Beautiful insanity of the Holy Land

It’s not surprising that I don’t get much writing or overall online presence done when I’m on “vacation”, believe me I tried!

But the times I was wiped out from this countries intensity, or that time I burned myself in the sun and had to lay inside for a few hours, I still could not manage to write anything. Perhaps it was my friends’ constant reminder of “don’t do anything, relax, be lazy!”, or my body just finally understood that some mindless tahini-eating and staring from the hammock is good for it sometimes.


At the moment I am in Russia, in Tver, visiting my relatives. Because not much is happening here, (and also the weather is shit) I’ll take this time to eat my grandmother’s pancakes and update on my travels in Israel Instead!
As I’m writing this I already realize how much easier it is to get into the flow of writing, without the temptation of fire-spinning meetings, sunbathing on the beach, or ice coffee at Shay’s place.

I wanted so badly to update every other day, because each day was just packed with LIFE!!
But now I’ll just mention the highlights, otherwise the writing won’t be as interesting. Also, I’ll skip the small stuff in-between the fun stuff.
To start things off, I’d like to say – I have more friends in Tel-Aviv now after two weeks, then after 5 years in Stockholm.
Of course in Sweden’s capital I know a few hundred people, great amazing ones that I can hang out with and do cool stuff! But here stuff happens much quicker, easier, people say yes to life, visit and help each other much more, and I feel a closer relationship with these loud, late, honest people than with most of my colleagues and friends in Scandinavia.
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Here is yonathans page

​So why did I go to Israel in the first place?!
You know how you travel, meet new people and always say “oh yeah I’ll totally come visit!”
Well I figured what the hell, and decided to actually come visit Yonathan Russak; check out his page, he is a frikkin’ amazing photographer, one of the best I had the honor to work with!
Click the button above!
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And why not – most of the Israelis I’ve met were loud, creative, unified (even for new people in the group) and just great people!
So as soon as I come to Tel-Aviv, good stuff starts happening all around!
First day I got there, I shared a cab with a German guy, whom I and Yonathan ended up meeting later that day for a drink. One can just bring their own beers to a restaurant in Tel-Aviv, nobody gives a flying frick!

We walked around town, had dinner, met some awesome Americans and had random conversations, and went on to visit the other two Israelis I had wanted to meet. There I met one of the guys girlfriends, Ebony from Australia who was crazy happy to discover I didn’t speak Hebrew – finally she had someone to talk to! She’d been there for a month and they do have a tendency to speak Hebrew most of the time.

We met up to go to the market the next day, to buy some fresh fruits and veggies (Yonathans fridge was almost completely empty…)
After many compliments to both of us from the salesmen (very rare in Sweden, haha), and one old man who didn’t speak English just stuffed our bags with eggplant and cabbage saying “no money, no money” and shoving us away, we arrived at the end of our hungry shopping spree, I just needed garlic.
The man selling them was shouting quite loud and couldn’t hear my request (everyone told me to “be Israeli” and just tell people what I want, cut in line, etc), so I shouted at him.
An older lady beside me looked at me with plate-sized eyes, and outburst “don’t scream! You are beautiful, he is wild! You’re not supposed to scream!”
… thank you for the life advice, hahahah.
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ISRAEL FACT – Tel-Aviv is considered “the gay capital of the world” – there were almost as many pride flags hung up on walls, balconies and poles as there were Israeli flags. And there were A LOT!

After that we went home to eat, got really drunk and took her bike to the beach – me driving it, and her sitting on the saddle trying to contain all her excitement. Girl, I love you!
We spent the best day at the beach, went home to eat tahini and veggies, totally wiped out.

The next day we went to explore the old city of Jaffa, eat hummus, and then the beach again.
Leaving the beach, I was walking by a patch of grass and saw a large group of people doing acro yoga.
​After talking a little with one of the guys there I spontaneously joined them; so many strong men and women, they were really good technically!
I got to try new stuff and learned a few new tricks.

See – stuff just happens here!

Next day relaxing a bit at home, walking around town in the afternoon, a man stopped me in the street. He saw my indian shawl and started talking to me about India – how he was from there, what he experienced, what I thought about it… etc. Then he walked me to a restaurant, bought me food and water, and sent me on my way. WHAT?!

An our later I meet a guy on the beach and exchange a henna tattoo for a massage; he was so happy he asked me to marry him. I hope it was a joke… or not. J
Another hour later I met Yonathan, Ebony and some other people to do some fire spinning (without fire, just the props, it’s called “flow arts”, then we went to Shay’s place to chill at his rooftop.

Wait, this is getting way too personal… I don’t think anyone that doesn’t know me would find this interesting.
So from now on -  crazy photos and short descriptions in this post!

Wednsday the 21st I performed at Bascula Circus cabaret, with many other amazing artists! I did my mystical contortion act.

Thursday the 22nd – party in Herzeliya, waterpark rave with the university there, and seeing my friend Rebecca again who moved away to do army service a few years ago, then started studies and hasn’t left Israel since!

Friday 23rd – going to the beach 40 min north of Tel-Aviv, for a flow-arts (fire arts) meeting with a bunch of awesome people from different corners of Israel! They are so talented and amazing, and the spot was beautiful!
The sun burned me a bit though, so other half of Saturday was spent in bed

Saturday 24th – resting from sunburn, then busking in the streets with some awesome fire dance! It took only a couple hours to gather some people, I LOVE how fast one can make stuff happen here!

Sunday was quite a slow day, but after lunch sometime me and Yonathan finally left to the Dead Sea.

More on that in the next post!
Of course the days were much more than these short descriptions and random stuff, I just cannot describe enough how happy I am to have been here, met all these people, and how grateful I am to the beauty of this world!

Love and light <3