Sunday, July 24, 2011

What Aren’t Americans Great At?

Last week the Giza Technology Consulting group had a group activity evening of bowling and dinner.  We headed out of the office at 4:30 and headed to the Herzeliyah mall for some good old 10 pin. At first, I could not understand why the entire group was so excited to see me bowl. It turns out that they were all under the impression that Americans are all incredible bowlers. I quickly debunked this stereotype.
When we arrived at the lanes, we divided the group of 8 into two lanes and got right into it. I was the last on my lane, lined up with Yamit, one of my best friends in the office, on the opposing lane. Our lane was kicked off by Tal, an Israeli girl that lived in Texas for several years in high school. Effortlessly, Tal rolled a spare to start off the game. I rolled a 4 (or maybe 7) in the first frame, and then proceeded to roll more gutters (almost all the left side) than I did balls that knocked down pins. The group was quickly disappointed to see that as I had promised, I SUCK(ED) at bowling. Yamit asked me “Yoel, how are you so bad at bowling? You are American.” Eyal, the manager of the technology group proposed “maybe it isn’t originally an American game. I hope so for your sake Yoel.” This of course led me to do some research. According to Wikipedia, primitive versions of bowling date back to ancient Egypt, but the game as we know it was created in New York in 1895. Alas, I have no nationality excuse. Towards the 6th frame, I was about 10 pins behind Yamit. I said to myself “that’s it Yoel, you need to turn this around. You are going to beat Yamit.” As we both approached the ball rack to start our turn, I looked at Yamit and said “I may be 10 pins behind you, but I am going to beat you this game.” She gingerly accepted the challenge.
By the end of the first game, the taunting of the group had changed to pitty. I rolled something like a 36. I came in dead last of all 8 players. Tal rolled over 100, as did Ori, who turned out to be the best bowler of the bunch. Needless to say, it was quite shameful, and Yamit was loving it. But wait, there was a second game to be played. This was to be the one I was going to turn it around. I set off strong, and within a few frames, I had fixed my game, rolled a few spares and was above my 10 pin per frame benchmark, on my way to breaking a hundred. Yamit started off slowly, and I was on a streak. Of course, my streak had to end. Yamit picked up her game, and I slipped up. Suddenly I was 20 pins behind! I did not lose my cool. I kept focused and worked on shrinking my pin deficit.
The game ended dramatically. I was 24 pins behind, Yamit had finished her game, and I knew I had to make my 9th frame count. I kept focused and BOOM, 8 pins down on the first ball. The second two needed a precision strike. Sure enough, I kept my cool, summoned all my very limited bowling skills and POW. Spare. I am in it to win it. All I needed on the next turn was 8 pins for the win. Before taking my 10th frame, I started my trash talking “Yamit, pay attention you are going down.” Off I went – the shot started off right, but like most of my rolls for the day, the ball veered left. I ended up with a solid 7 on my first shot. Three pins remained, and knocking down any one of them would lead me to victory. This is where I think I psyched myself out. I looked at Yamit and said “look, we are tied now. How about I just shoot the ball down and call it a tie.” In all honesty, this was just hedge. I completely intended to win. Of course, I didn’t. My ball went left (again) and missed the leftmost pin by a few inches. Game over, we tied. At this point, I figured Yamit would say good game and we’d be on our way. As I turned to tell Yamit that we were in fact the same level of bowling and that I was just warming up for the first game, she says to me “I am still a better bowler than you.” Although I argued that we were the same since we tied, she wasn’t hearing it. After a bit of debate, I had a realization that I have presented in the table below.

The table above presents mine and Yamit’s bowling performance in our two games of bowling. Yamit improved a respectable 48% from the first game to the second. However, at the same time, I improved a whopping 131%. This led me to the realization that had we played a third game, maintaining out respective improvement rates, I would have blown Yamit away in the third game with a killer score of 191 versus her would be 123. I plan on going bowling at least once while back in the US to work on my game in the hopes of a rematch when I will be able to demonstrate my bowling superiority over Yamit, and at the same time, return national pride to the US.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Eilat Beach Weekend


