Poland, a bit of Germany, and a lot of mail!

You can imagine, how lazy I have been, if I tell you it has taken me 2 weeks to upload the pictures from my latest trip to my FB! But I knew I had to do it before I start traveling again, otherwise they'd stay on my camera forever. But let me tell you about this secret trip a bit ;) Why do I call it a secret trip? Because almost nobody knew that I went to Poland, I just wasn't in the right mood to post anything and felt powerless for most of the time. Still, that was great to meet Søren and hopefully I managed to show him some nice places in the country of my origin. And one place in Germany :) We were traveling together between 10th and 17th of April and then I stayed in Poland for two more days with my mum.

On the beach in Gdańsk

One interesting thing that I've noticed while uploading my photos yesterday is that basically they're all from Gdańsk and from Görlitz/Zgorzelec, although we've visited many more places. As far as it's kind of understandable that I haven't taken a lot of pictures in the towns, where my relatives live, as I've been there for hundreds of time, lack of pictures from places like Warsaw is a bit weird. Probably they just weren't inspiring enough to make me look for my camera in my bag! :P I'm generally not the biggest fan of Poland, you know? ;)

Gdańsk

But I must admit I really loved Gdańsk. I had been there before, but that was ages ago, so I couldn't really remember much and therefore it felt like visiting a completely new place. I've noticed that I can actually have a very positive attitude to those places in Poland that aren't related to any negative events from my past. I'm glad about it, because it would be a pity to feel bad towards the whole country, whose passport I still have and which I'm going to keep, even if just for practical reasons. An even bigger surprise was that I actually liked the Baltic Sea, which I used to hate as a child, because the seaside holidays were always too long and way too boring. But going there for a couple of days in April felt completely different! We obviously went swimming and perhaps have already became famous, because there was someone taking a video of us :D

Gdańsk

To Søren Gdańsk looked a bit like Copenhagen. To me it looked more like some German city (which actually is partly true if you consider Gdańsk's history), but in any case it's a truly beautiful place. We also went to Sopot, which is a famous Polish seaside resort just next to Gdańsk, but, to be completely honest and direct, it just looked kitsch to me. I hope I haven't offended any Polish people, if they're reading my blog ;)

Later we spent 2 days with my grandfather, who lives just a bit more than 100 km away from Gdańsk and who was celebrating his 85th birthday. Well, in fact he wasn't celebrating - I'm just like him in this matter ;) But we had a really nice time together and I'm glad I could be there on his special day.

View from the railway bridge in Görlitz/Zgorzelec

The next stop during our trip was supposed to be Wrocław, the city where I was born (but I don't call it my home city), but I'm a totally disorganized (or you can call it spontaneous!) ;) person also when it comes to traveling, so we changed our plans in the last minute and went to Görlitz/Zgorzelec, which is a town at the Polish-German border. The bigger part of it, including the historic center, is in Germany and is called Görlitz. The Polish part, which is smaller and has two totally demolished railway stations, is called Zgorzelec. Normal people can cross the border through a pedestrian bridge in the town center, but we're far from being normal people, so we decided to run to Germany through the railway bridge! :D I don't know, whether it's actually allowed or not, but we felt almost like illegal immigrants and I was afraid that a train would suddenly come ;) Oh yes, why do things the normal way, if you can get so many extra emotions instead?!

On the normal, boring bridge

But, as you can see, we've also been on the pedestrian bridge and have even taken a border photo ;) I've always had a really soft spot for borders and therefore I also have good childhood memories from this place. I went there for the first time with my dad back in 2002, when there was still an actual border crossing. Nowadays the border is obviously open, but it still looks a bit like a boundary between the East and West.

Görlitz

Apart from being an international town, Görlitz is also just a very nice and historic place, so I think it was the right decision to go there instead of Wrocław. Of course, we might have seen much more of Poland if I only hadn't been so lazy and tired all the time, but there always should be some reason to come back right? And I'm glad that we actually also had a lot of time for long conversations, which are much more important than sightseeing.

We've also spent two days in Opole with my mother and the other grandpa and then we've done something really scary... or exciting... It all depends on your attitude ;)

Ryanaring!

