I woke up in the morning and as usual was lying on the bed for sometime. And suddenly the unfamiliarity hit me. I was not in my room on my bed, but in an unknown country in a big hotel and in a room that overlooks the sea. I was in Israel, the country so unknown and so much in news. Well as I looked at the mammoth looking sea from my room, I thought back on my journey to Israel.It was my first time in a new country and it’s the first time I have been on a flight and never in my wildest of my dreams did I know that the first time I would be on a flight, it would be for 18 hrs. It was quite strenuous, but I was happy. It was a very good experience. When the flight took off, it was such a wonderful experience. It was so nice to see the city where I stayed from such a height. And as there were many take off’s which happened for us to reach the final destination, I realized that from such a great height, all the cities just look the same- beautiful.
We (my colleague and me) took off from Bangalore in a delayed flight and reached and obviously reached Bombay later than we were supposed to be there. We were to take a flight from Bombay to Milan (Italy). Well we just had half an hour to take our luggage and go to the international terminal and also check in for the next flight to Milan. And guess what, we managed it. It was a nail biting experience, we were so worried we would miss our flight, but nothing like that happened. And we boarded the flight and we were welcomed with bonjour senorita. And that was the first taste of foreign language for me. All their instructions were first given in Italian language and later in English. But even the English they spoke sounded like Italian to me. It was very difficult to sit in one position for 9 hrs. After some hours, I walked on the aisle. It made my feet feel better. I was getting very bored as all the people in the flight were sleeping. Then I forced myself to sleep for sometime. Then I woke up after about a 4 hrs of sleep and even the person seated next to me got up. He was an Indian and slowly we began on some small talks and later he was telling me about his college days and for sometime we killed the time. And all of a sudden, the flight had a major turbulence; we all grabbed our seat belts and wrapped it around our waists. It was a scary experience for me as it was my first time on a flight and I had had heard of turbulence but well never thought it would be such a scary experience. Anyways, it was a great sigh of relief after it stopped after about 5 to 10 minutes!The flight landed half and hour early and the message while we were landing was –‘the temperature is about 1 degree Celsius’. I couldn’t believe my ears at first and I had to believe it after we got off the flight. I had never experienced cold to this extent.
Anyways, we had 3.5 hrs with us before we could board the next flight to Tel Aviv (Israel). Even the guy who was sitting next to us had his next flight at the same time as ours. So we waited in the airport and did some window-shopping. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Indian stuffs displayed in the shops. It was nice to read ‘Made in India’ on the different stoles and accessories. Anyways, we went to the restaurant and wanted to pick up a pizza (After all that’s where pizza was originated from) and unfortunately, we had only dollars and they would accept only Euros. And we din’t have enough time to get it converted and then buy the pizza, so we dropped the idea. But yeah, the pizza did look different from the one that we usually get in India. In Italy, people only spoke Italian and very few people understood and spoke in English.Well we just killed the time on the airport by taking some snaps. Then it was time from us to board the next and the final flight to our end destination. I was happy that with this, our journey would end. We entered the flight and realized that in the flight, people were speaking a different language and it was not Italian and it was Hebrew (the language of the Jews).
We landed in Israel at 3.30 p.m in Ben Gurion Airport. Finished the immigration check in few minutes and we took and luggage and stepped out. I had requested the hotel for a pick up from airport, but could not find anyone in the airport to pick us up. I made a call to the hotel and found out that they din’t have any reservation. So then we went and found a taxi for ourselves to the hotel. It was a relief seeing the empty roads when compared to our Bangalore traffic. It felt good. I was really excited that we have finally reached our destination where we were to spend 20 days.We entered the Intercontinental hotel. It was fantabulous! For a person from a middle class background, the sea view room, bathtub and a big room is pretty much a BIG thing. I guess I was so happy because these were some of the luxuries that I had dreamt of when I was younger, so was really happy that it came true.
