Monday, October 25, 2010

Too Many Russians and Brazilians

There are too many tourists in Israel this month.

Isn't that a nice problem to have?

The other day an acquaintance of mine who lives in Haifa and gives day-tours to passengers of docking cruise ships kvetched that he's so busy he hasn't slept one normal night for six weeks. "The Indians", he was complaining, "insist on being shown everything, but refuse to walk quickly. A nightmare".

Although the article doesn't mention the matter, this is good also for the Palestinians (in Jerusalem and on the West Bank, not in Gaza). It's a very small place, and when "problems" like this happen, we're impacted together. Many of the service providers are Palestinians, and the salesmen of those olive-wood camels, and bus drivers, and cab drivers....

7 comments:

Droid said...

Let our friendship with our Indian brothers and sisters continue to grow.

Sylvia said...

It seems that the Sheikh Jarrah Friday Festival and the Silwan Tuesday Fest are now popular tourist destinations.

Lee Ratner said...

I'm sure its giving a nice boast of money for Israel's rail system and a country as small and densely populated as Israel should focus on rail and other forms of mass transit.

Anonymous said...

there's no news like good news

Silke

Anonymous said...

Sylvia
what are these fests?
Google leaves me in the dark?

Silke

Empress Trudy said...

Yes there are Brazilians of Russians. They're everywhere.

Sylvia said...

Silke
These fests are unique in the world in that they allow the anti-semite the one-in-a-lifetime exhilarating experience he.she's been dreaming about all his life: throw stones on Jews and be photographed doing it.
Actually, it's not limited to those places. They have such tourist attraction at the Lebanese border with Israel that gained world fame after Edward Edward Said himself was caught on camera throwing stones on Israel.