Yeah, flying! Believe it or not, nowadays the domestic flights in Poland are cheaper than trains or buses, so we've taken them twice: first from Warsaw to Gdańsk and then from Wrocław to Warsaw. We've also taken my mum on the 2nd flight with us, because she's always very excited about taking a plane and it's great when you can please someone so much for just 2 euros! :D And for me... it was the cheapest aviaphobia therapy ever! :D During the first flight I got scared of the landing. During the 2nd one I thought we were falling, because the descend started right after we reached the right altitude. Nevermind, that the whole flight was supposed to last 30 minutes, I thought we were going to crash anyway... I wonder, if I'll ever get rid of this stupid aviaphobia totally?

I got back to Ukraine on 20th April at night, just hours before my first exam, which is just usual for me ;) I fortunately feel better now, although there are still a lot of things making me feel nervous and insecure... But at least now I can see some light and my thoughts are much brighter. This has also had a positive effect on my letter writing, but let's start with the incoming mail:

From Brigitta in Hungary

A lovely letter from my Hungarian friend Brigitta :) She's one of those amazing and precious people, who keep on writing to me despite having seen me in real life! I think this time I'll have to write her a page in Hungarian... ;)

From Bahanur in Turkey

My previous letter to Bahanur got lost, but she was kind enough to write me a great extra letter in a wonderful handmade envelope! One thing I know for sure is that I'll never send her a letter from Poland again ;) The Ukrainian postal service may be slower, but seems to be more reliable and has prettier stamps! :D

From Jennifer in UK

Finally, a really cool letter came from Jennifer today and will (probably) be the last piece of my incoming mail in April, unless I find something unexpected in my mailbox tomorrow :)

And here comes the outgoing mail:

For Tessa in the Netherlands

This letter to Tessa started traveling on Sunday. Or on Monday. But I did what I could to send it out before 15:00 on Sunday ;)

For Tündi in UK

An extreme letter for my extreme penpal Tündi started traveling on Tuesday :) I managed to type 30 pages for her within just 2 days, I wish I was writing my MA thesis so quickly! ;)

For Maude in France

Today I've been writing very effectively (in the office... that's what happens, when I don't get enough work) and have sent two letters. The first one goes to Maude in France :)

For Anastasia in Ukraine

And the 2nd one goes to Anastasia in Ukraine, so I've had some linguistic diversity, which is very important in translator's work! :P Okay, just kidding. But I really enjoy writing in the office, and I don't even know why. As you can see, I've sent more letters than I've received, so let's keep on believing in the legend... One day I'll catch up! I promise! ;)

Unexpected Iceland: Crazy Walking and Swimming :)

It's been quite a while since I've written anything on my blog, because I've been tired and lazy (mostly lazy, let's admit that), but don't worry, I'm not abandoning it yet! ;) I just need some time to relax after the most adventurous winter I've ever had in my life. And of course to share my adventures with you. :)

I took the flight from Copenhagen to Keflavík on 6th February. Until the last minute I was worried that something would go wrong and so I wouldn't eventually fly to Iceland, especially after I tried to do self check-in at the airport and saw my name written as "Kseniamahanna", while in reality it's Ksenia Marianna. Fortunately, they didn't pay much attention to such tiny details, Kseniamahanna has become my new nickname, and I was finally flying to Iceland :) The island looked so beautiful from air that I even forgot to be scared of landing!

A few minutes before the landing

When we landed in Keflavík, we couldn't get out from the aircraft, because there had been a problem with electricity supply at the airport. The perspective of spending 5 days in the plane didn't sound like fun, but luckily the problem was solved after some 15 minutes! ;) Iceland welcomed me with a very strong wind and snow. I took a bus to Reykjavík and after some 50 minutes I was already in world's northernmost capital city. And, as it usually happens to me while visiting faraway countries, I still couldn't believe I really was in Iceland :)

Even when I finally met Søren and we went to have a lunch together, I still had the feeling that I must be dreaming and so I'd wake up in a while! But apparently it was reality, because the next morning I woke up and I was still in Reykjavík. :) Unfortunately, Søren had to work - that was the reason why we couldn't stick to our original plan of meeting in Sweden and Denmark - but we'd go on some trips or do crazy activities every afternoon and evening. :) The first adventure was a walk to Hafnarfjörður, which is a town located some 15 km away from the capital.