My first day in HP Israel office:Two of them came to pick us up from the reception. We introduced ourselves. The lady’s name was Stacy and the guy’s name was Eran (spelt slightly different) . They were pretty cordial in their approach and we were so glad that they could speak English. Stacy strangely had a Brit accent while Eran was slightly struggling with English. Everybody seemed to be very welcoming. They spoke to us very well. The really took care of us very well, they took us for lunch in the cafeteria and explained each food item as they knew most Indians don’t eat meat. They would ask the chef and he would say in Hebrew and these people would translate it for us. I was quite impressed at their thoughtfulness.About the food, its usually non vegetarian. For my collegue, it was difficult to make them understand 'no meat' 'no fish' and 'no egg' everytime we were having lunch or dinner. For me, as I am a non-vegetarian, I had to always check if what they were serving was 'beef' as I don't eat 'beef. The first day of the training ended.
It was really nice meeting so many new people. Almost everybody struggled to speak with us in English, it was very tough for them and it was nice that they were struggling so much and speaking to us and not avoiding us. It was difficult for me as they would suddenly start to converse in Hebrew in the midst of the training. But I was fine with it as I realized that they were discussing the topic itself.All of them were so caring that they would always ask us if we would like to visit some place and they gave us many suggestions. They would tell us the places which are nearby to our hotel and where we can go in case we had to find vegetarian food. They actually took a print out of the map and explained us the places that we could visit. For me it was a first time experience being given so much importance and I hadn’t expected this in the language dependent country in the least.
In the first week itself, we started exploring the place around our hotel. It was really refreshing to see clean roads, less traffic and feel the calmness around. It was no doubt a good break from the rush traffic, dirty roads and so much noise..!Its not that there is no traffic here, and there are traffic blocks as well but that’s only for the signals. People don’t unnecessarily keep honking and everyone sticks to their lane. How I wish even Bangalore could become like this. In Bangalore, there are a lot of traffic blocks which is accepted but everyone keeps honking which is the most frustrating thing and leads to a lot of stress. So I realized that even Bangalore traffic can be better if only two things were done, sticking to one’s lanes and not honking all the way till their destination. We spent most of the week exploring Tel-Aviv. It’s a beautiful place.
Then came the weekend, it was one of the best weekends I have had in the recent past. Their weekends are on Friday and Saturday and not on Saturday and Sunday.On Friday, we went to different markets; we went to Jaffa market, where you get different kind of stuffs. I am not sure if people walk for any distance, it was so near to the hotel that we were staying in, but since our office colleague had told us to take taxi and we took one, only to realise that it was just a five mins walk..Anyways, the market was really nice. As we started to go through the market, atleast 5 to 6 people were EXCITED that we were from INDIA.. We had become pretty used to it. We felt like walking talking amusement parks.. One old man, invited us to his shop and was so happy seeing us, that he actually kissed our hand.. Weellll, that was slightly too much I thought.. But it was actually cute of him.. :-) We saw the flea market. People would come and dump all their household items, which they cannot use. So that somebody else, for whom it would be useful, can buy that. I found it as a very noble thought. What is useless for someone can be useful to other.About Jaffa, it was a nice market, did some shopping. It was a nice experience. We saw another side of Israel. Filled wit people screaming in Hebrew (it actually reminded me of our malleswaram 8th cross with difference only being the language).Then from there we went to NACHLAT BENYAMIN (yeah I learnt to pronounce it the Hebrew way).. I was very much impressed with this place.. It's a market where u would get only self made stuffs. It was amazing to see the creativity.. People get license to sell in that market only if its hand made.. It was awesome! It was so amazing to see people making all kinds of stuff right then and there and sell it.. Must say, they are very creative people..
As we were wondering about what to do about dinner, we remembered that our colleague in Israel (god bless her) had suggested a place, we decided to try that.. The place was very near to the hotel. As we went looking for the place that she had suggested, we walked on the seashore and we saw a restaurant on the seashore. It was welcoming. The thought of sitting by the sea in a restaurant made me so excited. We ordered for a coffee and some fries. It was simply my dream coming true.. IN THE SEA SHORE WIT A HOT CUP OF COFFEE IN HAND AND MUNCHING ON FRENCH FRIES..!!!