Back in New York, I had a penchant for planning beach weekends. I planned July 4th and Labor Day weekend trips for the past three years. My love of group trips to the beach has not changed. Two weekends ago 9 friends and I headed to Eilat (southernmost city in Israel on the Red Sea) for a weekend getaway. After several postponements, we finally made it happen. Finding the right priced hotel and flights was challenging. A special thanks needs to be given to Jo (friend who came on the trip), who found the best hotel deal for us.
Eilat is about a 4 hour drive from Tel Aviv and 3 hours from Jerusalem (assuming no traffic). The flight from Tel Aviv to Eilat is an hour. Most flights leave from a small domestic airport called Sde Dov, on the northern edge of the city, rather than Ben Gurion, which is about 20 minutes from the airport.
Due to varying schedules, locales and budgets, the group arrived in parts. Shimon, Nina, Ruchie and I were able to leave Thursday morning. In order to get in as much Eilat as possible, we flew down on Thursday morning at 6:30. As we deplaned, the heat immediately hit us – temperatures over the weekend reached above 40° C (104° F)! When we arrived at the Vista Hotel, we were told unsurprisingly that our rooms were not yet ready, so we checked our bags in the luggage room and went our own ways. I hopped a bus to Marina Divers at Coral Beach, to begin my two day advances scuba diving certification.
After three morning dives, including a ship wreck and a navigation dive, I headed back to the hotel. As I returned, Ben, Daniel and Ilan arrived from Jerusalem. They drove down since it didn’t make sense to drive to Tel Aviv only to then fly to Eilat – It’d take almost the same amount of time. By that time, we were able to get into our rooms. We all dropped our bags and headed to the pool, which was by no means sizable but was really fun. Daniel brought a “lay low” (British for an inflatable pool mattress) and I a Frisbee. Between those pool accessories, a floating goal that the pool had and two waterproof cameras, we were set for an unending slew of pool games and shenanigans. Flipping people off the pool mattress was a way of life all weekend. We took turns launching each other in the water and made up a bunch of goal based games initially with the Frisbee and then with the Spider Man ball that Ben bought. [To all you Rehoboth Beach trip attendees, you should know this was by complete chance – Ben bought the ball when I wasn't around. What are the odds – Spider Man balls seem to be a beach mainstay.]
 Pool Shenanigans: Natan and I Launching Jeremy (above) Three Perosn Tower (below)

Chillin @ beach bar
After we all showered up and changed, we met in the hotel for a few happy hour drinks before heading to dinner. Ben and Ilan own a bar and brought a nice assortment of bottles with them from their stock. We sat in the lobby drinking our own drinks, out of cups provided by the hotel staff. All weekend they were SUPER accommodating and nice to us. This is a link to my review of the hotel, which I would highly recommend for group trips. After a few pre-dinner drinks, we headed out to town for dinner at a Shipudim (skewer/barbeque) restaurant. We then walked down the main promenade stopping at bars and shops/stands along the way. We relaxed at a beach bar, sang karaoke to a very non-receptive Israeli crowd and lead by Daniel, most of us got henna tattoos, which are for some reason sold all over Eilat. I got a little baby bunny… cute.

Tattoo time



Karaoke on the beach
The next day we all met up at breakfast and shortly thereafter I headed back to the beach with Natan and Daniel for the second half of my scuba diving course. Natan and Daniel are also divers, and they went to dive the wreck I had dove the day before. Later in the day, we all dove together during the last dive of my course. The group came out to the beach for the morning and the whole group spent the afternoon around the pool.
Shabbat was remarkably relaxing. We had an excellent dinner in the hotel, shortly after which everyone went to sleep. We rendezvoused at breakfast and after service and lounging by the pool for a few hours had lunch together. The rest of the day was spent reading, playing Settlers, lounging by the pool and napping. By the time Shabbat finished, everyone was refreshed and rested.
Saturday night was mellow and enjoyable – Italian pasta dinner, beers at a beach bar and live 80’s music at the Three Monkeys. The next morning, Shimon, Jeremy and I left the airport at 6 am for a 6:40 flight back to Tel Aviv. We were all back at our respective offices by 9 am feeling like we had returned from a much longer trip. Eilat was all in all great. I’m excited to return. My next travels however will be to the United States on August 10th.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Paradise on Earth – Gan HaShlosha

