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Diana Kot's travel journal. Some pictures www.instagram.com/catidiana Articles www.facebook.com/catidiana Videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHI8QPW7XQDwz4hwN2B7z-A
1000 days of war.
I am spending this winter in Lviv because of the surgery. I plan to be here until January 11 and I am already anticipating the hardness of life.
I have not seen winter for the last couple of years. After the evacuation from Ukraine in 2022. My winter of 2022-23 was spent in the south of Turkey. 2023-24 was spent in Spain. I do not have winter clothes, but fortunately we have a lot of second-hand stores, and here I am in a sweater for a dollar and jeans for 3 dollars.
In general, the situation in Lviv is, of course, the easiest in the country. We rarely have alarms and missiles rarely reach us. In recent days, the electricity has been cut off for 2-3 hours. This is bearable, but I have electric heating and by the end of the shutdown it gets cold. I don’t want to leave the house, but after the operation I am not very active anyway.
Today I went to a cafe. The electricity was cut off in the cafe. 5 seconds and the power supply system of this business center was switched to electric generators. And there is light again. That's how we live.
My dearest members of this channel always see the best photos before they appear on Instagram. But there will be others on Instagram as well, so it's time to subscribe :)
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But of course there are good news as well - I arrived to Lviv and I am living in my favorite Austrian house again. This time in the part with the fireplace.
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That is, I had to go through passport control twice in Cyprus and re-register my luggage myself. And everything would have been fine, but the departure of the first flight was delayed by 3 hours. And the hours waiting for departure from Israel dragged on forever. But in the end, I managed to do everything.
Passport control in Cyprus took 1 minute, the same amount of time to get my luggage. There was no queue at the check-in counter, at the luggage inspection they rushed everyone and didn't seem to pay much attention. Cyprus, I haven't seen you yet, but I like you already:)
And finally I'm in Warsaw.
Would I recommend you to visit Israel? Absolutely not. My entire trip was spent in the mood of "I know a more beautiful/bigger/cheaper/cleaner place in Turkey". Plus the terrible attitude towards the slavic girls from the local population, starting from interrogation with threats upon arrival, ending with digging in underwear upon departure.
So, my direct flight to Poland was cancelled and European airlines no longer fly to Israel. I had to rebook another flight, but more on that later. For now, I am incredibly happy to be leaving Israel.
By the way, now I can’t visit Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran and some other Arabic countries. But how will they know? Israel doesn’t put stamps in your passport. Instead, they give you this green piece of paper that you can’t lose. At the exit, they gave me a red piece of paper and took it right away. They kept this green one as a souvenir. I don’t know what that means.
And it wasn’t without the standard humiliation at the airport. They asked me personal questions again, after which they sent me for additional inspection, where all my things from my hand luggage were taken out and carefully searched.
Visited today a museum of Modern Art in Tel Aviv. Until the very end I thought that "Protected Space" was the name of some exhibition.
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Hiding from a ballistic missile from Yemen in a mamad, an Israeli apartment-type bomb shelter.
I don't know why I thought it would be fun to buy the kids a rocket-shaped night light.
I continue to explore the upside-down world of Israel. Today I learned how classes are numbered at school. So, if your child is in class "3a", it means that he/she is in their first year at school. That is, the seniority of the class is indicated by a letter. "a" - first-year pupils, "b" - second-year pupils, and so on. And the number is already the division into groups within one year of study.
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Tonight we are testing the viral red-light mask.
Or should I call this photo "how your woman looks like when you don't see her ".
In Israel, the weekend is different from what we are used to - here it is on Friday and Saturday, the new work week begins on Sunday. This is, of course, connected with Shabbat.
Shabbat begins at sunset on Friday and ends at sunset on Saturday. Therefore, many establishments and shops close on Friday at lunchtime and open again only late on Saturday evening. The same applies to public transport. It stops running on Friday at lunchtime and so on until Saturday evening.
So what should you do if you work according to the European calendar? Yes, on Friday evening or Saturday morning you will not be able to go anywhere without a car. Only on foot or hitchhiking. But remember that driving is forbidden on Shabbat so there will be much less cars.
In light of the latest news, please remember to keep in touch with me via:
Instagram (I post quite frequently there): https://www.instagram.com/catidiana/
Facebook (worst social network but still): https://www.facebook.com/catidiana/
LinkedIn (keep up with my struggles with finding a job): https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-kot/
I recently went back to my programming channel: HouseOfCodingCats" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@HouseOfCodingCats
Any ideas where we'll move to when Telegram is closed? Leaky WhatsApp, postcards in Viber? Explore Snapchat or Discord?
I hoped that when I left France I would no longer have problems related to France.
The Ashalim power station is a concentrated solar power station in the Negev desert near the kibbutz of Ashalim, south of the district city of Be'er Sheva in Israel. It consists of three plots with three different technologies through which the station combines 3 kinds of energy: solar thermal energy, photovoltaic energy, and natural gas.
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All in all, stargazing in this camp in the middle of desert was good. Don't forget to do this tomorrow if you didn't have time today, after the moon sets.
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Now on the south of Israel, in Eilat, our location is identified as Cairo, Egypt. We barely managed to find our hotel.
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Autumn is the season when you can't decide what you want more - good coffee or pumpkin latte.
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Sometimes the day is just unbearably bad. That was my day yesterday.