The next weekend, we made a trip to Masada and dead sea.. First let me start with the fact.. Massada is the desert and dead sea is sea.. First we went to Masada, the desert in Israel. It was a long drive from the hotel. The history of Masada was really interesting. We spent most of the day there. The desert was not a sand desert, it was all rocks. The tour guide told us the history of it. We went in the cable car there to see the desert. So it was nice entering the cable car. And then we were taken to the factory outlet of the dead sea products and I did some shopping for myself. From there we went to have lunch and the tour guide then took us to the lowest point in theworld, which is the DEAD SEA.. True to its word, there was absolutely no aquatic life there. There was salt everywhere and mud.. The concentration of salt is just too too much. In dead sea you can only float and no one can drown as the salt concentration is too high. It was really nice. We were instructed to not to drink the water by mistake and also not let it get into the eyes. If it happened, then we have to get out of water immediately and wash it. I applied some mud salt on my face, but it smelt real bad.. I was told that its very good for the skin. So washed it away too soon. People had applied mud all over the body. The mud is black and so they looked scary.. We stayed in the water for only some 15 minutes, coz it was diffcult to ensure that you don't drink the water by mistake. And from there we left back to return to the hotel.That ended our weekend trip..
The country left me confused till the last day, there were some people who were very very nice to us and treated us with so much respect. But on the other side, there were some people who were very rude to us and I can call them racist in certain situations. Some of them still have an impression that in India people ride on elephants or that they walk on the roads. And whoever spoke to us, had visited India sometime back and they still think that India is still the same. Well one person even commented that the whole family of four or five people ride on one bike. Its not that Israel is completely clean city, there were different parts where it was very dirty. But I realised that we Indians are so much more 'culturally aware' when compared to them. We din't ask them questions like 'do you people ride on camels?' Ideally we should have asked that if we were not aware of the world.
But everyday's newspaper did dissapoint me, it would most of the times have a story on how people were killed and terrorist attacks. Though their security system is awesome. When in flight I was sitting next to a lady and she was telling me that at one point she was waiting for the security check and her mobile rang and she just bent down to pick it up one of the security guys actually pointed the gun at her. Even while we were taking our flight back from Israel, it felt real bad when they pulled out each and everything from my bag and checked. Even the creams were opened and checked. But later I realised, that country is in constant terror and they need it. They need to have such a kind of security check.
But yes, I couldn't categorise the country as it a mixture of people and I cannot say that the people were very nice or that the people were rude. But nonetheless, it was a very good experience. It gave me a new perspective..
We (my colleague and me) took off from Bangalore in a delayed flight and reached and obviously reached Bombay later than we were supposed to be there. We were to take a flight from Bombay to Milan (Italy). Well we just had half an hour to take our luggage and go to the international terminal and also check in for the next flight to Milan. And guess what, we managed it. It was a nail biting experience, we were so worried we would miss our flight, but nothing like that happened. And we boarded the flight and we were welcomed with bonjour senorita. And that was the first taste of foreign language for me. All their instructions were first given in Italian language and later in English. But even the English they spoke sounded like Italian to me. It was very difficult to sit in one position for 9 hrs. After some hours, I walked on the aisle. It made my feet feel better. I was getting very bored as all the people in the flight were sleeping. Then I forced myself to sleep for sometime. Then I woke up after about a 4 hrs of sleep and even the person seated next to me got up. He was an Indian and slowly we began on some small talks and later he was telling me about his college days and for sometime we killed the time. And all of a sudden, the flight had a major turbulence; we all grabbed our seat belts and wrapped it around our waists. It was a scary experience for me as it was my first time on a flight and I had had heard of turbulence but well never thought it would be such a scary experience. Anyways, it was a great sigh of relief after it stopped after about 5 to 10 minutes!The flight landed half and hour early and the message while we were landing was –‘the temperature is about 1 degree Celsius’. I couldn’t believe my ears at first and I had to believe it after we got off the flight. I had never experienced cold to this extent.
