Toronto.....

Recap:

Geneva: stayed with Daniela for about a week in Lausanne, lost my jacket, ate fatty things, met Spaniards, even had a daytrip to Lyon to see Lisa and ... drink.

Travelled by (expensive) train to Zurich, there were no (cheap) hostels, and this provoked my Couchsurfing instinct which had for some reason lain dormant - mostly I think because I was very lazy in my planning at this step in the journey, and it's a bit messy to arrange to couchsurf at the last minute. However, I stayed with Stéphane, a French guy, who worked for Google in Zurich. He showed me around the amazing offices - they look more for play than for work, that's for sure. Beautiful cafés and lounge areas where they can take anything they want, fireman poles to get to the floor below, hammocks for discussing things, telephone pods made like helicopters or tents or hot air balloons to make calls. Basically, it's a playground.

The next day I wandered around beautiful Zurich on my own and then took a (cheap) train to Munich. There I couchsurfed with Anatol in his student dorm. We rode around Munich on bikes, through the main touristy parts and the English garden, watched a World Cup game, went out, I met up with Miriam and explored the castle... really nice time.

I caught a rideshare from Munich to Berlin with two girls, their dog, and another guy - that was quite good for my German. In Berlin I couchsurfed with Matthias in a really nice big apartment... one of his roommates wasn't home so I shared that room with another couchsurfer, a sweet Argentinean named Diego. I did almost no tourism this time around; just watched a couple World Cup games with Matthias in a bar under their house, hit up one art museum and otherwise hung out with Christian, my German professor from Spain.

I got another rideshare from there to Krakow with some German guy who lived in Krakow but worked a lot in Germany. He had a huge (gas-guzzling - which he wasn't happy about) van that was filled when we took off but emptied in Dresden, and then it was just me and him through Poland to Krakow. Paulina and Maciek picked me up there and took me to Paulina's house.

We visited Wadowice (John Paul II's birthplace), Krakow, and Auschwitz. Her parents were super nice, her dog was super cute, her brother and boyfriend were really nice, the weather was beautiful, I got to ride around in a tiny red car (Ladybug!) and get invited to beers. It was really cool to spend time with Paulina and get to see normal life in a small town. Poland has very green and attractive countryside, too.

From Krakow I took the train through Kadowice to Prague, and straight from the Prague train station I hopped on the metro to the bus station and grabbed a bus to Liberec. I took a taxi to the hotel Lukas had told me and left my stuff there to go find Fanny, Silvia, David, Luis and Ane at a restaurant. The six of us (except for Ane) knew Lukas from Spain. The next day we went to his wedding at the town hall, threw rice at him and his bride Martina, had lunch, and then got shipped off on a party bus to a chalet in the countryside where the reception was being held.

The whole thing was lovely and relaxed, but well-planned, the only (planned) disruption being the rapture of Martina by six of Lukas' male friends. Apparently there is a tradition that dictates the bride must be kidnapped and taken to a bar, where she is fed shots until the groom notices she's gone and figures out where they've taken her. When he shows up, he gets to pay the bill and take her back. . . . Well, they took her 15km away and Lukas had a tough time finding where they were. Needless to say, that was probably the peak of Martina's drunkenness that particular night. The bride and groom stayed the whole night and left in the last car back to Liberec.

The next evening we met up with Lukas and Martina to take the bus back to Prague. Poor Martina could barely keep her eyes open. We slept at Lukas' apartment that night and the next day the happy couple left for their honeymoon in Slovakia. I wandered around Prague most of that day and stayed in a hostel that night, where I was once again traumatized by the general ignorance displayed by the Americans staying there. One particular guy from Missouri regaled two younger German girls for hours with .... I don't know what, just TALKING, where he also attempted to show off his amazing knowledge of Spanish ("somos listos?" to say, "ready?") and German (he had a six-word vocabulary). I mean, great, you spent a month in Salamanca, you must know all about Spain - but what is with such gross misinformation as to tell those girls that "the sun doesn't go down until 11pm" there because Spain is farther south? And just. . . shut UP! . . . But I digress. (After I tell you that one of the guys in the other group of Americans apparently previously believed that Paraguay and Uruguay were somewhere near Uzbekistan, as well as thinking that Czech, Polish and German "seem pretty much the same".)

