When a guy sits next to you with a gun, and it’s a sign of safety, you know you are in Israel. This is about Tel Aviv – an amazingly vivid city with a lot to discover and explore:
Read the full story here: Tel Aviv.
Date A Boy Who Travels
April 22, 2013
Cockroach Polo
April 20, 2013
Africa Coffee, Food, Languages, Polo, Rwanda, Taxi, Tea, Transport Leave a comment
…never heard about this game? No wonder. I just invented it. Instructions are easy. Coincidentially step on the various cockroaches running around by night. As you wake up in the morning, take a broom and kick the dead ones out like you’d play Polo.
For someone like me who is usually scared of such animals, take those situations with a bit of humor 
Well, up to the important things in life:
Did you know that Rwanda produces its own coffee and tea?
Very delicious and definitely worth getting used to. For me, it’s a bit comparable to Ethiopian coffee. For me as an usual hardly-ever-coffee-drinking European a real change in the definition of this drink!
…
An interesting view that you get when you walk around in the evening is seeing all the foot sellers selling their fruits, fish, vegetables on the street. Something special for me was when suddenly a woman passed by with 6 chicken on her back. More or less alive. But of course, ready to be cooked.
…some food impressions…
As many people also wonder about the language here, I’ll try to clarify this a bit. The official languages here are English, French and Kinyarwanda. If English doesn’t work, try French. If French doesn’t work, go for Kinyarwanda. In the end, you mostly will go for a mixture of all three.
Transport costs are very interesting here. As I’m taking mostly bikes here (because they are faster and always there), I’m bargaining each day. It already happened to me that I paid once 300 and once 500 for the same way – just because once there is much traffic, few bikes available, etc. – also depending on the time of the day you go (it seems). People do ask me why I love the bikes so much. I don’t know. Probably it’s the convenience and the easy breeze that you always have around when you are going somewhere on them. And it’s something quite African for me. Besides, everybody has to wear a helmet! The other common transport is a bus or rather called “Taxi” here. Those are the usual public transport busses you find all over from West to South to East Africa.
Date A Girl Who Travels
April 17, 2013
Just found this lovely on blog of Aleh and could not help but share here :)
Date A Girl Who Travels - Solitary Wanderer
"Date a girl who travels. Date a girl who would rather save up for out of town trips or day trips than buy new shoes or clothes. She may not look like a fashion plate, but behind that tanned and freckled face from all the days out in the sun, lies a mind than can take you places and an open heart that will take your for what you are, not for what you can be/
Because nothing bonds people better than travelling!
Back to Mama Africa
April 15, 2013
Africa, Uncategorized Africa, Country, GDP, Hills, Mama, Rwanda, Sunrise, Thousand, World Leave a comment
You know you are back to Africa when you get welcomed by this beautiful sunrise, here right over Ethiopia. It is the people calling you “Mzungu”, (cosmetic) shops with names like “Remember Love” and the relaxed mindset and not necessarily always checking your watch that makes this part of the world so unique.
A short note:
The Ethiopian airport has free wifi – the German ones not. Germany – what do you learn from this?
Besides, Ethiopian Airlines is way better than anybody thinks – while everybody got a usual salad on his/her meal – I even got shrimps salad and a super delicious milk rice with berry sauce for the gluten-free one:
The land of a thousand hills – Rwanda. Unfortunately, the only thing people tell you when they hear Rwanda is the Genocide & civil war. Well, that was 19 years back. Nowadays, it is one of the safest countries in Africa and also one of the most developed ones. With an estimated GDP growth rate at 7.7% in 2012, it is the 20th fastest growing country around the world.
The view on the picture reflects just one of the many one gets when enjoying breakfast/lunch/dinner from most of the restaurants.
Stay tuned for more 
When leaving a country is harder than entering
February 11, 2013
Middle East Arabic, English, Falafel, Food, Hebrew, Hummus, Israel, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Travel, World Leave a comment
This article shall not reflect any political view but rather be a view behind the media and showing the side of the people and culture there. In terms of the country, I will refer to Israel but meaning the whole region which also includes Palestine.