Anyways, we had 3.5 hrs with us before we could board the next flight to Tel Aviv (Israel). Even the guy who was sitting next to us had his next flight at the same time as ours. So we waited in the airport and did some window-shopping. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Indian stuffs displayed in the shops. It was nice to read ‘Made in India’ on the different stoles and accessories. Anyways, we went to the restaurant and wanted to pick up a pizza (After all that’s where pizza was originated from) and unfortunately, we had only dollars and they would accept only Euros. And we din’t have enough time to get it converted and then buy the pizza, so we dropped the idea. But yeah, the pizza did look different from the one that we usually get in India. In Italy, people only spoke Italian and very few people understood and spoke in English.Well we just killed the time on the airport by taking some snaps. Then it was time from us to board the next and the final flight to our end destination. I was happy that with this, our journey would end. We entered the flight and realized that in the flight, people were speaking a different language and it was not Italian and it was Hebrew (the language of the Jews).
We landed in Israel at 3.30 p.m in Ben Gurion Airport. Finished the immigration check in few minutes and we took and luggage and stepped out. I had requested the hotel for a pick up from airport, but could not find anyone in the airport to pick us up. I made a call to the hotel and found out that they din’t have any reservation. So then we went and found a taxi for ourselves to the hotel. It was a relief seeing the empty roads when compared to our Bangalore traffic. It felt good. I was really excited that we have finally reached our destination where we were to spend 20 days.We entered the Intercontinental hotel. It was fantabulous! For a person from a middle class background, the sea view room, bathtub and a big room is pretty much a BIG thing. I guess I was so happy because these were some of the luxuries that I had dreamt of when I was younger, so was really happy that it came true.
My first day in HP Israel office:Two of them came to pick us up from the reception. We introduced ourselves. The lady’s name was Stacy and the guy’s name was Eran (spelt slightly different) . They were pretty cordial in their approach and we were so glad that they could speak English. Stacy strangely had a Brit accent while Eran was slightly struggling with English. Everybody seemed to be very welcoming. They spoke to us very well. The really took care of us very well, they took us for lunch in the cafeteria and explained each food item as they knew most Indians don’t eat meat. They would ask the chef and he would say in Hebrew and these people would translate it for us. I was quite impressed at their thoughtfulness.About the food, its usually non vegetarian. For my collegue, it was difficult to make them understand 'no meat' 'no fish' and 'no egg' everytime we were having lunch or dinner. For me, as I am a non-vegetarian, I had to always check if what they were serving was 'beef' as I don't eat 'beef. The first day of the training ended.
It was really nice meeting so many new people. Almost everybody struggled to speak with us in English, it was very tough for them and it was nice that they were struggling so much and speaking to us and not avoiding us. It was difficult for me as they would suddenly start to converse in Hebrew in the midst of the training. But I was fine with it as I realized that they were discussing the topic itself.All of them were so caring that they would always ask us if we would like to visit some place and they gave us many suggestions. They would tell us the places which are nearby to our hotel and where we can go in case we had to find vegetarian food. They actually took a print out of the map and explained us the places that we could visit. For me it was a first time experience being given so much importance and I hadn’t expected this in the language dependent country in the least.
In the first week itself, we started exploring the place around our hotel. It was really refreshing to see clean roads, less traffic and feel the calmness around. It was no doubt a good break from the rush traffic, dirty roads and so much noise..!Its not that there is no traffic here, and there are traffic blocks as well but that’s only for the signals. People don’t unnecessarily keep honking and everyone sticks to their lane. How I wish even Bangalore could become like this. In Bangalore, there are a lot of traffic blocks which is accepted but everyone keeps honking which is the most frustrating thing and leads to a lot of stress. So I realized that even Bangalore traffic can be better if only two things were done, sticking to one’s lanes and not honking all the way till their destination. We spent most of the week exploring Tel-Aviv. It’s a beautiful place.
