Zoiets verwacht je niet

Hey everybody!

So I decided to keep my blog for these 2 weeks..because it's kind of a unusual place to go for most of the people ;)
And I try to write everything in English...so my international friends can read it too.

I just woke up, and I'm sitting on the balcony...have a cup of herb-tea in front of me, freshly picked from the plants in front of me. The weather is great...like a spring-morning in Holland. Not warm..but sitting outside is really nice! It's so quiet...although we are 5 minutes away from the main-street here in Haifa. But it's a saturday...a saturday here is kind of a lazy-sunday in Holland I guess. It already start on friday evening..and it's more extreme than back home. Here there are not even buses between the cities or trains to catch on saturday. Nothing is open..only some bars and such at night. And there are less flights to and from Israel on saturday.

But I will start at the beginning. Even the check-in was in Israel-style: from all the check-ins at Schiphol-airport, this one had (I think) bullitproofglass around it, it had around 7 security-people..with 2-3 guns each. And when you get into the line...you not go directly to the check-in desk..but first you are going with a person who asks you all kinds of questions. Because my friend (I met him on the language-site livemocha) and I were not a couple, we had to go seperated through it. I was asked how we met, why I was going to Israel, where I was going to stay..who packed my bag, if I got presents from other people to bring. And I think it was bacause of the fact that we were not a couple, that we had to go to some extra security-check things at a special gate..before going to the final gate for the flight.
It looked like they cleaned my shoes and my passport with a stick and a paper on it (mum, a stick like you use for throwing balls for the dogs).
And they searched through my handbaggage (lateron I saw they also checked my big backpack).
The paper of the stick they put in a machine. Then we got escorted to the gate where the plane was waiting..and we could skip the line there. We had to go into this cabin that scans your whole body.The flight was good...I slept a lot because I went out on thursday ;), but the flight took only 3h55min.

Then at the next passport control the guys asked me questions again...what are you to do here...with who are you staying..what is the name of your friend..and then he made a phonecall. Ofcourse...I am very suspicious. But after the phonecall I got the stamps to enter and he wished me a happy journey.

My friend and I got picked up by his dad....and we drove to Haifa.
I was not really surprised by everything I saw (really modern things...the airport..beautifull...the road...great quality..the buildings..modern, high tech) because my view of Israel already changed in the months talking with my friend. Otherwise I wouldn't even go there.
The thing with Israel is that their anti-propaganda sucks. You only hear about the bad stuff...but the people are tired to fight it.

I'm staying here with the dad of my friend, my friend ofcourse, and his wife....some great people. They just moved back from the United States to their birthcountry....after like 20 years (if I'm right)..so the communication is good!
They say eveytbody speaks good english here in Israel..we will find out.

Oke..have to go...we are going to Acre today..will tell you about it really soon.

CHau!