Category funny

Feb 6 2012

Funny funicular railways and scaling the steepness with God

Getting around Switzerland on trains is rather jolly, quiet, civilised and very enjoyable.

Given extreme terrain in places, a few more radical solutions are needed to get to certain locations.

I haven’t really heard of a funicular railway before, until I saw this one.   Funnily enough, this one was shut until the evening for some reason.   The other one I saw in Interlaken was completely closed for maintenance.

They look a bit like something from a theme park.   I will be honest, I don’t really like theme parks, they always seem contrived, and don’t like deliberately getting on apparatus to deliberately make myself sick and dizzy.   This is way better though!

Onward to the French speaking city Vevey, the place where milk chocolate was invented, where Charlie Chaplin spent his retirement and the HQ of the global overlord food producer Nestle.  As Montreux is just 8kms or so away, and I thought I would walk as it was a pleasant sort of day.   Is this a bus or a tram?   It seems to be both!!  Just as long as the driver doesn’t steer too far away from the overhead wires I guess it works well.  Look closely and the bus’s signage shows ‘Desert’ which is kind of odd here!!

Vevey, Lusuane and Montreux are the French speaking neighbouring cities on a hill over looking a lake Geneva, so the roads can be pretty steep, needing to be negotiated in a zigzag fashion.  These fruit trees seem quite common in this city, I think they are apricots.   There is a English Anglican church at the foot of the hill which I was surprised to see.

I was quite pleased to find one of the funicular tracks that just goes briefly between two stops;

 

This completely bonkers mode of transport is great!!  The rail car that goes up is completley autonomous, there is no driver or any other staff, in fact no staff are to be seen at all, my ticket was bought from a vending machine, and there is a large screen with the times, and an alarm sounds when its ready to leave and the doors open and close by itself.   Just a winch and a computer system seems to control the whole operation, probably just one very bored guard somewhere checking over it.   Someone has thoughtfully made the seats in the train heated which is great during the harsh winters here.  I would guess that the trains may have to specially designed for particular gradient of the hill maybe.   The steepest one in Switzerland goes 48 degrees!

Looking back, about half way along, you can see a lovely view of Lake Geneva, the ride is no longer than about 3 minutes, there is another car travelling the other direction, and the single track forks into two briefly and merges back, allowing a simple pass.

The short journey reminded me of some things happening for me at the moment, often we are up against a steep gradiant, with my time doing volunteer work likely to end in the spring, I am keep wondering what I will be doing back in the UK.   I need to find a new job,
new place to live and a new church.  At the moment I enjoy the work I do, the church I have here, the friends from dozens of different countries, I will need to go back to earning a regular wage again, and readjusting to life in post-recession UK and being a single chap in my mid 30s its hard to get an understanding what this year will hold, it all seems massively overwhelming.

My life with Jesus has meant that he has provide me with a way to conquer all kinds of enormously varied challenges so far.  But like this unorthodox transport system this is one of most hardest to try and fathom.  Here if I didn’t see this special railway, I wouldn’t of guess scaling this kind of hill would be impossible, but the Lord seems to provide when no tangible solution is in sight.   Up here you can quickly jump on another traditional railway system running parallel with the other line by the lake.   It was nice that it started to snow up here too, only for a short time though, I just had to stay under this shelter for about 5 minutes.






Feb 4 2012

Jerusalem in fog

Clouds again.  Having this low that makes part of the city invisible was a strange sight to see on the way to work over a week ago on a monday morning.

from Matthew 24 : 30 

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His [t]elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Clouds seems like a perfect way for our Lord Jesus to make a stage entrance back to this city, ok it wasn’t the right time last week, but its still quite a bizarre sight and it did mean we had plenty of rain in the last week of January.


Jan 15 2012

Switzerland – the old city of Basel

A little bit later I will finish writing about the lively church in Nazareth I got to visit.

Meanwhile I took sometime out after flying to see family at Christmas, I wanted to do something different for New Year, the 1st of January is a non-event in Israel, and I am bored with the drinking culture in UK, as Basel is reachable by Easyjet from Luton, UK and I can get back to Tel Aviv via Geneva, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see my good friend Matthew who is a Swiss Christian who was studying Hebrew and going to the same church in Jerusalem, last year.

Railways in Switzerland are probably the best anywhere, this one is a palace in itself with attractive paintings on the walls, escalators and nice shops, and generally an accurate representation of Switzerland’s precise and efficient approach to everything.