Ok I'll get off my holy horse now. The next day I flew out to Tel Aviv, hip hip hooray. I didn't get any sort of romantic scene in the airport though - I showed up and Perki wasn't there yet, and a Czech girl whose Israeli boyfriend hadn't shown up to pick her up asked for help from me to figure things out. So when Perki showed up we took her to buy a cell phone, call her boyfriend, and eventually we put her on a train to hopefully get picked up by her boyfriend later. Haha... poor girl. The Perk was a good sport about the whole thing, being the Hebrew translator, etc.

Then I had two weeks in Tel Aviv. The first few days are pretty fuzzy. (Me and Perki actually sat down at the end and tried to figure out what we did every day, just so I could write it down on my blog for posterity's sake.) Somewhere we hung out at Gamal's house, got Perki a haircut and went to a park in Ra'Anana. The first week Perki still had school stuff to do, I felt sick one day and basically we were just lazy. I did go to watch the World Cup final with Weiner, Segall, and their Dutch friend Mark. For the second half we squeezed into a very stifling Dutch Forum garden with big screens set up and attempted to drink Heineken and breathe. (I failed on the first account.) Me and Weiner were secretly cheering for Spain, and we got excited on the inside when Spain scored at the end.

Finally July 12 we have some idea of what we did. Perki had his test in the morning (which he aced of course) and we went to a burger bar called XO in Ramat HaSharon for lunch. Afterwards we went to his parents' house to do laundry (oh yeah, we failed horribly in finding a laundromat in days prior). Later Perki started feeling sick and (from, we think, food poisoning from the burger) had several dates that night with the toilet. Poor thing. We also watched Almost Famous with Lior.

July 13 was my birthday and the poor Perk was still recovering from being sick. He put on a brave face though and took me to Jaffa to get hummus for lunch. We walked around for a while, got fresh-squeezed apple and orange juice, and then to avoid death from overheating, drove back home. Later we took a bottle of wine to the beach and just relaxed.

July 14 is kind of blank except for the night when we went to the port in Tel Aviv to sample 'gourmet' fries and calamari and get ice cream from Iceberg. (Honey and banana... mmmmm.) Later we called Weiner to meet us on Rothschild, and he showed up with Gamal, Maytal, Neta, Yakir, Ziggy, and his girlfriend Masha. We had a nice time drinking cava and watching some random guy try selling his (?) bike (it had a child seat on the back) to everyone walking down the street.

July 15 was a special day. It was the birthday of: my dad, Perki's brother (Doron), Perki's friend (Dor), and Lior's cat (Dora). Not sure what's up with the similarity of those names. Perk and I wanted to try to get to the Sea of Galilee, but traffic was terrible and we just hit up Herzliyya's beach instead.

On July 16 Kan Tor came back to Ramat HaSharon from Jerusalem where he studies and Perki and I met up with him for ice cream (Iceberg again), a very hot walk through town, and lemonade/coffee at Cuppa Joe's. Kan Tor had some amusing stories to tell about his time in the army and bears. . . . Really what you would expect from him.

Later Perki and I met up with Gamal and Gal at the (by Perki anyway) dreaded XO, went to Gamal's house and watched the comedian Pablo Francisco (who, I must say, I did not find really funny). Then for Dor's birthday we went to some bar in Florentin whose name I never remember and an air conditioner attacked me with water. (Ok, it dripped on me.)

Let's skip July 17 where our minds are blank and move on to July 18. We picked up Weiner and Kan-Tor and drove to the Sea of Galilee in the north. We ate the best hummus I've ever had in the car - Weiner picked it out in a grocery store on the way. Perki also made a small and mysterious detour to a bookstore where he bought me (what was eventually revealed to me to be) my birthday gift: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Perki was reading the former and convinced me to read it (I'm halfway through now and it's really great), and the latter was a book he really likes (which I haven't started yet. It seems very short, I kind of want to savour it).

