Shoe size units….

After some new found knowledge about shoe sizes, I am proposing that the shoe size should be added as the fourth unit of measurement after distance, weight and time in the SI system. Last week, a friend and me (or is it I??) were on a shoe buying trip in a considerably English challenged part of town. As we entered what looked like a shoe shop, a girl (pretty at that) asked my friend in halting English as to what his shoe size was. He knew that in India his size was 10 but didn’t know what that corresponded to in this country. So we set upon to investigate this and to my horror I found that 4 different systems of shoe sizes existed. Since I assumed ours would be closest to the UK size, we checked this one. We found out that the Indian 10 size is equivalent to the UK 9 size. Since the Americans like to be unique, they had their own system as well. So now, UK 9 size = US size 8. As expected, the rest of the European Union decides to follow its own system. So now we have, UK 9 =US 8 = EU 43.1. But wait, that’s not all. There exists a fourth system called CM which has an equivalent size of 28.1. I am guessing that this must be Japan since this is norm for most other units. So I ask, why this arrogance of having a different size number in every country. Is this the shoe company’s idea of a joke? I also just happened to google this and found out that even Mexico and Korea follow their own system. Well, I think I am going to follow my own system from now on in which the shoe size will be the inverse square root of the EU size. I am also going to request Nike to put this on their boxes.

Now that the main topic has been discussed, I am going to bore you with some more of my traveling exploits. I proudly claim to have floated in the Dead Sea which was a thrilling experience to say the least. A word of caution here for the guys, do not shave on the day you are visiting the dead sea. This is one potent after-shave and can cause involuntary screaming. The mud baths are something to be experienced, but this is what I call too much information. :-) As usual, I shall bid you adieu today with pictures of the dead sea and the nearby Judean desert.

The exploits begin…

I am going to use this opportunity to propose new Murphy’s laws of travelling here, namely
Law 1: In a new country, you will get lost atleast once within the first two weeks. (exceptions to this are MeNoSaint and Akilles. They will lose their way at least 5 times and Dhi or Chilli will see them roaming about somewhere and rescue them :-) )
Law 2: When you get lost, it will be in a part of town where no one speaks English.
Law 3: The time of getting lost will be late evening to midnight when expensive taxis are the only mode of transportation available.
Law 4: Sign language and a kind stranger will help you get back in one piece.
And since all Murphy’s Laws apply to me, it must be very clear as to what happened this Saturday night and needs no explanation. The only point that needs elaboration is that the part of town I was lost in was Russian. Now coming on to a lesser known and an irrelevant fact about Israel. I am convinced that Israel must be the world’s largest consumer of sun glasses. The sun-glass industry is alive solely because of this country. I have noticed that at any given point of time 90% of the people in your line of sight are wearing sun-glasses irrespective of the time of the day.

A lot of things I found are somewhat similar to India like for example impatient drivers. Honking very much exists and is rampant and changing of lanes is random. The Mediterranean food is amazing and your typical Indian vegetarian had nothing to fear about. Taxi drivers in Tel-Aviv need to be told to put the meter and some negotiation is needed. There is an extra charge for taxis between 10pm-5am. While there are no stray dogs around here, there are ample cats around. But the degree of this is of course not as extreme as in India, but enough to make you feel at home.

Lastly, jogging on the roads is a pleasure here due to multiple reasons. No dogs to chase you, no newspaper boys around the corner to run into you, no cowdung, nice footpaths to jog on along with a superb view of Haifa and lastly and most importantly lots of pretty women also jog on these paths. I have also been advised to jog on the beach (which also happens to be right next to my office) and enhance the whole jogging experience. Let’s see how that one goes.

And lastly, (this lastly is the last one) two pictures of Haifa. First one is a unique underground cable train which takes you from the top of Haifa hill to the bottom, probably the only one of its kind. Second one is a view about 100 metres from where a friend stays. That’s one hell of a view there.

About holy lands and cloak rooms……..!!

Shalom !! The intrepid explorer in me is back after two years and this time around in the holy land of Israel. I guess I have lots to talk and write about this in the days to come but as of now I am going to explicitly ask the question which many of you have wanted to ask too but never dared to do so.

Who coined the word restroom? And what in the world possessed him to do so? Its not like you can rest there or atleast I haven’t encountered any where you can. I understand that is was more of a euphemism for the word toilet. I see absolutely no issues with the use of the word toilet. Maybe call it a bathroom, that makes sense to a point. But I refuse to call it a restroom until someone puts a sofa in there. And I just recently found out that two of Bangalore’s popular restaurants agree with me on this. They also don’t call their toilets as restrooms, instead they call it a cloak room. This terminology makes even more sense, doesn’t it? Any common man understands this. You want to take a leak, you head directly to the cloak room. I am wondering if the restaurants in question want the users to put on a protective cloak before relieving themselves. And if this trend continues to gain popularity, I have no idea what the traditional cloakrooms at our train stations are going to do. Who is going to store the luggage? Maybe the “toilets” will do it.

Now that such pertinent questions have been brought to the fore, its time for me say “Laila Tov” or Good night as the English people call it.