England- The Green and Pleasant Land

In just over a months time, I will be setting off on my travels again. I arrived back in England at the end of April 2010. I made a promise to myself that I would be gone again in under a year. Unless I fall off a cliff or get kidnapped by Al Qaeda between now and Feburary 14th, I will have fulfilled my self-given promise. I am excited, just as excited as I was when I left for Israel. But there is a difference this time.

When I left last time, I couldn't wait to leave England. I hated this place and seriously wanted nothing to do with it. But since coming home, I realised it's wasn't England I hated, it was my lifestyle. I was tired of staying in the same old town, working at the same old place, meeting the same old faces, same old everything. Some people like the security of this sameness, that's fair enough. It's not my cup of tea though.

So this time round, I'm actually really going to miss England and am a bit sad to be leaving her. But they way I look at it is, there's a big chance I will end up marrying England. But right now I have to go out there and play the field a bit before I make such a commitment! What is it I love about her? There's too much to list if I'm honest with you. Perhaps everything I miss will not be so unique to England, but at present I am none the wiser. I have learnt that England (and Britain as a whole) culturally shares quite a few things with nations such as Australia and New Zealand which now appears quite obvious why.

There are many people from outside the UK who read this blog. So let me clear something up before I continue. 'United Kingdom' and 'England' are two different things. The United Kingdom is the name for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all together. I am speaking about ENGLAND, because I am ENGLISH and live in ENGLAND. I can not speak on behalf of the other British nations. It is a complicated issue, which is debated constantly and I would only confuse you if I said any more on the matter. So let me continue with why I love ENGLAND. I am going to list what I love and also give a tourist board approach to my foreign readers who don't know much about England other than what they see on TV. This is a travel blog, read by people from all over the world. England is part of this world, so I see fit to inform you about some of it.

Food- If you come to England, you should try out traditional English food. I shan't go into detail about each one. But you can google image them, trust me, our food is amazing. Full English breakfast, Fish and Chips, Sunday roast dinner (my favourite), Sheperd's Pie, Marmite, Cornish Pasty's, Pork pies, Sausage rolls, Steak and ale pie, Lancashire hot pot and many more. We also have some of the best biscuits and cakes in the world to accompany our cup of tea ;)

Tabloid Newspapers- For those of you with an IQ of anything over 10, you will hate these. But if you have a minor case of retardation, like me, you will love them. Their 'newspapers' which basically tell you rubbish news that really isn't important. Like a man who got his penis caught in a car exhaust pipe, or something along those lines. Our biggest selling newspaper is 'The Sun'. This paper has a 'Page 3 Model' which is a rather attractive lady showing us all her breasts. To me this is normal, but foreigners are either amazed or disgusted when they see this. Usually the primary is a male and the latter a female!

Music- I don't even think I need to go into how much music we have exported to the world. But for those of you who are interested in listening to more English music, I will list some of my favourites: Oasis, The Clash, Madness, The Beatles, Prodigy, Kaiser Chiefs, Iron Maiden, Kano, Dizzee Rascal, Muse, Queen, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Artic Monkeys and a lot more. England is also the proud inventor of jungle, 'drum and bass' and dubstep. Not for the light hearted.  After America, England definitely contributes the most music worldwide.

Comedies- I can't stress enough how much you should all watch English comedies. Every foreign friend I have introduced to English comedies has not been let down. They have a completely different approach to American comedies. I am a big fan of American comedies, but ours are a different style. In America, the main focus is to laugh at what is being said. In England, our main focus is to laugh AT the character. I mean in a way that someone is doing something really embarrassing and you just laugh at them thinking "Oh my God, what a dickhead". It is sometimes so embarrassing that it is hard to watch. We call this "cringing". I can't do them any justice by trying to describe them. If you have torrents, then download one of the following: The Office (UK version, the original), Alan Partridge, The Peep Show or the hottest comedy right now: Inbetweeners.