On the way to Hafnarfjörður

The road was actually much more busy than I had expected. In fact, Reykjavík also looks much bigger than cities of similar size in Ukraine in Poland. As the whole capital region of Iceland (which includes Reykjavík, Hafnarfjörður and a few more towns, which have names too difficult for me to remember) ;) has just about 200 thousands of inhabitants, so I expected to see a really calm and sleepy place, while in reality it's quite a busy city! It must have something to do with the fact that in Iceland almost everyone has a car, so the traffic is high. You see, it's a very poor country with no railways at all! :( After spending 5 days in Iceland I realised that you can't really do much there without a car, but I'll tell you more about it in my next blog entries. So we walked down quite a busy road through two other towns, but as soon as it was possible, we'd just walk closer to the sea, where I could see the black volcanic rocks. My mum saw the pictures on FB and said that it looks a bit like moon landscape. ;) Well, indeed, it does. But there's something unusual and tranquil about it.

In Hafnarfjörður

When we came to Hafnarfjörður it was already dark and we were completely wet after walking for more than 2 hours in the rain, but it was still such a great experience! And I didn't even feel tired after walking 15 km, but we decided to take a bus back home nevertheless. Then came my lovely experience with hot water in Iceland! :D You see, they have hot water for free, because the country is full of geothermal sources. Great, right? But the hot water stinks like... Okay, I won't write it here, because some of you might be eating while reading my blog. ;) Anyway, I ended up taking cold shower and even washing my hair in cold water for this reason. But you know, cold water isn't really a problem for me... ;)

Søren and me being crazy :D

The next day we went ice-swimming! On 1st January, when I decided not to swim in the ice cold sea while I was already sick, I promised myself I'd still do it this winter. But could I imagine that I'd do it in Iceland?! Never! :) There's just one beach in Reykjavík, because in all the other places the sea is just too deep and dangerous to swim. It takes quite a long while to walk there from the nearest bus stop and we had to walk against a storm wind, so I must admit I had some doubts whether we'd actually dare to do it! ;) But we promised ourselves and told some other people about our plans, so I'm afraid we had no choice! ;) In fact, the temperature of water in Iceland is higher than in Ukraine at this time of the year. That was quite surprising to me, because just the name of the country: "Iceland" already sounds quite freezing! ;) But in reality it has quite a moderate climate and the sea was +5 degrees warm. :)

I'm crazy and I love it!

Then we wore white robes on top of our jackets and were ready to head to Kleppur - Iceland's biggest mental hospital! ;) Actually, we walked like this almost to the city centre! I think it's really precious to have a Friend, with whom you can do the most insane things without the need to hide your quirky nature! :) With such person even a gloomy and windy day can turn intro a great and funny adventure :) We didn't go to Blue Lagoon or any other fancy place like that, but I bet it wouldn't have been even 1% as fun as swimming in the ocean in such a terrible weather! I'll tell you more about our next adventures tomorrow! (If I'm not as lazy as I've been lately!) ;)

A short visit to Malmö

The 5th of February started one of the biggest adventures in my life. At least so far, because I can't know what else my life would surprise me with! :D What has been going on this year is really unbelievable and it makes me think that once you leave your comfort zone, there's really no way back to it!

The original plan was quite different. I was supposed to fly to Malmö on 7th February and spend a few days with my friend Søren in both Sweden and Denmark. But as he couldn't get days off from work, the plans had to be changed. It really took him a while to convince me to come to Iceland instead, but fortunately he managed. Now I realise it would have been a huge pity if we had just cancelled the whole trip... Søren changed his flights in such way that I could use them for flying from Copenhagen to Reykjavik and back, while I changed the date of my flight to Malmö to 5th February, so I'd have a bit more time. Still, I had to decide, whether I'd like to spend one day in Sweden or in Denmark, because I couldn't really do both. Just to explain you why I'd fly to Sweden and then from Denmark and why it's not as insane as it sounds: Malmö and Copenhagen are located very close to each other, it takes only about half an hour by train, which passes through the Øresund strait by the bridge and tunnel, which were open in 2000.