Israel itself is an amazing country with a beautiful landscape and lovely people. It is a region which displays an incredible mix of Arab and European culture I’ve never seen any elsewhere in this world. Next to this mix, you notice that there are a lot of people from Sudan/Eritrea/Ethiopia and also Russia. And not seldomly, you will also see Arabs in Tel Aviv. Due to this mixture, a lot of things are written in English/Arabic/Hebrew. And it seems everybody knows Hebrew.
Traveling in the country is safe and in terms of traveling to the surrounding countries, there are even options to go to Jordan by bus which are perceived as quite convenient. I do not know of other opportunities to visit the neighbour countries except by plane. Regarding traveling within the country, it is most convenient by bus or train. Yet, on Shabbat (Saturday), most of the public transport will not be working or starts working in the late afternoon except you are in Haifa.
Entering Israel in Tel Aviv at the airport is no big issue. They usually do not stamp the passport anymore but turned to giving a little paper visa. You will get a few questions but that’s it normally. What really gets an issue is leaving the country. That is what happened to me:
Coming by train from Jerusalem to the airport in Tel Aviv, I queued as usual. Though the queue start beforebthe check-in counter as they already check you through before you even can go for getting your boarding pass. One of the security officers came to me. Took my passport and asked me a few questions. From why are you here to whats the name of your friends. He left. With my passport. I went a bit asides and another person behind me was already finished. A woman came with my passport. Asked me again some questions. This time about Oman. Why I was there. When. How long. Where did I stay? What’s the name of the people I was with. What am I doing for a living. How I got to know all those people. She left. With my passport. A few minutes later she came back with another guy. Same questions again. And why I travel. Why did I go to Malaysia. Why to Indonesia? And why Tunisia. Answering that Tunisia was for graduation trip sounded really strange for them. They exchanged a few words in Hebrew. the guy would have been a dream for everybody interested in body language. His hands and face speaking 1000 words. More questions came. They left. Of course, with my passport. This time they were hectic talking with 2 other guys. Showing in pages of my passport. The woman and the man came back. Why was I in Morocco? With who? From where do I know this person? Am I in contact with any locals? Same questions for Tunisia, Dubai and Bahrain. I denied. And I admit, it was one of the hardest things I ever did. But after 30minutes of questions and 5 security people observing you, you might think twice of what you say. One of the last questions was, “did you pack your suitcase alone?” – “yes” – “I’m just asking cause it could be that someone put a bomb in your suitcase.” mhm…a bomb. Belief in human goodwill? Disappeared. Gone. I went on. Now my suitcase and bag went through an x-ray scan. My laptop taken out, opened in a 90°C angle and put in a bag that looked like a bigger pizza warm-keeping bag. And as all that was done, I was allowed to proceed. No, not to the check-in. Now to the inspection of my luggage. Everything out, under xray, sometimes twice. And everything in again. After the inspection of my passport and luggage, my body followed. A woman asked me to come with her. Jacket off. Scalf of. Shoes off. And I got twice scanned all over the body with those black stick things. But this were 2 different ones. The button region of my trouser kept making noise. The woman disappeared. With the clothes I took off before. After a while, she got back with another woman she introduced as her supervisor. I had to take partly off my trousers. After that, I was finally allowed to head know to the check-in. The woman accompanied me. She told me she’s gonna go with me to the 2nd check-in so that I dont have to go again eventually through all this. And, for the first time in my life, I smoothly entered the “VIP”/staff control and walked like a pro past all the people just going through a quarter of what I just went through.
Israel, you are a beautiful country, but not checking me when I enter the country and doing this huge check before the departure – that was just random! I decided to leave with a good impression and enjoyed my last meal:
2012 in review
December 31, 2012
About this blog Leave a comment
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog. I think that 2012 was a good way to start off in the blogging world!
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views.