There are lots of museums in this country, this one is meant to be the smallest in the world, I am not sure if its just a window of stuff or if you can go in.   I didn’t get time to visit any of the other ones which was a shame.

Basel is a truly beautiful place.  This was my first visit to Switzerland, so I was really looking forward to it, its quite different from Germany even before I got near any mountains, its like they have a German attitude to efficiency and engineering and use the French and Italian influence for design flair. 🙂

I like the mix of oldy worldy shops and modern retail places too.   Watches are a big thing of course, as top brands in fashion too.  Funny thing is, I didn’t see any places boarded up, so the recession hasn’t affected Basel, or the Swiss are good at quickly dressing up defunkt businesses with different signage, unlike UK and the US!

This shoe place is a worth a mention for its amusing name 😀

It is kind of horribly expensive, I went to Starbucks and paid CHF7 for the cheapest coffee, (1 Swiss Franc is almost the same as a US Dollar at $0.96)

I got to see my friend speak at a very old (400+ year) church and also another congregation who meet in a plain looking office type building too.

In town I came across a large and big Synagogue, which its own 24 hour security guard.   Normally you can go in there to visit, but it was shut over Christmas (!) as the security office wasn’t manned during the holidays.

My friend drove us to the outskirts of the city to see overhead from a hill.  There is an odd layer of fog over the city which is not that visible from the photo, Basel I think is just above sea level unlike the mountanous parts of Switzerland I visited later.

This was a tall old folly or castle which was about equvilant of a 4 story building, Matthew kind of gets a bit crazy standing up here!  I think contrary to Swiss being supposedly boring running banks and financial institutions, they treated the rugged parts of their country as a playground for skiing, snowboarding and lots of other outdoor sports they like the live dangerously!   and yes, they eat a lot of cheese and chocolate. 🙂

Although this might not seem in regular theme of my blog visiting bible places, this country gave me some interesting perspectives on my spiritual life, which I will explain soon…

Jan 12 2012

The first ever Christian Youth event in Capernhaum?

I took a very brief trip again to Capernaum, the famous first place where Jesus preached, really just 30 minutes quick stop on the way back from a tour, only to discover something interesting I didn’t see before…

My friend from Canada demonstrates.

Our guide told us this room of the synagogue was actually for a ministry to children;

Looking at the floors, you see some interesting patterns here, Kind of like hopskotch but too small squares for even the smallest of children’s feet I think.  I guess its from some kind of game, its hard to say from what era the markings are from, makes me wonder how the first generation of Christians kept their kiddies amused though….

The cemented bit here has something that looks like Latin, I am sure that bit is modern I think….

Dec 19 2011

Great reasons to not have a smart phone

Some people wonder why as an IT person I don’t have an iPhone or another smart phone.  I have thought about it, not being in paid employment is the main factor, but lately I have been thinking a simple type phone has some advantages that sophisticated internet capable phone

1. Cost.   Either a large amount for complete ownership of the handset (£500+)  or having to pay £30-40 or more per month for a contract, that’s a lot of money you could spend on a holiday or many other things.  At the moment, my pay as you go phone on Cellcom IL means my 57 shekels (~£10) worth of credit lasts me about a month.

2. Long commitments.  I reckon people don’t often always think they are stuck paying for this thing for 18 or 24 months (3 years typically in Israel for an iPhone) without a simple way to get out, if the service or the handset don’t meet expectations.  The novelty appeal of the phone may wane way before you are able to get an upgrade or switch to a different payment model.  I wonder if less young people these days will go off traveling, doing volunteer or overseas work when they realise they can’t get shot of the mobile phone plan without an expensive exit fee.    Someone I know who is coming to Israel from the US was paying $106 a month and was struggling to get out of it!

3. Being forced to be doing work stuff when you are not at work.   People I know in the hospital I worked hated their blackberry handsets for this reason.   Employers don’t always plan that staff are doing work without always getting on-call commitments recognised in their actual salary package.

4. Fear of theft or damage.   One of the IT professional web sites I am a member of recently said that in a typical corporate environment, 10% of the phones get destroyed or lost in a year.   I suspect figures for consumers are not that far off.  I have seen many people crack the glass displays on an iPhone, and so therefore your monthly bill may need to have an insurance cost also added on that too.

5. Creditworthyness for getting a contract phone.  This is always checked in phone stores, not everyone qualifies for this.