The main train station in Malmö

As for the airports, the main one, used by people from both countries, is located in Copenhagen. The Malmö airport, located some 25 kms East from the city, is smaller and used mostly by the low-cost airlines. The funny thing is that even from Malmö it's easier and quicker to get to the Copenhagen airport than to the Malmö one. ;) I had to go to both of them in any case, but I decided to spend a day in Sweden, because I had never been to this country before. And if I went just to the airport, I'd be confused whether I should put Sweden on the list of countries I've been to or not. Sounds like a very serious reason, doesn't it? :D But in fact I was just curious to see a completely new place. :) To be completely fair, I should admit that Copenhagen would probably also feel like a brand new place to me, because the only time I've been there was 19 years ago and I obviously can't remember much. But I really hope I'll be able to go there together with my friend, when he'll finally be able to take a short holiday.

The Malmö castle

As I'm really interested in castles, one of the places that I really wanted to see in Malmö was the Malmöhus, which was built in the 16th century and historically it was one of the main strongholds of... Denmark. Nowadays it's a museum, which I didn't have a chance to visit, because I didn't have enough time.

Almost like in the Netherlands:)

Next to the castle there's a very nice park and a windmill, which reminded me of my recent trip to Kinderdijk.:) I don't know, what was its function, but it looked really beautiful. One more similarity between the Netherlands and Sweden that I've noticed were the bikes. They're just everywhere in Malmö and, just like in Dutch cities, you have to be careful not to get run over by one. :)

The town hall

The historic centre of Malmö isn't really huge, but it has some nice old buildings, including the town hall, which is city's one of most popular landmarks. The Scandinavian architecture style is quite different from what I've seen in different West European countries and it felt quite "heavy", in lack of a better word, to me, but it was interesting nevertheless. I was afraid that 2.5 hours (and that's how much time I had before meeting my couchsurfing host) wouldn't be enough for sightseeing. But in fact I managed to see all the main sights, to send some postcards and even to fight the Swedish cash mashines. :D Yes, it took me some time to realise that in Sweden you should put your card into the cash mashine "upside down" - until then I thought that they didn't like my Polish card and that I wouldn't be able to withdraw money. I'm a very smart East European tourist, what else can I say! ;)

Communicating with Swedish geese! ;)

Finally at 4 pm I met Anna, my host. She turned out to be a very nice girl (just as the vast majority of couchsurfers!) and we quickly found the common language. We went on a walk to the park, where I managed to find the common language with local geese as well! :D They were not really happy with me bothering them, but one of them started looking at me very curiously, so perhaps we established some special connection! ;)

At the seaside

We also went to the beach for a short while and I could see this famous bridge from a distance (you can also see it on this photo if you look very carefully). Anna lives in Sweden, but works in Denmark, which turns out to be quite a common thing to do in this region. The borders in Europe are really not what they used to be. :) I could see Denmark from a distance and some part of me wanted to go there as well, but I knew I couldn't do that if I wanted to spend some days in Iceland. But I believe I'll be able to visit Copenhagen again too, maybe even in the near future. :)

For Anastasia in Ukraine

Although my stay in Sweden was rather short, I even managed to send one letter from there. It was partly written on the flight from Katowice to Malmö, where I've lost my fountain pen, so I had to continue writing with an usual one. But I guess the fact that I'm able to write letters while flying shows that I've nearly got rid ofmy aviaphobia thanks to extensive flying this winter.:) I really feel sorry for Anastasia,because she'll have to decipher the most terrible version of my handwriting, but I can't do anything about myself being absent-minded and losing stuff all the time... I hope at least she'll be happy to receive a letter sent from abroad.:)

Sea Training!

The next morning I've done the International Oversea Training together with Anna and I came directly to the Copenhagen airport, so I didn't have a chance to get lost. I waited about 4 hours for my flight (I know I come to the airports a bit too early...) and then a much bigger adventure started!:) But that I'm going to tell you about the next time. ;)

My Israeli adventure, Part 4: Saying Goodbye (But hopefully not forever!)