Inbetweeners has been such a hit that it is broadcast worldwide, keep your eyes out for it because it might not be on your 'main' channels. I know it is definitely in Australia, Canada, Sweden, Israel. It's about four teenage lads at school and will bring back a lot of memories from school. Everybody will be able to relate at least one character to somebody they know/knew in real life. There is Simon, the geek, Jay, who lies 24/7, Neil, who's so stupid it's hilarious and Simon who is having trouble with the ladies. America want to make their own version of it (typical). You can actually find the episodes on Youtube. Here's a trailer for it:

Rich history- England's got a really interesting history. The whole United Kingdom has interesting history. So if you're into sightseeing, England will not disappoint. Most people just think Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Stone Henge are all we have to offer. These places are nothing compared to many other historic places in England. If you're a history geek like me, then look up the history of the British Isles, you will be entertained for hours. We have battles and interesting characters coming out of our ears. From the Roman Empire, to the Battle of the Roses, from the English Civil War to how we forced the rest of the island to make the 'United Kingdom'. 

Drinking- This isn't a uniquely English thing. But it is part of the English culture never the less to get 'plastered', 'legless', 'hammered', 'wankered', 'messy' and 'drunk' (that is an English word after all ;) ). Drinking is a massive part of English culture and always has been. Back in the Battle of Hastings, the French Normans prayed to God the night before their battle. The Anglo-Saxons decided to get drunk instead. Probably why they lost! Drinking out of a pint glass is the best way and I think the whole world should adopt it!

Beautiful scenery- A lot of people make the mistake of only visiting London when they come to England. London is a great city to visit. But there is so much more to England. If you want nice scenery, I highly recommend going to the North of England where you have the Yorkshire Moors, Peak District and the Lake District. The South-West of England is popular in the summertime for holidaymakers. The west coast of England is truly stunning and is where I currently live right now. Here are some pictures I took:

English Radio- We have a radio station for young people called BBC Radio 1. The music is your general mainstream pop music. But that's not why most people listen to it. The reason we listen to it is because it's hilarious. The DJ's spend most their time talking instead of playing music. Their usually cracking jokes, prank calling people etc. I didn't know this was unique (in Europe anyway) until my foreign friends said they were loving the English radio because it's so funny where as their's is just boring people playing song after song.

Sense of humour- The English love to 'take the piss'. This doesn't mean stealing urine from somebody. 'Taking the piss' or 'taking the Micky' is when you make a joke about somebody. I know many nations like to do this, but in all honesty, I think the English are the best at this. An Englishman will have a comeback ready before you have even finished your sentence. I love it. It's not everybodys cup of tea as they see it as harsh and bullying. But you shouldn't take it to heart, if someone 'takes the piss out of you' then you just have to give it back as good as you get. I know this is not just an English thing, as I have many foreign mates I can have some decent banter with. But only a handful of them were willing to go as dark and brutal as an Englishman does in his sense of humour. Remember, don't take it personally. We also love to play on words and be a bunch of sarcastic bastards. The Inbetweeners clip above presents all this quite well. 

Sport- Football is England's most popular sport. Yes Football, not 'Soccer'. Anyone who wants to call it 'soccer' needs to be hung, drawn and quartered. Football is the most popular sport in England. I'm sure all football fans reading this won't need to be told about the Premier League as it is the most popular league in the world (along with La Liga). I seriously could not imagine my life without football, I know it would be very dull for one thing! England is the proud inventor of the most popular sport in the world. England is also responsible for rugby, cricket, darts, lawn tennis, badminton to name a few. England invented modern day hockey which then bred ice hockey. American 'Football' derives from rugby. Baseball was introduced to America by English immigrants. Wikipedia all this if you think I am wrong. So basically, every sport you know and love, you have England to thank.

That will do for now. I will comment more on England in future blogs. It is an amazing country, which is yet to let down anyone I know who has visited. We may be lacking in hot weather, but our abundance in culture, history and landmarks more than makes up for that.

ישראל (Israel)- Pt IV: Apple packing, Alaska Vodka and Christmas in Israel

Kibbutz life is THE life. It's just so easy. My average day on the kibbutz would be:

-Wake up at 6 (later if I was hungover)
-Head over to the apple factory (about a 2 minute walk)
-Work until 4pm
-Go to the shop buy booze and fags
-Get wasted
-Wake up at 6 and do it all again

Apple packing was pretty mind numbing, as you could imagine. You had to stand there all day and pack apples into boxes that came out on a conveyor belt. It didn't exactly make you burst with a sense of self-achievement. But luckily I have the brain of a squirrel, so I didn't find it hard to just switch my mind off and crack on with it. You could work with somebody else if you wanted to, so you could work and natter away like two old women. This was okay, but it could also make such a dull job even duller if you got stuck with somebody you didn't particularly want to talk to. One person sticks in my head the most; Ora.

