Trip report: Israel 1/3
Sep. 24th, 2011 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izardAny travel to Israel starts and ends with airport security. After reading several scary stories, I was surprised how fast and easy the screening process was for us.
There were just two things that we were surprised about.
1. There was an armored vehicle with a machine gun on top near El Al airplane right on the airfield in MUC.
When boarding was complete and engines started, I expected it to stay, but it was accompanying the aircraft until take-off! (It decided not to fly with us) Same on the way back.
2. There is a special terminal in MUC one have to use to fly to/from Israel! Officially it is part of a terminal 1, but it is a separate building located quite far from both terminals. It takes a while to get there following signs. There is a shortcut somewhere but we did not look for it.
"Extra security measures" were in fact 5 minutes chats with security officers. Both times they were young, nice and polite. Besides obvious questions regarding our baggage they were interested in our itinerary. I had an impression that on the way back they checked if the answer to a question "what places have you visited" matches with an answer to "what do you plan to visit".
While in the country, we did not see a lot of security measures - just bag checks to get to a supermarket (like in Istanbul), and plenty of young soldiers off duty, some with guns but w/o magazines.
The scene is typical everywhere, this one was taken in western Jerusalem. Yulia noted that the women's uniform fits all soldier girls we've seen very nicely.
Most of Israel military presence we've seen was when we were driving from Eilat to Tel Aviv through Negev desert.
There are plenty of signs of tank driver exercising, but we did not see any Merkavas
This one is just a monument.
We booked a car to get around the country. Local driving style made our worst experience in Israel. Nearly everyone do not indicate turns, roundabout exits and changing lanes. Zip merge is not used. Road lanes markings are good but often ignored. People often use horn in normal situations e.g. when I did not ram a lady crossing a road on a zebra crossing and green light for both of us, drivers behind me used a horn.
Driving is a cooperative action, and e.g. always using zip merge and indicating turns lets everyone drive faster. When few people ignore these simple rules, they get some timing advantage, and everyone else gets a small time penalty. When most drivers ignore the rules everyone gets penalty, but those with best driving skills are a bit better off. That is how Israeli roads work. However I must admit there is no complete chaos and constant horn beeps on the streets like in Damascus or Cairo, and there are no "macho driving contests" like in some big Russian cities.
According to Avis we drove 1300km. About 70% of time Yulia was a driver and the rest 30% are mine. We have not seen any accidents, but plenty of slightly damaged cars in Arab parts of cities we drove through.
One thing I was surprised about was plenty of cotton fields we've seen in country side. I reckon cotton is very labor intensive culture to grow, and the need for workers is seasonal. Picking cotton should be hard, I wonder who works there?
Also it was quite unusual to understand (and experience!) that every 6th person around likely understands and speaks Russian. There is no shortage of Russian speaking population here in Germany too, but it feels like an funny lottery in Israel.
Most of our pics from Israel are in a picasa album
There were just two things that we were surprised about.
1. There was an armored vehicle with a machine gun on top near El Al airplane right on the airfield in MUC.
When boarding was complete and engines started, I expected it to stay, but it was accompanying the aircraft until take-off! (It decided not to fly with us) Same on the way back.
2. There is a special terminal in MUC one have to use to fly to/from Israel! Officially it is part of a terminal 1, but it is a separate building located quite far from both terminals. It takes a while to get there following signs. There is a shortcut somewhere but we did not look for it.
"Extra security measures" were in fact 5 minutes chats with security officers. Both times they were young, nice and polite. Besides obvious questions regarding our baggage they were interested in our itinerary. I had an impression that on the way back they checked if the answer to a question "what places have you visited" matches with an answer to "what do you plan to visit".
While in the country, we did not see a lot of security measures - just bag checks to get to a supermarket (like in Istanbul), and plenty of young soldiers off duty, some with guns but w/o magazines.
The scene is typical everywhere, this one was taken in western Jerusalem. Yulia noted that the women's uniform fits all soldier girls we've seen very nicely.
Most of Israel military presence we've seen was when we were driving from Eilat to Tel Aviv through Negev desert.
There are plenty of signs of tank driver exercising, but we did not see any Merkavas
This one is just a monument.
We booked a car to get around the country. Local driving style made our worst experience in Israel. Nearly everyone do not indicate turns, roundabout exits and changing lanes. Zip merge is not used. Road lanes markings are good but often ignored. People often use horn in normal situations e.g. when I did not ram a lady crossing a road on a zebra crossing and green light for both of us, drivers behind me used a horn.
Driving is a cooperative action, and e.g. always using zip merge and indicating turns lets everyone drive faster. When few people ignore these simple rules, they get some timing advantage, and everyone else gets a small time penalty. When most drivers ignore the rules everyone gets penalty, but those with best driving skills are a bit better off. That is how Israeli roads work. However I must admit there is no complete chaos and constant horn beeps on the streets like in Damascus or Cairo, and there are no "macho driving contests" like in some big Russian cities.
According to Avis we drove 1300km. About 70% of time Yulia was a driver and the rest 30% are mine. We have not seen any accidents, but plenty of slightly damaged cars in Arab parts of cities we drove through.
One thing I was surprised about was plenty of cotton fields we've seen in country side. I reckon cotton is very labor intensive culture to grow, and the need for workers is seasonal. Picking cotton should be hard, I wonder who works there?
Also it was quite unusual to understand (and experience!) that every 6th person around likely understands and speaks Russian. There is no shortage of Russian speaking population here in Germany too, but it feels like an funny lottery in Israel.
Most of our pics from Israel are in a picasa album