1. My food was stolen at the guesthouse.
2. My train was an hour late.
3. My train neighbor was coughing badly the whole way.
4. I skinned my finger.
5. My phone charger broke.
6. My perfume burst and spilled in my suitcase.
7. Scammers tried to withdraw money from my card at night.
8. I started to feel sick, my lymph nodes are swollen and red.
In general, a very high concentration of unpleasant events. Does it happen to you that your whole day goes wrong? How do you cope?
Last night, two new things happened to me:
1. I visited Cyprus for the first time and
2. I did my first self transfer.
But first things first. My flight to Poland was cancelled and European airlines stopped flying to Tel Aviv. The only option was to fly anywhere with an Israeli airline and then see what happens. Buying tickets on the Israeli airlines website is quite an adventure. One company has a website only in Hebrew. Another has an English version with limited functionality, for example, you can’t buy luggage on the English version. Don’t forget that everything is from right to left. In general, after suffering, I bought a ticket to Cyprus, Paphos, and from there, 7 hours later, Ryanair to Warsaw.
I supposed to fly by Israir Airlines but for some reason I'm in a skyup plane.
Maybe I'm dead and traveling to heaven.
Everything is in English and Ukrainian all over the plane
I am reading the terms of compensation for cancelled flights from Wizz Air.
Compensation is not applicable in case of extraordinary circumstances for cancellation, such as an act of God. Wizz Air: God's will be done.
My flight is canceled.
For my birthday my friend Karolina gave me a wonderful gift - the last part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
For all those interested I have again compiled a list of differences between the book and the film. Although the 7th and 8th films follow the book very closely, this is more of a list of explanations of what was not clear in the film.
And for those who did not like this series of posts - it is over :)
Or maybe you want me to post information from some other books?
In Israel, it is much easier to find a person who speaks Russian than English. This is because there are a lot of immigrants who came to Israel under the repatriation program.
I remember when I was 10 years old, my classmate's family moved to Israel like that. And now a lot of people are moving. Because there are a lot of immigrants from the 00s, their children and new repatriates who are not very eager to learn the language, all sorts of Russian-language services are appearing.
And where would we be without a network of Russian stores. I was walking along the embankment and accidentally came across one. I was attracted by the huge flashing sign like from the early 2000s. The decor inside is appropriate. A very strong smell of sausage and very loud saleswomen with an accent like in Odessa. Buckwheat, condensed milk, all that. And this is not one store, but a large national chain.
Want an interesting swimsuit? Be prepared for an interesting tan.
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For the last few days I have been using public transport in Israel. I really enjoyed it. The best thing is that you can pay for all types of transport throughout the country with one transport card. You can top it up at the machines at the stations or through the app.
There are also no problems with finding your route - at the stations the information is duplicated in 3 languages: Hebrew, Arabic and English. And all the routes and schedules are on Google Maps.
I liked the Tel Aviv metro the most. It is very clean and comfortable. The trains are also good - they are quite clean and also have 2 floors! But there are some questions about the buses. They are dirty and quite tired - probably due to the eastern driving style of local drivers.
Are you tired of working? Is your wife sitting on your neck and your career not bringing you any pleasure? Move to Israel, baby, and become an ultra-conservative Jew.
Some time ago, the ultra-conservative community of Israel decided that this world is mired in sin, and the only way to save it is to read the Torah. And since women reading the Torah does not count, men should give up on everything and read the Torah day and night, while the woman provides for him.
As a result, the standard religious family looks like this:
Man. Dressed in standard religious attire (black suit, hat, sidelocks). He studies the Torah and prays all day long.
Woman. In any long dress that covers the body and a scarf (as an alternative option - a wig on a shaved head). Works and takes care of her husband and 7 children.
Protection in sexual intercourse is prohibited! You need to give birth to as many as possible.
The government pays huge social payments to ultra-conservative Jews. They also have tax breaks, food breaks, and housing breaks. As a result, many religious people with all these breaks buy apartments for all their children.
Also me: Shocked by the receipt at the grocery store. Can't understand why a bag in Israel costs 3 times more than in Italy. Can only dream about buying an apartment here.
Got myself into a lot of trouble tonight. While I was sitting and drinking tea, a cockroach ran into our living room. And they are huge in Israel, the size of a palm. I started running after it with a mop and broke the mop. Taking advantage of the pause, it disappeared into the depths of one of the rooms. I don't know what to do now and where to call - the police about illegal entry to the apartment?
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Better view on the Eye of Sauron. Below is the answer what it is for real.
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I want to share with you my biggest disappointment in Israel. It is total dirt and unsanitary conditions.
Dasha and I rented a hotel room in Eilat for $250 a night. The hotel was incredibly dirty.
In the video I showed you a glamping for $200. Which is also very dirty. And the dirt is not only from poor cleaning, but also from the garbage that people throw around. In the camp public toilet, I had to look through 5 stalls until I found one where a person bothered to flush after himself.
Then there are the restaurants. They can easily bring you a dirty plate. Gloves in fast food restaurants and bars simply do not exist - they will break ice for your drink with their hands and cook falafel with their hands. Yesterday my falafel was dropped while it was cooked and they tried to give it to me as is!
And again, every table after the locals have eaten at it looks like the apocalypse.
Cherry on the cake for people with children. Every winter, children in the kindergarten here get lice. Because the locals save on electricity and stop washing.