Unfortunately, each journey comes to an end one day. I've been on some trips in my life, which felt too long or exhausting, but usually it's been the other way - I felt like I'd like to see an experience more. This time wasn't an exception. The 5 days passed by very quickly and I didn't even notice how the day of my flight back to Budapest came. Some part of me felt slightly disappointed about not having seen everything that I wanted (especially the Dead Sea), but on the other hand, isn't that good to have a serious reason to come back? Now that the flights aren't really expensive anymore, traveling to Israel doesn't feel like a "once in a lifetime" experience. In fact, that would be quite sad to leave a country with the feeling that I've seen everything and there's nothing new to explore. I've had this feeling after my last trip to Moldova in October, because I've indeed been to almost all the places which could be of any interest to a tourist there. Still, if I want to find a reason to come back, I will do it. :) And so I believe, I'm actually convinced, that I'll come to Israel again. And who knows, maybe it would even happen this year? But I'm terrible at planning more than a month in advance, so I'll think of it when the autumn is closer. :)

The last day of my stay in Israel was really sunny (finally!) and so we decided to go to Netanya, which is a town closest to my friend's village and which has some nice beaches.

Netanya also has some palm trees!

It's quite a modern town and, according to my friend, has a bad reputation, but I found it nice nevertheless. And eventually I was able to swim in the Mediterranean Sea without the risk of drowning in huge waves! I think from the perspective of Israeli people swimming in January must look weird or extreme, but it's all relative. I might find it slightly amusing how Israelis think it's cold when the temperature falls under +10 degrees, but I bet they'd have even more fun watching me not being able to go outside during the Israeli summer, because to me +30 degrees are already too much! ;) Anyway, the temperature of water in Netanya in January is just a couple of degrees lower than it usually is in the Baltic Sea in Poland during the summer season. So no, I'm not going to claim that I've done ice-swimming this year, but I might still do it when I come back to Ukraine! ;)

Swimming in January is so extreme! :P

After having a walk in the center on Netanya, drinking a yummy coffee in the local mall and buying some souvenirs, it was time to go back to the village and get ready for my flight. In fact, that day I also found time to steal a lemon from my friend's garden (and she was watching me while I was committing this terrible crime!) and to take a photo of myself with an orange tree! :D

Look! Real oranges! :D

I've also tried to learn some Hebrew during my stay in Israel. I actually started revising everything that I had forgotten since taking some Hebrew classes in 2005 a few weeks before my journey, but of course it wasn't enough to learn a difficult language like this one. Or maybe I shouldn't say it's difficult? According to my friend, it's very logical and I can believe her, because Hebrew is a language that was revived after many centuries of being used only for prayers. Therefore it shouldn't have as many exceptions from the grammar rules as some languages have, if they've gone through all the stages of natural development. I still think that the hardest thing about Hebrew is the writing system. Just learning the Hebrew alphabet is not a problem at all, you can do it in one day (and then spend another day learning the cursive version)! :) The thing is that in Hebrew they don't write the vowels (there are diacritic signs called niqqud used to indicate them, but you won't find them in normal books and newspapers), so if I see a new word and try to guess its pronunciation, in most cases my guess will be wrong. You can also have two different letters, which stand for the same sound, for example both ת and ט stand for [t] sound. Then one letter can stand for two different sounds, for example ב can be both [b] and [v]. It makes the whole thing quite complicated, but I still want to learn. Of course, I feel guilty of starting to learn too many languages at once, because I realize it's not exactly what you'd call a productive learning process, but as long as I'm doing it for pleasure it can't be a totally wasted time. I didn't dare to buy a "serious" Hebrew book for foreigners, because I don't know how far I'll actually go in learning this language and I want to finish the one I have from Poland first. Still, my friend's brother has made a really funny small book with all the words that I've learnt in Israel, that was so cute! :)

I always start with learning the most important words! ;)

Speaking of books in Hebrew, I had a bit of a culture shock! :D I obviously knew that Hebrew is written from right to left. But somehow I didn't realize that you start reading a book from what seems to be the end to me! ;) First I thought that my friend and her brother were making fun of me, but later it turned out that all the books in Hebrew actually start from the other side. Yes, I'm a bit stupid! :D

Unfortunately, I haven't written a lot of letters this month, but I've managed to send one from Israel. It was to Theodore in the USA, who's my partner in the random letter swap. It was the first time I took part in such event and, to be honest, I found it quite hard to write a random intro without asking too many questions. But I hope he'll like this letter nevertheless.