6. Saying something you later regret online.  More easier to do on a device in your pocket that it is on your regular PC or laptop.

7. Not telling everyone a running commentary of your life’s problems on social media.   Its better to meet up or call a close friend and spill out to them.   Seriously.   Social media provides the tools online for narcissists to talk about themselves all the time too.

8. Enjoying life not being online.  Hiding behind that little device may mean you miss out on some of life’s things like sights of the countryside, getting chatting to strangers in a queue in a shop, and going camping when refraining from anything with an LCD display.

9. Chatting to a friend about a funny story you heard, can be done by A) showing said-item in Youtube or Wikipedia on a phone, or B) using the power of words and acting, in some ways, B can often be more appealing in the same way a good comedian just uses his hands and microphone stand to stimulate the imagination of the audience without any props.

10. Being antisocial in general.   If you are in a party or at a pub, people getting out their phones and then discussing which celebs they follow or what apps they have, are similar to loved-up couples that are too preoccupied with themselves to think about other (non phone obsessed) people around them.  I was watching the popular British motoring TV show Top Gear once when they had writer and actor Stephen Fry on there once, he decides to talk about an app on his phone he uses for gay cruising. geez, keep you nasty habits to yourself please, I used to have a lot of respect for him until this.

Fiddling with a phone in a job interview, theatre/cinema, in church or cell group or also examples of this I have seen being annoying to other people around you.

11. Being technologically unsatisfied.  Some people hop from one model phone to another and regardless of what the features of this and how new it is, are never seem happy.   despite all phones have limitations in one way or another.

12. Metering cost of data.  Its easy to go over the data allowance per month when using data on 3G network, which can make monitoring how much data consumed hard, to avoid any nasty shocks when the bill comes.

Of course, smart phones are incredibly handy for all kinds of things these days, with email, calender, navigation, web, media playback just for starters, but respect that not all people will be associated with the problems above, I have decided I myself would rather just do these things on a regular computer at home.

Dec 11 2011

Return to Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves?

Firstly, don’t know if this has much relevance in Nazareth culture today, be in Islamic or Christian, but it made me smile anyway;

Ok, I am in wrong side of the country, as Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem with palm fronds, although this looks like just a driveway into the side of someone’s shop.

As you can see, this house or business has palm trees put up in an arch over the drive way!

John 12:12-18
On the next day the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13 took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet Him, and began to shout, “Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, even the King of Israel.” 14 Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written, 15 “FEAR NOT, DAUGHTER OF ZION; BEHOLD, YOUR KING IS COMING, SEATED ON A DONKEY’S COLT.” 16 These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him. 17 So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him. 18 For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign.

This act of Jesus and the people celebrating with the branches was a direct prophecy of this from the OT:-

Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Wonder if anyone could zoom in and translate the Arabic in the picture for me please? 🙂

Ok, maybe my imagination is probably working over time, but its interesting to see through the obvious and imagine what life was like, heck, I got to see an unusually large number of carpentry shops on my first visitto Nazareth!

1. The Fauzi Azar – 2. The uglier sides of Nazareth – 3. Welcoming the king with palm leaves? – 4. Looking for the Jesus village – 5. The replica village of Jesus – 6. Today’s Nazarenes

Nov 25 2011

Cloud seems to complete shroud over the whole of the city of Jerusalem

We have had a lot of rain lately which has been great, in fact more rain in one week then I have ever seen before.

This is a bizarre sight I see sometimes, there is a cluster of clouds above right over Jerusalem, and its as if the clouds stop right on the outskirts of the city.

Today, this is what I saw out of my kitchen window.

On the way to work I was riding past the King David Citadel hotel and looking east towards the old city, and the mount of Olives, I saw again, the edge of cloud seems roughly parallel with the edge of Jerusalem.

At the risk of sounding overly romantic or like a New Age-esque thing, seeing clouds above the city is something I have seen quite often here: https://britinjerusalem.com/2011/05/23/glow-of-light-in-valley-in-jerusalem-during-day-of-rage/

Before it came a catch phrase in IT I quite like looking at clouds on a flight, especially when you hovering just above what seems to be a field of clouds.

Anyway it gave me a nice start to the day when I was waiting for my tea to boil. 🙂


Nov 17 2011

Fix problems with Googlemail, calender, Chrome and Hebrew in Israel

When using Google’s mail and calender services in Israel, sometimes a few slightly odd things happen.

