news – gobriantravel

Israel 28,

April 18, 2025,

Hi Everyone,

The sirens went off at 6:40 in Tel Aviv and all over central Israel. I learned my lesson from last time when I was in Eilat, and put on a pair of pants and a fleece before heading out to the shelter. Everyone in the hotel stood in the stairwell for the 10 minutes that the sirens were going off. We learned later that the Houthis had fired a ballis I wandered over to Dizengoff Square for a late dinner last night and am doing the same tonight. On the circle are several restaurants, three of which I frequent often for dinner. Except for a few grandparents who are taking their children and grandchildren for dinner, I am well past the average age here. Great, I love to be with 20-30-40 year olds as it makes me feel young again. I am always shocked when I walk past a mirror and see a reflection of myself with wrinkles and white hair. I skipped grey and went straight from blond to white after my bypass, 12 years and 15 triathlons ago.

Last year and again this year while at the laundromat and waiting for my clothes to wash and dry, I noticed a storefront gym with young people doing shadow kickboxing without actually fighting, accompanied by loud rock music. Everyone seemed to be sweating and enjoy themselves so I decided, why not, maybe I will give it a whirl. With my 3 days of training in krav maga, why not try a new challenge. I spoke to the instructor who invited me to come to a group class this morning.

There were about 8 of us in the group class, mixed men and women, the oldest of whom could not be more than 35. Great, I felt really at home with the group. We donned 12 oz gloves and then stood in front of the boxing bags, quite heavy and hung from the ceiling. Each of us had our own bag. The instructor then went through different moves of punching and kicking the bag. For each round of 3, he added a new kick or punch. We then moved on to weights with a bar. Most of the students took 30 lbs weights. The instructor gave me 10 lbs to start. He told me to take it easy as this was my first lesson. After lifting the weights we did a series of push ups and sit-ups. Most of the students did 10, 3 times. I was ok for the sit ups but to my surprise, I could only do 5 push ups at a time. I will have to practice before my next session next year. I may consider purchasing a punching bag and gloves at home for my basement.

I came back to the hotel to change into my bathing suit. I learned my lesson yesterday and reserved a beach chair at 9:00 before going out for my kick-boxing lessons. The chairs are hard to come by at 12:00 which I found out yesterday. It was at least 35C today with a slight breeze. There was not enough wind for sailing or kite surging. My usual routine is to lie on the beach chair for 30-45 min and then take a dip in the sea. Today, I felt enthousiastic after my boxing lesson, so I swam out to the breakwater twice, a distance of 1 km.

I ate my Magnum ice cream cone and then went for a manicure in a shop near my hotel. The lady was really nice and did a great job on my nails. It was only the second time in my life that I had a professional manicure.

continuation from paragraph 1,

We learned later that the Houthis had fired a ballistic missile at us. The ballistic missiles are much more dangerous than rockets or drones. They obviously are being given to the Houthis from Iran. Well they asked for it and they are going to get it. The missile was taken out over the water by the iron dome and no damage was done to Israel. However this cannot continue to go on forever without punishment. Trump is again meeting with Iran this Saturday. Neither Iran nor Trump will back down on Iran’s nuclear strategie. Iran has so much oil that they really don’t need nuclear energy unless they are contemplating using it for making a nuclear bomb. If Iran gets a nuclear bomb, every country in the Middle East will get a nuclear bomb. This is like having babies playing with fire. It just won’t work if the world wants to have another generation of children. One way or another, be it through diplomacy or war, the nuclear capacity of Iran must be destroyed.

On this happy note,

Love,

Brian

Dizengoff

my kick boxing instructor

Sirens went off at 6:40 am due to ballistic missile fired by Houthis

Israel 11,

Mar. 31, 2025,

Hi Everyone,

We were up early this morning and had a change of pace. After breakfast and flag raising, our mahidrot asked for volunteers to paint. My hand and 2 other fellows hands shot up and all of a sudden I was a professional painter. We were driven off to a new place on base with several flat bed trailers which were in serious need of a paint job. We split into 2 groups, the red paint group and the yellow paint group. One fellow was in charge of scraping and dusting first. The red paint was very thick and specially made to go over rust and partially peeling paint. We worked for 2 hours, had a short coffee break and continued on to lunch. I tried to be careful about getting paint on myself. 1 of the fellows was less careful and spent some time at the wash basin with turpentine.

After lunch we had our Krav Maga session outside on the grass with a new instructor. We went over a few of the moves that we had learned from our previous session. We are now proficient at slow motion attack from behind, attack from the front or side with a head lock. All of the methods involve several quick moves to neutralize the attacker followed by punches, kicks and knee moves to disable the attacker. The fight is over in 5 seconds. Our instructor explained the 4 levels of defence, 1) don’t get into a situation where you will be compromised, 2) run away, 3) try to talk your way out including give him your money, 4) fight and in the situation there is no second chance. You must do what I described above.

The second part of the course was what to do if you are attacked by someone with a baseball bat or equivalent, a chain on another dangerous object. The natural defence is to back off. The real defence is to move in as close as possible to the attacker rendering his weapon useless. After that when you are as close as possible, you neutralize the attacker followed by quick blows to sensitive parts of his body and then recuperate his weapon and finish the job. For me personally, at my age, size and hair colour, I will try to stick to the first 3 levels of defence.

After the course, I waited an hour or two until it cooled off a little and then ran 6 km with one of my buddies. There was a slight breeze that made running more agreeable.

After supper we had a course on water supply in Israel. Israel is situated on a small piece of land, mostly desert and has a population of 9 million people. Some of the industry also requires a great deal of water. Israel has been at the forefront of water conservation. Some of the water comes from Sea of Galilee, some comes from the Jordon River. Unfortunately, the water from these 2 sources is 4% of what it used to be. There are some underground sources but Israel tries to preserve as much of this as possible. A large part of the water comes from 5 desalination plants which take water from the Mediterranean. 87% of water is recycled. These 2 sources are not used for drinking water. Israelis are also very careful of not wasting water such as not letting water just run when you are brushing your teeth.

One thing that the Israelis have not been up to par on is recycling. Right now they have other more important problems to deal with. Also most of the immigrants that Israel receives now come from countries that have no clue about recycling so the government must start from zero.

Tonight we are sitting outside on benches enjoying the night air. The conversation is varied as we come from many different backgrounds. Israel is once again on the offensive in order to get the hostages back. In the background we can hear the boom boom from bombing and shelling in Gaza.

Love,

Brian