Ora was an Ethiopian Jew who lived and worked on the kibbutz and boy did she know how to talk. The problem was though, this girl is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, she was completely doollaly! She asked the same questions EVERYTIME. And when you answered the question, she would ask you again two minutes later the EXACT same question. There was definitely a few screws loose in that head. Here's a conversation that actually happened:
Ora- "Sam, how you say 'one' in your language?"
Me (slightly confused)- "er...one(?)"
Ora- "How you say "two"?"
Me- "Two"
Ora- "Ah like English!"
Me (me completely spun out)- "What? Of course. I speak English, I am from England we speak English in England"
Ora- "No, you lie. English from America"
Me (getting pretty pissed)- "English from Amer- seriously?! Think about it; ENGland-ENGlish"

She wasn't having any of it. So I just left it at that and let the special needs child believe English comes from America. Just like Spanish comes from China and Russian comes from Uganda. I would tried my best to avoid her, but she always managed to hunt me down.

We got a decent amount of breaks. Two forty minute breaks and a 15 minute tea break in-between. For breakfast and lunch we would all go to the dining hall. As I told you in previous blogs, a kibbutz is based on communism, it's all about sharing. So everyone has the chance to eat in the communal dining room where there is as much food as you want. You get sick of it after a while, because a lot of it is the same. But looking back, it was awesome really. Because you didn't have to cook any of it and could eat and drink as much as you like. You never go hungry on a kibbutz.

Israeli's like to eat a lot of salad for breakfast. Not my ideal meal to start the day, maybe this has something to do with coming from a country where our national breakfast is fried egg, bacon, sausages, baked beans etc. I suppose it's a very good thing to start your day on rabbit food. But I usually just got two pieces of toast and put a mountain of scrambled egg on top and drowned it in Tommy K, God bless the Queen. No matter where you come from and how good a time you are having abroad. You will miss the cuisine of your motherland. I would of done some regrettable things for a sausage roll or a Sunday roast dinner.

Contrary to what most people think, I actually ate pork during my time in Bar'am. The majority of Jews on the kibbutz were far from religious and may I say, the pork was some of the best I've ever had. I believe they are farmed by Arab Christians. I imagine there's not a massive demand for pork in a region dominated by Jews and Muslims; so the farmers can take their time in raising the pig. Thus some top notch pork for everyone. I never got a pork pie or a bag of pork scratchings though much to my dismay. I did get a pig leg on Christmas day though (yes A LEG). The kibbutz members (people who live there permanently) were kind enough to cook the volunteers a WHOLE pig for Christmas. It was delicious. Here's a picture of me and the pig limb:

I celebrated Christmas, New Years Eve AND my birthday in Bar'am. I wish I could remember more about them. My birthday was about ten days after the day I first arrived at the kibbutz. Within these ten days I had well established myself as one of the local piss-heads. Thus my friends came up with the idea of 'Power Hour' on my birthday. For those that don't know, this is when you take a shot of beer every minute for one hour. Sounds simple enough. Beers not that strong after all. Wrong. Because when you do this, it works out that your drinking one can every ten minutes.

We all gathered in the party room. There was about eight or nine of us taking part. People were coming in and out to  I was doing pretty well. But after about 40 minutes I started to feel really bloated. I had so much gas in me that one burp could supply the plants of the rainforest with carbon dioxide for a decade. At the 54th minute someone pulled out. Why pull out this late?! There's literally six more shots to go. Two shots later this gas was getting too much and I really needed to unleash this bad boy. I got a lot more than I bargained for. I yacked up everywhere, proper projectile vomit just shout out in a straight line with the speed of a thousand locomotive trains. Bollocks. Everyone was in fits of laughter, tears of joy were gushing out of their eyes...except for one person. It turned out a civilian had got caught in the crossfire. I looked across the room and there was a Swedish girl who did not look impressed AT ALL. Funnily enough she didn't stick around.

