the tower. i thought it was wierd to see and if inly i knew how many guns i would have seen in israel i wouldnt have wasted of photo on it!

xO

" an aussie in paris"

FINALLY.


a new update.


yes i have been very slack but i have been very busy......
ive worked slept worked slept worked slept.

ive had a birthday

a trip to paris

a trip to israel.


so i will share a few photos of the paris trip first because that is what i did first.

for my birthday me and five guys from work went on the eurostar to paris. (only for one night)

we went out drinking quite heavily the night before and one of us didnt even make it to the train station........

we were BUGGERED from having no sleep but the excitement of being in the new city was enough to keep me awake.

you will see from the photos that sebastian my flatmate had already been to paris and as such- was just TIRED.

ok so from left to right we have Antek ( polish), Owen ( aussie ), Anthony (french), Sabastian( polish) , and Alessandro ( we call him alex- he is italian)

this was the new five amigos adn we set off in a hung over mad dash to cover as much of paris as we could in 24 hours........

the following mayhen ensued....

this is of course, Notre Damme Cathedral.

yeah yeah, i went inside a church for the first time in i diont remember HOW many years. And coincidently, it was sunday so they were having mass. we arrived just in time as the priest and the alter boys made thier grand entrance into the church. it was a really beautiful gothis building and you can go up inside it to the roof and stuff but we were on a budget in rgards to both out money and time so it was just a mad dash in and out really....

here we are on the very beautiful river Seine. it was a awesome day with the weather, about 31 degrees. very unusaul to see such a blue sky in london. when i jumped up on the bridge to get this photo taken i smashed my knee in to the concrete and it really hurt and i am wincing through the smile. below is a highway that kinda freaked me out a little because i didnt want to fall. below is a photo of me in the middle of the lourve- the worlds biggist art gallery/meusum. its where they keep the mona lisa and famous for th eda vinci code now too. i took some better photos of antek and anthony there than this one. ( i'll post them below soon)

o.k so around this time in the afternoon we had started to all get a bit tired and had a little nap by this pond right in between the lourve and the eiffel tower. i thought it'd make a great shot of us all sleeping in the sun in line and got a stranger to take this photo but she nearly fell in the pond wioth my camera so i couldnt quite relax and pretend i was asleep.

i still love the photo anyway.

this is of course the Arc De Trumph. which translates as "the Arc of Triupmph". i think it was built by Napolean to celebrate thier war victories. all over paris you can see these "N" everywhere- they are from crazy mad napolean stamping his name all over the place! Once again you can climb to the top of this and see a view from all over paris but we didn't. as you can see as well the sun was starting to set ands so were our eyes. this is also the worlds largest roundabout with something like 13 roads all converging on this point. MAD

"Dinner is served" you cant go to paris and not have escargot no?

so yeah i ate snails and yeah they taste like shit. the trick with them is to cover them in a really aromiatic beautifull sauce - i chose the pesto and garlic flavoured ones- so you dont taste too much of the snails. its a bit like killpatric oysters i guess.

anyway that concludes Day 1 of paris.

xO