Then came the weekend, it was one of the best weekends I have had in the recent past. Their weekends are on Friday and Saturday and not on Saturday and Sunday.On Friday, we went to different markets; we went to Jaffa market, where you get different kind of stuffs. I am not sure if people walk for any distance, it was so near to the hotel that we were staying in, but since our office colleague had told us to take taxi and we took one, only to realise that it was just a five mins walk..Anyways, the market was really nice. As we started to go through the market, atleast 5 to 6 people were EXCITED that we were from INDIA.. We had become pretty used to it. We felt like walking talking amusement parks.. One old man, invited us to his shop and was so happy seeing us, that he actually kissed our hand.. Weellll, that was slightly too much I thought.. But it was actually cute of him.. :-) We saw the flea market. People would come and dump all their household items, which they cannot use. So that somebody else, for whom it would be useful, can buy that. I found it as a very noble thought. What is useless for someone can be useful to other.About Jaffa, it was a nice market, did some shopping. It was a nice experience. We saw another side of Israel. Filled wit people screaming in Hebrew (it actually reminded me of our malleswaram 8th cross with difference only being the language).Then from there we went to NACHLAT BENYAMIN (yeah I learnt to pronounce it the Hebrew way).. I was very much impressed with this place.. It's a market where u would get only self made stuffs. It was amazing to see the creativity.. People get license to sell in that market only if its hand made.. It was awesome! It was so amazing to see people making all kinds of stuff right then and there and sell it.. Must say, they are very creative people..
As we were wondering about what to do about dinner, we remembered that our colleague in Israel (god bless her) had suggested a place, we decided to try that.. The place was very near to the hotel. As we went looking for the place that she had suggested, we walked on the seashore and we saw a restaurant on the seashore. It was welcoming. The thought of sitting by the sea in a restaurant made me so excited. We ordered for a coffee and some fries. It was simply my dream coming true.. IN THE SEA SHORE WIT A HOT CUP OF COFFEE IN HAND AND MUNCHING ON FRENCH FRIES..!!!
The next weekend, we made a trip to Masada and dead sea.. First let me start with the fact.. Massada is the desert and dead sea is sea.. First we went to Masada, the desert in Israel. It was a long drive from the hotel. The history of Masada was really interesting. We spent most of the day there. The desert was not a sand desert, it was all rocks. The tour guide told us the history of it. We went in the cable car there to see the desert. So it was nice entering the cable car. And then we were taken to the factory outlet of the dead sea products and I did some shopping for myself. From there we went to have lunch and the tour guide then took us to the lowest point in theworld, which is the DEAD SEA.. True to its word, there was absolutely no aquatic life there. There was salt everywhere and mud.. The concentration of salt is just too too much. In dead sea you can only float and no one can drown as the salt concentration is too high. It was really nice. We were instructed to not to drink the water by mistake and also not let it get into the eyes. If it happened, then we have to get out of water immediately and wash it. I applied some mud salt on my face, but it smelt real bad.. I was told that its very good for the skin. So washed it away too soon. People had applied mud all over the body. The mud is black and so they looked scary.. We stayed in the water for only some 15 minutes, coz it was diffcult to ensure that you don't drink the water by mistake. And from there we left back to return to the hotel.That ended our weekend trip..
The country left me confused till the last day, there were some people who were very very nice to us and treated us with so much respect. But on the other side, there were some people who were very rude to us and I can call them racist in certain situations. Some of them still have an impression that in India people ride on elephants or that they walk on the roads. And whoever spoke to us, had visited India sometime back and they still think that India is still the same. Well one person even commented that the whole family of four or five people ride on one bike. Its not that Israel is completely clean city, there were different parts where it was very dirty. But I realised that we Indians are so much more 'culturally aware' when compared to them. We din't ask them questions like 'do you people ride on camels?' Ideally we should have asked that if we were not aware of the world.
But everyday's newspaper did dissapoint me, it would most of the times have a story on how people were killed and terrorist attacks. Though their security system is awesome. When in flight I was sitting next to a lady and she was telling me that at one point she was waiting for the security check and her mobile rang and she just bent down to pick it up one of the security guys actually pointed the gun at her. Even while we were taking our flight back from Israel, it felt real bad when they pulled out each and everything from my bag and checked. Even the creams were opened and checked. But later I realised, that country is in constant terror and they need it. They need to have such a kind of security check.
But yes, I couldn't categorise the country as it a mixture of people and I cannot say that the people were very nice or that the people were rude. But nonetheless, it was a very good experience. It gave me a new perspective..