I wish I could tell you what happened after that. I remember waltzing around volunteers with my shirt off saying 

"Fuck it, it's my birthday, I can do what I want"

I still stand by that statement. After this we all headed to the pub and that's all I remember. My birthday wasn't anything special though, it was equally special with every party and pub night during my first months in Bar'am. I got such bad blackouts from what happened though. I was a barman in England for over two years and my boss was quite laid back with us drinking on the job. So I was pretty experienced when it came to being wasted. But I have never been as drunk as I was at the kibbutz. Maybe it was the environment, maybe it was the mountain air or maybe it was the straight, cheap vodka I was drinking. I really don't know.

When Alex was there, he would make it his mission to get everybody drunk. Our only way of getting spirits was hitch hiking to the nearest village; which was an Arab village called Jish. There really wasn't much going on here, but it was the closest place with an ATM and cheap spirits. Our main tipple on the vodka front was some vodka called 'Alaska'. Just the thought of it now honestly makes me gag, you will find out why another day. It's 25 shekels for a litre, which is about a fiver in UK currency. We would buy a couple of bottles of these and a few cases of a lager called 'Dos Equis' which means something like 'Two X'. I can't remember the exact price of these, but they weren't too expensive. Especially as we would all chip in, but even if we didn't though, Alex would buy it anyway and sort everyone out. He actually went through all the effort to make punch in a big cool box for everybody and then drank beer himself because he doesn't even like punch. Either he's a date rapist or a very generous man, I like to think the latter!

After my birthday the next party that stands out in my mind the most is Christmas. Because people from Europe (the UK is NOT Europe in my eyes) are retarded, they celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December. After a vote and all that, Raviv (leader of the volunteers) decided we would celebrate Christmas on the 24th. They proper sorted us out. We had a massive feast and alcohol free of charge. Me and Alex were working on the bar for this day. I remember getting to about 3am and losing the ability to speak. So I just stopped working completely and got an English girl to take my place. Such a messy night, I can't remember what time I went to bed, but I had to be awake at something stupid like 7am for the trip Raviv was taking us on. 

This was another great thing about this particular kibbutz, they would arrange trips for us all, completely free of charge. On the REAL Christmas day (25th), we all went paintballing in the Golan Heights, which we was absolutely dreading still feeling half pissed/ half dead. To be fair the paintballing completely took my mind off being hungover. I can't remember which team won, I do remember scarring my Aussie mate though. Amongst all the paint and carnage that is paintballing, I saw a lone ranger charging towards us in slow motion. There really should of been the 'Where Eagles Dare' theme tune playing at this moment. There's a thin line between bravery and stupidity, which was he exactly? Well i'll let you be the judge of that when he ended up on the floor directly to my right shouting

"ARGH! FUCK OFF!!! STOP SHOOTING I'M DOWN!!! "

About three people shot him, but my shots had somehow managed to cut him and scar him. How exactly a paintball done that I don't know. But the vision of that whining convict begging for mercy really made me feel like a prison guard at Botany Bay. It was awesome.

After the adrenaline rush of paintballing wore off, I remembered just how hungover I was. It was absolutely hideous. Yet the trip had only just begun, after this we set off for a trip to some natural hot springs. As much it smelt of eggs, it was quality. Natural hot springs are just what you need for a hangover, it felt so therapeutic, so therapeutic that I had to use a word I hate SO much to describe it as therapeutic (aarrrgh! Enough of that word). The only thing that put me off was all the fat, hairy Arabs I was swimming with. I have quite a hairy chest, but at least that's where it stops. Arab men have my chest hair all over their body, if they all shaved off their body hair and put it together they could make enough duvets for orphans all over the world. 

They also bought us all a meal at a Thai restaurant which was very nice. One of my biggest regrets was that I missed out on TWO kibbutz trips because I was so wasted and didn't wake up. This is probably because at this stage I was always the last man standing every pub night. True story. But I was to lose this title to 'The Colombians' some months later. You will hear about them another time, these lads deserve a whole web page to themselves. On that note. I'm done for today. Thanks again :)