We arrived at the Sea of Galilee and went for a swim. I much prefer lakes over oceans (because they're not salty, but also because usually it's calmer) but there are a few downsides, namely the icky bottom of the lake in places (the Perk was a reeeeal baby about that) and the possible presence of fishies in the murky water (I fucking hate fish). But it was also pretty wavy, which made it hard to relax. (The fact that Kan-Tor kept attacking me didn't help much either.)

After we got out we drove to Rosh Pina (a town a ways away) and visited Galit, a friend of Kan-Tor's from school. Then it was hometime again.

On July 19 I let Perki sleep in a bit (or not) and took a bus to Segall's house in Ramat HaSharon. He played me some piano and guitar and we watched tons of videos both from Segall and Perki's trip to the U.S. (which have apparently vanished into the void on Perki's computer) and from their high school days. We met Perki for lunch at Edna, and then Perki and I went to a mall to do some shopping.

On July 20 we had a barbeque at Weiner's house for my and Weiner's birthdays (his was July 19). The guys pulled it together super fast and a bunch of people came. Perki and I got some groceries and cut lemons, and Weiner, Kan-Tor, and Segall prepared hummus, salad, caipirinha, and the meat (of course). In the evening Perki had a meeting with his new company; afterwards we watched Louis Theroux's Law and Disorder in Johannesburg.

July 21 was my last day. In the morning we waited for Moshe, Perki's landlord to show up (which of course he didn't), worked on tuning up Allie (my computer), got sushi in Herzeliyya, and went to the coast to sit for a bit. We bought chalva to bring home to my friends and family. Dora was extra cute. We drank Fanta and ate gummy bears. And later we went out to Oktober with Weiner and drank delicious dark beer (damn it all, I didn't write down the name but I'm sure Perk knows) and discussed law, religion, and rape. (Still some unanswered questions.) Then we got a hot dog and went home. At 3am outside Perki's apartment building, on the street, someone was blowing up large amounts of helium balloons for an advertising campaign.

Got driven to the airport, Perki was again used as my security shield (he answers questions and they don't really interrogate me), and got on the damn plane at 6am. And that was that. (Oh yeah, I didn't mention how coming into Israel this time on an El Al flight they decided during my interrogation I was suspicious, took away all my luggage for a special search [including hand luggage, they let have my wallet and a book through security and gave me my backpack back at the gate] and gave me a special extra body search just before boarding the plane [nothing internal though, thank Allah] and wouldn't allow my laptop to come on board with me. Also they don't allow hair straighteners on the plane and supposedly sent it home to my parents in Yellowknife.)

There was also some day where Perki made me malawach for breakfast with hard-boiled eggs and tomato, and when we read tons of Dan Savage columns and watched multiple episodes of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. Apparently Louis made an appearance at the weekly protest in Jerusalem that Weiner goes to, and thus his name came up and Perki introduced me to his stuff. Also at some point early on we went to Norma Jean (nice beer bar in Florentin) with Dor, his girlfriend Lee, Lee's little sister (who bailed early) and eventually (or ultimately? :P) Weiner.

Now I'm in Toronto at Janzen's house. Yesterday I went to visit my oma in Grimsby via GO Transit, that was pretty fun. I wish I could see her more often. At night we had the potluck at Jonathan's house - Jeannine, Ryan, Teresa, Dan, and of course Jonathan, Natalie and Janzen were present. Today Janzen and I picked up Dave from his house, walked to Kensington (it's pedestrian Sunday), and I got another suitcase from a store in Chinatown to bring back the stuff I left in Toronto with Janzen and Evan. Tomorrow my grandpa and grandma are coming to Mississauga to see me. And on Tuesday I fly to Yellowknife. I still haven't bought a flight for California.

Let's see, how could I make this blog post longer? Oh, I know... but I should probably leave that for another day. Over and out for now.

The L-Meister.