The best of Tel-Aviv

The past summer has been ridiculously busy. Work has been very intense and I had quite a few visitors from all over.

Having visitors made my time very joyful. Since they came separately I found myself showing them the direction to the same places which all made their experience even nicer. It was a winning combination of great weather, food, music laughs and many good looking people (how superficial..)

So here I am writing a bunch of posts listing the nice places tourists might not get to without having local contacts. Whereas in many cities Lonely Planet is up-to-date; with constantly-changing Tel-Aviv it is just too difficult for them to keep up the pace.

So that what's coming soon...
It's all about food
Places I love
Night life

Google Developer Day - Israel

Hey folks,

In case some of you might have missed the news that The Google developer day is hitting Israel early November.

It is a great opportunity to discover some of the neat features Google products can offer and cool mash-ups you can all create for your projects/businesses.

Open Social, Gears and AppEngine to mention a few will be presented there as well as mobile and Android. The sessions are going to be held by experts some of which you probably already heard of.

It is going to be an exciting day with superb networking opportunities in an Google style environment.

If you are a developer - don't miss it. It is of course free of charge.

Proud of Google and its founder

I've been active with the Gayglers shortly after joining Google. With an overwhelming company support I took the initiative and started our local Gayglers group which later on became very visible in Dublin Pride events. Many people were surprised for the support we received. For me it looked natural.

Today I found myself shocked with pride for Google's stand on Proposition 8 that was introduced to eliminate rights of same-sex couples to Marry.

Although this one deals with Californian legislation only it is just incredible the company's support for Human Rights and above all for Equality.

"It is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Amendment 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality...
we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love." by Sergey Brin on Google's official blog

From Dublin Parade 2008

Good-bye Iris

Saying good-bye is part of our life. When I was young saying good-bye used to be really difficult but growing older makes you strong and immune. With the globe shrinking and traveling is so much easier (let aside my carbon foot-print) meeting your friends is many times just few clicks away.

Last weekend my ex-flatmate and good friend Iris had her party - actually her very last party on the island. Few weeks back she has quit her job and already planned her next stop to another exotic part of the world - China. Spending many evenings with Iris was pleasant and I will miss it bunch.

From ByeBye Iris a...

The very same weekend I packed my luggage and actually most of my belongings to start my own mini-adventure in Tel-Aviv (for 3 months). Although visiting home for so many times since I moved on October 2006, this time it felt a lot different.

The day before I left, I had to say Shalom to many of my friends which is literally my Family. It was not so sad but defo emotional. Missing them was part of it, but realizing how many people I really love, care of and beloved by was overwhelming.

So I'm now on a work assignment back to my home-country which I miss so much. It's been MAD and SUPER busy around here. I hope I will slow down the pace and get into summery relaxish mood. I doubt it will happen anytime soon - but let me stay optimistic.

Iris - all the best dear. I've never seen anyone as happy as yourself and I hope your constantly cheerful being will surround your new friends.

From ByeBye Iris a...

Gayglers and Dublin Pride

Although it has been a while since Pride was in town, only now I could find some time to sit down and reflect. The bottom line is that we (Gayglers/Googlers) won the Community Award for 2008 and that all the hard work was really worth-while. Not just because of the award, but also for all the positive feedbacks and the impact we had on the festivities and in the long term - Dublin LGBTQ community.

So what did we do??
Dublin online gay map - www.google.ie/gaydublin
Dublin Pride YouTube Channel
YouTube Pod
Gold Sponsorship
And probably had the nicest float at the Parade with a fab DJ

From Dublin Parade...

So all in all it was a great experience, good fun but also lots of hard work.
Next year?! I might just do again but it in a different city...

Thanks for Jason, Annamarie and many others that helped.
xx

p.s. - if you missed us and want to get our snappy wristband - drop me a line :)