My friend Ari, who I mentioned in an earlier post is visiting Israel from the States for the summer invited me to join him and two friends (Momo and Yossie) on a hike last Tuesday. The plan was initially to hike Nachal Darja – the hardest day hike in Israel. Unfortunately, the plan fell through – we left too late in the day (you need to be on the trail by ~7 am to complete a good chunk of it before the mid-day desert heat sets in. The hike is ~5-7 hours long). Instead, it was decided that we'd head to the north to Gan Hashlosha (“The Park of Three”), also known as Sachne, to hike around a bit and take in some sun and swim. My friend Adam, also visiting from the States, but only for a few weeks joined us as well.
Gan HaShlosha is a little less than two hours north east of Jerusalem, near the top of the Jordan Valley. You may recall the blog post I put up months ago on my first half marathon in Israel, which ran through the ancient city of Bet Shean – the race started and ended at Gan HaShlosha.
The nature park is comprised of three large pools which feed into each other via waterfalls. They pools are surrounded by lush grass fields, beautiful topography and the hills of the Galilee in the distance. When we arrived at the park, we decided to check out the area around the park for a hike before heading to the pools. Right behind the nature reserve, we found Nachal Kibbutzim “The Kibbutz Spring”. After about five minutes of hiking alongside the clear, flowing spring, we quickly called an audible, returned to the car and changed into water clothes and hiked/waded up the stream. The cool water was waist deep and we were surrounded on both sides by tall reeds. We joked that the scenery was right out of Forest Gump in Vietnam. It was really gorgeous.

Nachal Kibutzim


Funny/terrible sign

After about 20 minutes of working our way downstream, we turned around, headed back to the car and drove to the park. Ari and I scoped out a great, somewhat secluded patch of grass that rolled right to the water front, where we “set up camp”. Momo lit up the grill, we threw on some sunscreen and headed to the water. The ‘pools’ at Gan HaShlosha are more like ponds. The water is clear and cool. In the pools, there are little fish that nibble on your feet and snack on your dead skin. You can get a live, free, natural fish pedicure at Sachne. The sensation was very ticklish and I could not help shrieking like a school girl every time the fish went to work. Thanks to my new waterproof camera case, I was able to snag a picture of the fish in action.
After swimming for a bit, we got out of the water to barbeque. After our cookout, we took Ari’s medical advice and skipped the half hour between eating and swimming and got right back in. We swam to a waterfall and then checked out the other pools, and swam some more. When we had our fill of swimming, sunning and lying about, we headed back to Jerusalem.
Sachne was serene and beautiful and is definitely worth a visit, but be warned – on holidays, especially Passover, the place is PACKED and is probably not worth visiting.




Momo swimming with a beer... the good life



Fish eating at my feet

A cave off of the top pool

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Happy British Nakba Day (July 4th)

Last Monday, my roommate Shimon hosted his annual July 4th Barbeque. It was quite the event, with somewhere between 70 to 100 people in attendance. Shim had 3 grills going and we went through a ton of burgers, a heap of hot dogs and a few beers. The party featured a special Shimon crafter “America” playlist (Shimon takes his playlists very serious… don’t touch his iPod at his events... or ever for that matter) that even featured a few country tunes that he allowed me to contribute in order to really encompass all that is good about the US. The crowd was a mix of Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits, New Zealanders, South Africans and even Israelis. Yamit, my Israeli friend and co-worker, later commented that there were not enought Americans at the party. I justified the crowd in explaining that the barbeque was the ideal venue for Americans like Shimon and I to showcase how amazing US is to foreigners from around the world.Jeremy and I made a nice bon fire and I cooked up an again slightly overly sweet pot of poike – I am getting better at it – no burn this time. Next time I’ll go easier on the coke and I’m sure it’ll be my best poike yet. Sorry I don’t have a lot of pics from the event – here are the two that I do have.
Aviva Honoring the Flag

Patriotic Poike

Happy Belated America Day. Or as a friend from London called it, the British Nakba Day. Nakba means "day of the catastrophe" in Arabic. The Nakba is annually observed by Israel's Neighbors and Palestinian and Israeli Arabs to commemorate, mourn and re-threaten the birth and existence of the State of Israel. I thought it was a cute joke on what is otherwise a terrible and hate filled concept.

