haifa_fornightly.2

Haifa Fornightly(Editor--Huzefa Mehta) 2nd edition 15/11/92 shalom vale kum, since i write after a period of almost 15 days i lose the time sequence and the events i describe are not in chronological order... we saw a couple of movies(far and away,single white woman,city of joy, unforgiven ) here in haifa..most of the movie halls are outside the main city. thursday we went to tel aviv and ate at one of the indian restaurants(same lady who appeared in india today...actually fundu grub..the whole city was live even around 1:30 in the night...). friday ko we went to sea of galilea. (lake kinaret)its a lake about 65km from haifa... supposed to have been a place where Jesus carried out some miracles...To get to sea of galilea we had to cross the golan heights(previously a part of syria) very beautiful...with caves seen built inside the walls of the mountains.. passed thru some arab towns along the way camels and stuff...the strange part is a lot of people carry guns..its a very familiar sight to see military on the road--even in haifa with automatics.. We would like to go hiking in Zavitan, a nature reserve in the Golan Heights (which everyone says you have to visit now before Israel gives it back). on saturday we went to one of the bahai temples and swam in the sea... another thing which happened was I had an accident not a majjor one... but enough repairs to keep the car in the shop for couple of weeks... The front right was damaged and completely smashed...it occured while i was driving down the hill and braked at a bend the steering wheel kind of kept oscilating till i hit a pole...confused i got out to see the damage only to find some oil leaking...i switched off the car.. by this time i had managed to have junta come and ask me questions in hebrew...i took stuff out of the car..someone helped me with his phone card to call budget/police etc etc...took me about 4 hrs before i got back to work.... We were invited to Ezra's(bhatia kapshi you know him) place one of the weekends... He has just come back from Ethopia and we had wine from the wine jars got from Ethopia. then went for late night movie... and drove around Technion in the night.. Somehow there is very little beauraucracy in the univs here because the standard response i get from the admin here is that "why do have to register for classes..just go and attend them..the professor would be more than delighted to have someone listen to his knowledge" Am planning to register for some courses or atleast attend some... since Intel is paying for our expenses..food and all initially for about atleast a month we have been eating out at almost all exotic restaurants.... and in the process getting lost in the city at odd hours... Israel prepares for the latest Gulf Threat. If you're really worried, you take out the gas mask, check it's canister and seal, check you're 'safe room', making sure it's ok, and prepare for the emergency. If you're the other 99% of Israel, you talk about it a little, but basically don't worry about it, since the goverment hasn't made any major decisions, and, at least when the safetly of Israel is in question, most Israeli's listen to the government about when to panic and when not. With all of the new immigrants, etc., there are a couple of hundred thousand people in Israel without gas masks, and no immediate plans to supply them, so it's a pretty low state of worriedness. we found an apt. we sign lease and are moving this weekend... there is an intel lawyer who reviews the lease to make sure nothing is wrong with the lease... we found about an indian store about 20km from here...havent been there yet but maybe in the near future.. greg ran the quarter triathlon i did not go since my bike had not arrived at that time..the swim was in the sea and was around 1 mile... my bikes arrived..and so have my sleeping bags,sack and tent...so time to take off for the weekend! couple of more things.... shabbath is on saturdays--its praying time for the jews and the whole city is closed...all the shops everything... on saturday evening the whole city comes to life..all the shops are open till around 12-1 am ... finally moved into the appartment its a duplex and the first thing i got to see were the bomb shelters...its in the basement and the landlady explained exactly i was to do in case of a bomb attack... hope i never need to go there.... went to one roman town called caeseria its on the beach and has a old city with moats and a ampitheatre with huge columns...the strange part is that even these areas are highly tuned to tourists..having coke machines in all the odd spots(saw one at the roman bathing house!) also saw some nomads on the roads on our way to tel aviv... had his tent on the side and the guy was praying on the side of the road... coming up.. --------- eliat quarter triathlon (dec 5th).. and of course "jinda rahenge to milenge" (Copyrighted by Vivek Nigudkar) ps old copies of haifa fornightly available with spellings corrected from mr. bhatia.