Letter for Theodore in the USA

I've also sent quite a few postcards from Israel, which was a wonderful chance to practise writing the names of countries in Hebrew! :) I hope my penpals will receive them soon!

Some of the postcards I've sent from Israel.

I've also received a lovely letter from my dear Stav, but I wasn't allowed to read it until I boarded my plane back to Budapest. The temptation was high, especially while I was waiting at the airport, but I promised, so I waited! ;) Her letter really helped me to go through another flight without experiencing a strong fear. As you may have noticed, even on the envelope she's mentioned me having stolen her lemon... ;) So think twice before inviting me to come to any "exotic" country - your lemons, oranges and palm trees won't be safe anymore! ;)

A lovely letter from Stav.

We landed in Budapest about 1 am, because the flight was delayed, but it didn't matter much, as I had to sleep at the airport anyway. It was as uncomfortable as you may imagine, I managed to sleep until the morning and there were many more people doing the same thing. :) The bad thing is that I've caught some virus and felt really sick, but I'm not even surprised, because it often happens to me while I'm traveling. ;)

Early morning at Budapest airport.

The next day I went to visit my Hungarian friend Brigitta, who lives some 70 km away from Budapest and we played some game, which was very similar to Scrabble. In Hungarian. Yeah, it's very funny to play it in a language that you barely can speak! :D But we had a lovely time and I was happy to meet her again. On 14th January I flew to Belgium and that's where I still am, but that'll be the topic of the next boring blog entries. ;) 

I still find it hard to believe that I've actually been to Israel, although the photos of me and the palm trees show that it must be true! :) It was a really special experience for me, I think it's the furthest out of my comfort zone that I've ever been! But I hope this year, as well as the next years to come, will be full of such lovely adventures! :)

My Israeli adventure, Part 1: How I survived the flight + border control and visited Tel Aviv :)

It's been quite a long while since I've written anything on my blog, but I haven't had much access to computer and writing a blog entry from my tablet would have been a torture (you know, I'm not so fond of modern technologies) ;) At the moment I'm at my Dad's place in Belgium and trying hard to recover from zombie mode, but while I'm still to sick to travel anywhere, I may start telling you about my journey to Israel. :) I've got so many thoughts and impressions that I don't even know what should I start with - it will certainly take me more than just one entry.

Let's start with the flight. There's a huge gap between the euphoric feeling of booking a flight to a country you've never been to and actually taking it! I'm not as aviaphobic as I used to be, because I realize it's all in my head - I've been afraid of flying since the very first time I did it in 2004 because I had told myself that it should be scared. I know quite a few people, who are totally opposite of me - they get positively excited about flying from the very beginning! Now that I've had this phobia for such a long time it's quite hard to get rid of it, but I've made some progress. A few years ago I used to believe that the chance of my flight crashing was always 50% - it either crashes or not! :D Due to my poor understanding of physics, I still don't find it completely normal that planes fly, but I try to trust the stats saying that it's one of the safest ways of traveling.

The wing of a very scary plane!

Still, I was quite anxious before my flight to Tel Aviv. First I was afraid it might be cancelled due to poor weather conditions in Israel, especially that the boarding was delayed. When we finally boarded the flight and took off (that's one of the scariest parts of flight for me, along with landing), I started thinking of how the Israeli border guards will surely not let me into the country and wondering, whether they'd let me fly back to Budapest an hour later or whether I'd have to wait for my deportation until the next day... Yeah, that's me! :D When we finally landed in Tel Aviv and I was standing in a queue for foreigners at the border control, suddenly a border guard called me to come to the part for Israeli citizens, as there were no people anymore. That's when I got really scared and asked "But... I have no Israeli passport... Can I go back to that long queue?", but the guy insisted on seeing my passport. Now I think he could see how terrified I was and wanted to prevent me from getting a heart attack if I had to wait for 15 more minutes! :D I've read so many articles about scary Israeli border control on Internet, but in fact the whole thing took less than 3 minutes. I only showed him my passport, invitation letter from my Israeli friend and the return ticket to Budapest, he asked how did I meet my friend, wished me a nice stay in Israel and that was it! I was even brave enough to ask him to put an Israeli stamp into my passport, but unfortunately they don't use them anymore, at least not at the Ben Gurion airport. This means I can still travel to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and some other lovely countries without getting myself a new passport, but I'd still rather have that stamp! :( Anyway, apparently I didn't look very suspicious. ;) I don't know, whether it works like that for everyone or whether I was just lucky, but I have the impression that a lot of stories about Israel are way exaggerated. They need to take some safety measures that foreign tourists may not be used to, but that's simply necessary and they try to be as polite as possible at the same time. 