Air Force Wings Ceremony

I received an email a few weeks ago from Nefesh B’Nefesh (“NBN”) offering busing to the Air Force Academy’s Wings Ceremony, in which pilot cadets graduate from flight school and “receive their wings”.
Being a pilot in the Israeli Army, is just about the most exalted position there is. In order to even qualify for the course, draftees must have very high test scores and a perfect physical profile. Only after several rounds of testing are a few select cadets admitted to flight school. The program is three years of rigorous studies and super demanding expectations. Only 10% of flight school cadets complete the three year training course. Since the army invest so much time and effort into its pilots, all pilots are committed to a twelve year army service. Once they have completed their first three years, they reach the rank of officer and have relatively cushy living conditions, at least on army standards. They also complete the army with both undergraduate and masters degrees, everyone in Israel’s respect and an incredibly strong network of successful businessmen, politicians and army personnel. When a cohort of cadets graduate flight school, the army does not treat it as a regular tekes (ceremony). The celebration is no holds bar. The army puts on one (several) heck of a show for friends, family and guests to celebrate the occasion. The pilots actually had three ceremonies, all of them were relatively similar as I understand. The first two Sunday and Tuesday were ceremonies where they were promoted to officers, and Thursday’s was the official Wings Ceremony, which was attended by the President and Prime Minister as well as many politicians and army generals.
In the past few weeks, a few friends from the States have come to Israel for the summer, and they all have relatively flexible schedules. Ari is in medical school and came to do research in a hospital. Since doctors employed by the government (a lot of them) are on strike, he has found himself with a lot of free time. Ruchie just arrived last week and is checking out Israel for a few months, trying to figure out if she wants to move here. Sarah is here to study for the summer at Pardes, a Judaic studies school in Jerusalem, which did not start classes until the day after the Wings Ceremony. So, lucky for me, I had a fun group put together for the trip.
We all met at the central bus station for a food court lunch before heading to the NBN bus.
After a 2 hour bus ride, we arrived at an air force base outside of Be’er Sheva (largest city in the South of Israel). As we pulled into the lot, we were told to have a look around the meuseum exhibit and that the graduation ceremony would start in about two hours.
The exhibit housed an array of aircraft used by the air force in the past and present. Everything from a firefighting plane to an F-16. It was pretty sweet. Stationed at each plane and helicopter was a pilot or museum representative that was speaking about the aircraft. The exhibit also had several missile defense systems on display, including an anti-missile system and the Iron Dome (previously discussed here). I thought it was kind of funny that there was an anti-rocket defense system on display, when I read in the news that Israel has not deployed enough batteries to defend all the residents in range of terrorist fired missiles from Gaza. I asked a soldier who worked with the Iron Dome system why this one was here and if there were in fact enough to defend from Gaza. He told me that that information was confidential. I took that to mean that there probably shouldn't be a rocket defense battery on display.
Here are some of the pics from the exhibit. Thanks to Nina S for showing me how to upload an album slideshow.


We headed over to the seating for the ceremony and air show. It started with several pilots taking off in stunt planes, then several groups of soldiers marching in, followed by the pilots. Seeing the whole procession was very moving and exciting. Large groups of families and friends came out to cheer on the pilots, many of them in matching T-shirts or hats cheered wildly as their pilot’s name was called. I got a kick out of the short profiles they gave on each pilot “Avi from Tel Aviv, son of Mark and Malka, brother of Zev and Shira, boyfriend of Sarah.” I thought the girlfriend was a funny touch – it was of interest to note that very few pilots were single. They are indeed a hot commodity.
After a few speeches including a blessing from the pilots’ commander, the air show began. The air force put on an awesome display showcasing everything from a historic Spit Fighter from World War II to F-16. The F-16s performed a bombing run with bombs willed with water. It was incredible to see how fast the F-16s flew – blink and you missed them. The accuracy of their bombing at that speed was also dazzling.
Apache helicopters fired guns a targets, the air force simulated a recovery of an injured soldier and an extraction of a ground force with Blackhawk helicopters landing and picking up the ground troops as Cobra attack helicopters stood guard and fired missiles at “enemy targets” over a kilometer away.
The demonstration ended with the performance of a high ranking air force general that has been flying for over 25 years in an F-15 fighter plane. He performed a few minutes of aerial feats turning the plane sharply in loops and circles, spinning and corkscrewing until each person either felt nauseous or was dying to get in the navigators seat.

The pilot’s graduation ceremony is held twice a year (and there are usually several practice/minor ceremonies before the official graduation. Each of them has an air force demonstration. If you ever have the chance to see on in person, I highly recommend it, especially to my former roommate Yaakov - I was thinking about you the whole time I was there.