Loving Israel...

Today, I visited a church service of an Arabic congregation. It was a really nice experience. People noticed my Mogen David necklace and asked whether I was from Israel. Well, I am not, but I have Jewish roots, that's what I told them.

The truth is, I have expected Christian Arabs to have another attitude towards Israel than the official one of their home countries. But I would never expect what I have seen then. They turned out to love Israel. They said they loved Hebrew, they loved singing songs in Hebrew, though understanding nothing, they said they loved the country while they visited it. And then I needed to be introduced to a Syrian guy, that just adored Israel.

And in a way, I felt sorry for all the prejudices I have had against these people...

Sails

Today, I finally had time to repair our boat. Last Saturday, as we were sailing, we were caught by the rain and have had no possibility to dry the sails and the ropes before disassembling the boat. Hence, I took it up to the flat and tried to dry it in the living room. At the same time, I plugged a tiny hole in the hull and resew some seams in the sails. I hope these repair will make the next trip much more pleasant, though the absence of rain is never guaranteed.

Translating

I have recently tried my translating skills. Besides forgetting some really simple words, I succeed quite well. Now, I am afraid they will ask me to do it again.

PS. I am not Jesus

10000

My old camera slowly ceases to work. I have had it for almost 4 years now. I has survived a lot: Being drown in bear and water and falling on the ground lots of times. But now, its life time comes to an end. Shortly after making its 10000th picture, the camera stopped focusing while zooming. Returning from Prague, I noticed many of the pictures I made were insufficiently sharp. Its a pity: Some of this photos may have been very good. On the other hand, I now must buy a new better camera, which is good. And who knows, maybe I will need to return to Czech Republic very soon in order to remake the pictures. That's even better...

Prague

Prague turned out to be a really nice city. My first visit to the Czech Republic may become one of my best experiences of the year. But now I am back home: Full of impressions, but obliged to get back to normal life again as soon as possible...

Away

I am off for Prague, having extremely nice time. Will be back next week. It turned out, however, there is civilization and internet in the Czech Republic as well. At least I have a very strong feeling that of being online at the moment... If you can read this post, and you are not me, then I was right %))

Whatever

Usually, I go to the office by bike. It is not far. Takes me about 10 minutes to get there. But today was different. Today, I took the car. My official explanation to such an unusual behavior is simple: Every third Thursday of the month, parking is prohibited on our home street. The car needs to get removed, so why not park it at the office for the day?

Well, that's what I did. And it was really nice. Getting to work without any particular effort: Relaxed, dry, air conditioned... I can't help thinking that's the way you get spoiled, lazy and fat...

It is not that I am complaining. In contrary, I am quite happy about it. Against all the odds, the Swedish summer turn out warm. Apart from sweating in the office, I am trying to use this fact as much as I can. As spending the weekend at the cliffy sea shore.

Breakability

The bike I am currently using turned out to be highly breakable. During the first weeks, it needed repairing and adjusting almost every day. As the first major breakdown, one of the jockey wheels cracked. As a consequence, the chain got stuck and pulled the derailleur out of its place. While replacing it, I needed to break the chain. Since then, the gears worked, but the chain started to fall apart. I struggled a lot to make it work, I even removed one of the links. Finally, the chain got firm enough. But on the very next day, the chain guard could not stand the pressure. Last week, even this part got replaced.

At that point, I did not have much expectation on this bike anymore. But it did surprise me. Since then, I have rode over 50 km without breaking anything else. It seems like every breakable part has already been replaced. Well, that's not really true. The bike does not break down anymore, but neither does it brake. The pads are completely worn out. I hope that's gonna be the last problem...