My friend and her parents were waiting for me at the airport and took me to their village, which is some 40 km away from Tel Aviv. They've been so nice to me and I was really happy to spend those 5 days with them and their crazy rabbits! :) But I think I'll tell you more about it in my next entry, and for now I'll try to stay serious... ;) The first place I've visited with my friend was Tel Aviv. We went there by a real Israeli train!

רכבת [rakevet] - One of the most important words in Hebrew :D

Israel doesn't have a very well-developed railway network, but they have some trains and that already makes them more lucky than countries, which don't have them at all, for example Iceland. :) It took us only about half an hour to get to the center of Tel Aviv. My first impression of this city (apart from my famous "Wow! There are palm trees!!!") ;) was that it's very modern and feels kind of... American, which I can't really explain, because I've only been to the USA once and that was a long time ago. But somehow Tel Aviv felt more American than European to me. 

An old German neighborhood... and a palm tree!

There are some relatively old quarters in Tel Aviv, for example this small German neighborhood, but even those are surrounded by very modern architecture. One of the biggest misconceptions that I had about Israel was thinking that Tel Aviv was the capital. Actually, that's the information you can find in many foreign resources, because most of countries don't recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital for political reasons, so I'm not totally ignorant. ;) But in reality most of the government buildings can be found in Jerusalem and that's the city which Israelis consider their capital. On the other hand, there are a lot of embassies in Tel Aviv - again, for political reasons. It's all quite complicated. Still, this city can be called the cultural capital of Israel and probably the most liberal place in the Middle East.

The White City

Tel Aviv is also known for the White City - a bid modernism style quarter, which is on the UNESCO list. I wanted to see it once it's a part of the World Heritage, but I wasn't really impressed, as I have a strong preference for old places. I wasn't even able to find nice postcards there. But at least I've seen it and know what it looks like in reality. :)

A street in Nevek Tzedek

Fortunately, Tel Aviv also has some really nice neighborhoods, for example the Neve Tzedek. It was the first Jewish quarter built outside of the old Jaffa. Tel Aviv didn't exist back then, but nowadays it's considered to be the oldest part of the city. We've spent some time in a cafe there and written postcards together for our mutual penpals. :) I still find it quite amusing how our beloved penpalling world seems to be a tiny village where everyone knows each other! :)

Seeing the Mediterranean Sea for the first time!

Then we came closer to the sea, which looked really beautiful with the big waves in sunset. The weather was slowly deteriorating, but I must admit we were very lucky that day anyway, because it wasn't raining for most of the day and so we were able to visit all the places that we planned.

Dark clounds and some palm trees on the wind :D

In case you've been thinking of visiting Israel and choosing the right time for your trip, I'd say that January probably isn't the best option. I really enjoyed my journey and don't regret doing it at the worst possible time - I knew what I was doing! ;) But the truth is that the weather can be quite unpredictable at this time of the year in Israel. When my friend first told me that it might be raining a lot in January I couldn't really understand, why would it be a serious problem. But in Israel it is, because once it rains, it rains a lot, there are floodings, many roads are closed and the country is paralyzed. Oh, and people get excited about seeing 1 cm of snow just as much as I get excited about the palm trees! :D Yet when I'm looking at my photos from Israel now I realize that despite the bad weather which made us change some of our plans, I've managed to see a lot of amazing places! :) And I'll continue telling you about them soon! ;)