David Söderberg
Two times in Israel (part 1)
2023-02-04I see myself as any swedish guy, I dreamed about being a fire fighter or police officer when I was like 4-5 years old, I did not have any sports dream but I did dream about being on stage as a magician instead. I did school and high scool with okay grades and passed university with nothing outstanding.
Got a job during my exam internship and worked for that company 1 year and 7 months (7 months in Stockholm, the rest on distance). Changed to a company more local to me, worked there for almost exatly five years. I have had 2-3 girlfriends and have my own apartment (not renting). My parents are in professions with okay salaries, I have a brother that is in okay distance age wise and he is doing good as well.
When I got the question if I would like to join Novu it feelt like a scam, it was to good to be true. Two guys from Israel have seen my small contribution to their repository and now the liked to hire me with a much better salary and options of doing a lot of traveling and meeting other people from the whole world. After a month of discussions and thinking I decided to trust these guys and signed. About two months later I had a meeting with the person that would help me getting my work computer (at this point it feelt a bit more real...). Third of April I did my first day in Novu and a month later my first salary showed up and now it was real to me. Most of what happend after that you already know about until I came home from Cyprus.
Since Cyprus I have been in Israel two times, before I decided to go my first time my head went crazy about if I should go or not. The picture of Israel is not great to be honest (and not entirely true to be honest). I have always valued my life highly and was scared about the bombing and shooting that have happend and happens in Israel. In the end my thinking was okay I have 8 collegues living in Israel and if they can be in Israel I can be as well.
So with that in mind I booked flight tickets and was going to stay at a Galis apartment with her planing what we should visit and see. So Thursday first of december I did go by train and airplaine to end up in Tel Aviv. My collegue Gali picked me up at the airport and we did go by train to central of Tel Aviv and then took the buss to get to the part where she is living with her boyfriend at the time (this is important for future reading). We had a meal at restaurant with good food and great beer.
Next day we started to plan the dinner for this evening with all collegues and their plus one. I made a mushroom pizza that made a great success in the group, we had a lot of food and fun this night.
The first two days I thought I had sweat a lot but wait it get worse...
Saturday and my first day as a tourist, me, Gali and another collegue traveled by car and visited the deadsea, desert and had pizza at Galis parents house that was the best pizza in very long time.
Now it is Sunday and a working day in Israel so we (me and Gali) had a productive day at work and in the evening another collegue joined us for an happy hour with a lot of alcohol and great discussions. Monday was another working day and most of the day did go to interviews and resting the hang over away 😛
Tuesday and we did go to the old train station of Tel Aviv to have an amazing breakfast, after it we walked at the beach to get a beer. We meet up with another collegue to have hummus as lunch and it was great. We then walked around in this amazing food market and headed of to the old part of Tel Aviv here we had an amazing sweet treat and the old part is just amazing looking. This evening I spent alone in Galis apartment because she and her boyfriend had to go to the venue place of their future wedding (see I told you it was important 😛 ).
Next day we took the train to Jerusalem, we did see the food market of Jersualem where I had my favorite thing wich is Shakshuka, after that we headed to the famous wall and the old city of King David (sorry it is not mine city 😉 ). Here is when I got so sweaty that I thought I had lost all water inside of my body but no. When we asked the guide if we should take the buss back or take another route. They recommended us taking the other route it would be narrow but not more narrow as the route we already had done. Well that was a misstake, because I had to crawl, go in squat position and got very dirty... After that I had my first angy moment in english at the manager of it. After this we decided to go home to Tomer another collegue and had an amazing dinner out with beer and drinks. We took the late buss home and I really needed that night of sleep.
Thursday and I am traveling home today, right before we headed of to the airport we had a beer or two. At the airport I had a hard time to pass the first security check because I was sweating and shaking a bit because of some medicins. After passed that one the rest was easy and I stayed at the hotel in Copenhagen before taking the train back home the day after.
I am honered, moved, lucky and very happy with having such a great collegues in Israel and that I now call my friends. Special thanks to Gali and her boyfriend (see you in Sweden soon) and thanks to the other collegues that made my first trip to Israel an bless.
Okay this post got rather long so I will make a second blog post about my second time in Israel.