When using Gmail, the login screen changes to Hebrew without warning.   I think this mainly happens when using Chrome.   Quite a few people I know have switched from Firefox to Chrome, I haven’t done so because of this.    Its mainly a problem for travelers to Israel with a  laptop, and the browser finds your IP address is in Israel and pre-empts that you need Hebrew, which of course for people who don’t speak or aren’t very skilled in Hebrew this can be a problem trying to get it back to English!    Also, as an IT system admin in the holyland I use the business version of Gmail (no complex nightmares of Exchange for me!)   this happens when I create new email accounts for new members of staff, even though the Google control panel is configured for English.

Thus here above is a way to fix this if this happens to you.   Of course, the icon layout is reversed, if you find your language changed to Arabic instead or some other language, you can probably ‘guess’ where the options to change the language is based on this:

Also, I have also had a case when using Google maps, I see Israel with no place names at all, but all the surrounding cities (Damascus, Beirut, Amman, etc) labeled in Arabic?   I guess the maps are rendered according to preferred methods of a particular political viewpoint but sometimes it comes out wrong!   Google has a big R&D facility in Tel Aviv and Haifa and I think their headquarters for the Arab market are in Dubai.  Hope Google can fix these problems 🙂

Nov 7 2011

Motorcycle club rides solidarity with Israel

I went over to the Kotel (Western Wall) after meeting up with some friends to practice Hebrew in a coffee shop and before heading to church on Sunday afternoon.

When going down some steps about to enter through a security gate through the south-west corner of the Kotel Plaza, I got a glimpse of this:-

Thats a lot of luxury model motorcycles mostly Harley Davidsons and Honda Goldwings, gleaming with chrome, leather and special paint jobs.

These men were doing a private prayer by the fence in front of the wall.   I couldn’t resist chatting to them, turns out a few of them were Israeli bikers but most were on holiday from the US, some were Jews and most were Christians, but all of them had come to show support for Israel and the Jewish people and were here on a road trip and had their precious bikes shipped over here.

A lot of them had these special printed leather jackets for the event, and patches, tattoos as well as beards in size rivalling the Orthodox Jews there.

This was a welcome change to see folk in their closeknit motorcycle club showing support for Israel as opposed to daft protesters in silly million dollar yachts off the coast of Gaza, who had gone from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and were riding to the Dead Sea the next day which sounds great fun considering the breathtaking views of the desert when you head down there.

This was a great surprise to see at the Kotel, and it also made today’s Jerusalem Post too.  I know the Israeli government have been trying to branch out to niche tourism, ie: health conscious people going the the Dead Sea, so maybe they could market the holy land to more bikers too.    A ride all the way down the Negev desert with a beer waiting on a beach side bar on the Red Sea resort of Eilat sounds good to me!   For the time being I have to make do with my push bike which I ride over about four different sets of hills 6km every day to work!

 

 

Nov 5 2011

Things that are different in UK after living in Israel

When I go back to the UK to see family and friends, there is a sense of reverse culture shock, I see quite a few shops and restaurants that have closed, opened or moved around my city, I think about 5 different friends have announced to me that they are having babies in the next year, and people I know that have moved to other towns.

Here is a humorous list of differences in the UK compared to life in Israel:-

  • Supermarkets only sell one type of Humous
  • Supermarkets don’t have Russian beers
  • People have less than 20 types of spices in their kitchen
  • British Arab and Muslim people are more likely to say ‘Alright Mate?’  when chatting to each other in the street rather than ‘Yalla Habibi?’
  • There are almost no 1990s cars in UK any more
  • Cars don’t usually have more than 6 dents in the bodywork
  • When you are out walking on a very hot day you don’t actually lose a whole pint of sweat in an hour
  • Bus drivers let you sit down before driving off 😉
  • Bus drivers don’t count cash/issue tickets/check their phones/change paper roll/talk to the chap sat behind them whilst driving
  • But buses and trains cost 3 times as much
  • Taxi drivers don’t try to rip off foreign people by saying the meter is “broken” or give a “special price”
  • Shops are open friday and often all year round
  • Post office costs 3 times as much
  • British motorists use their windscreen wiper switches more than their horn buttons
  • People only wear Crocs as indoor shoes
  • Light switches and electrical fittings are actually fixed to the walls with screws and don’t fall off
  • If you eat in an restaurant with outdoor seating, you don’t get 10-15 stray cats sitting there watching you for dropped food
  • People don’t get excited when it rains.  The exact opposite.