Day 10 - Small, small country
Today was our last day in Israel. It was also our only day in Tel Aviv. We spent half the day, when combining travel time and tourism, in Jerusalem. Those three statements contain a lot to unpack. Firstly, this is not truly a knock on Tel Aviv. Yes, there is not much organically interesting about Tel Aviv from a tourism perspective. There are a few museums and landmarks. You can take the slow route and go 2-3 days. We took the fast route and took 2-3 hours.
There was a simple list of sights we wanted to hit in Tel Aviv-Yafo, and after we arranged a tidy Google Map multi-stop plan, we realized quickly we could do it in about 90 minutes, stretching to 120 with pictures and rapid visits and the like.
There were a couple other factors for this hasty regard for Tel Aviv. First, there was a desire to go back to Jerusalem in the afternoon, and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre one more time. I won't reveal who had the largest push for that plan. The final factor was the tricky weather, which was supposed to greet us with morning to night rain, and instead did so with beaming sunshine begating threatening clouds begating on and off showers for hours.
Our first stop in our 'See Tel Aviv in 120 minutes driving experience' was the furthest stop from our hotel, the Yitzhak Rabin Center, a modern museum outfitted to honor the life of Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli prime minister who was assassinated after helping to establish the closest thing to peace with Palestine), and Israel's struggle and rise as a nation as a whole. This is the type of place ideally we could have spent an hour or so. We didn't.
The center was nice. There was roughly 300 Israeli military cadets there on visit. The view from the top, overlookimg Yehoshua Park and the northern, greenier, end of Tel Aviv, was beautiful. Despite all this, we had things to do, and the ominous clouds were growing omnious-er.
Our next few stops were driving down the coast towards Yafo, Tel Aviv's old city part of town (in the past, it was a separate city by itself). The Tel Aviv coastline and beaches were mostly empty - not surprising given the weather and time of year, but it didn't take too much imagination to picture how sprawling these beaches must be during the high season.
When we reached Yafo, the dream became more of a reality, with sunlight peaking out, a lively promenade to entice passers by, and a gaggle of surfers in the waters. This beach front was right on the edge of Tel Aviv and Yafo, with Yafo['s old city aura looming on one end, and the modern Tel Aviv, looking quite a bit like San Diego in all the best ways, on the other. We had to struggle a bit for parking (can't imagine the madness driving there would be in the busy season), but soon enough were content to spend a bit of time taking pictures in the little sunlight that was afforded.
We drove around the old city, pulling over to the side of the road a couple times to take a few photos, and make mental notes of where to come back to upon the next, more seasonally appropriate visit to Tel Aviv. In reality, I do picture myself coming back some day. I'll probably have more thoughts on Israel writ large at a later date, but it has been end to end impressive, and given the profligacy of flight options to Tel Aviv from New York, it is fairly easy to come back to.
We got back to our AirBNB about 15 minutes after planned return time, quickly scarfed down a lunch of leftovers from the previous two days (still good), and left for Jerusalem as the heaviest rain started its assault on Tel Aviv.
It is amazing how small Israel is really. The drive between the countries main two cities took about 50 minutes - granted the drive back would be a bit tougher due to more traffic - which is amazing. I make a longer commute each of the days I go into my company's NY office. Of course, unlike the NJ Turnpike and its natural gas refineries, we get to pass limitless open fields, rolling hills, and the type of scenery and greenery I, with my uninformed mind, had no idea existed in Israel.
We reached Jerusalem, familiar ground for all of us after spending four great days traversing its hills. It was as if we never left, as if we were coming home. In some ways, given our religion (especially for my mom) we were.
We ahd some time to experience a few new thigns before heading to the Church of the Holy Speulchre for one last procession. First, was the Mamila mall, who's garage we parked in. The mall is open air, cut into the side of the rock outisde the old city, with gleaming limestone built stores. This is another example of how nice Jerusalem is. I expected Tel Aviv to be squarely first world. I did not expect the same coming in with Jerusalem, and have been more than pleasantly (ecstacticly?) surprised at this point.
The other first was buying something from teh bustling Muslim Quarter that surrounds (ironically) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We had walked past these stalls many times before, but had bought nary a thing.. Actually, I think my parents may have bought something, but for me, I entered my last day in Israel realizing I would be, as of now, leaving Israel with nothing to take home. Corrective action was required.
The Muslim Quarter is like any other souk, with tons of vendors who will all tell you how much they are breaking their heart by giving you a good deal shaving off five shekels. Bargaining is a tough game. Sometimes, you don;t know a good deal. My mom wanted a olive-wood cross in the shape of the cross that adorns so many churches in the Holy Land. The first vendor gave us a 'list price' of 60 shekels, and we were confident we could get it to at least 45. We left because it was so close to the Jaffa Gate that it was overpriced. As we quickly found out, it was underpriced, and we came back with our tails between our legs to buy it on the way out - for 45 shekels.
I ended up getting some nice coasters (of course, my hoarding tendencies continue) and a nice dish where you can serve olives with bread or a spread, with a nice decoraative loaves and fishes scene played out on the dish - you know, something religions! These weren't the best of quality knickknacks., but will at least have some utilization in the future house that I currently don't have.
After shopping until we had our fill, we headed over to an absolutely packed Church of the Holy Sepulchre. If anything, coming back made us thankful to the man upstairs that we came the first time on the day we did. We had to wait about 30 minutes to see the tomb. We overheard a tour guide telling his group the wait was going to be two hours.
The 4pm procession, the main experience we came back to, well, experience, was about 5x as full this time, partially because of a 20-strong group of young seminarians, who embarrassed us all by being able to recite the Latin components with general ease.
The procession was so full, the Church itself so full, that it was almost annoying, while also being delightful. The amount that this place means to so many people, roughly 30-40% of the world's population, is staggering, and in theory should dictate hour long lines to witness the place where the key figure in the religion was crucified, died and was buried (dammit, quoted scripture again!) should not be a surprise. But they were.
It was a powerful moment, especially thits time with a good amount of the procession being able to chip in with the responses in Latin, as we created a roving hoard that went around the church rather than the tame following we had prior. It is a great loophole as well to get unfettered access to the chapels commemorating Jesus's crucifixion and death, avoiding the long lines (probably 45-60 minutes today) for those sites.
After the procession, we ran through a hurried confession, and a quick walk back to our salvo that was the Mamila mall for a coffee before heading back to Tel Aviv. I still find it a bit ridiculous that we were so easily able to go back and forth between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I also think the proximity of all parts of Israel from each other spot is a major selling point. It's like packing an empire's worth of civilization into the tri-state area.
We got back to Tel Aviv and went to Ha'Achim for dinner, a trendy eatery known best for its weekend brunch, but still good (and packed) for weekday dinner. Our initial reservation was for Mashya, an upscale eatery, who's timing we drastically missed after traffic turned the 50 minute trip to Tel Aviv into 90 minutes (traffic, sadly, is a shared issue between the Plainsboro-NYC drive with the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem one). The food was good, each dish made with a few components that all tasted and played well. It wasn't true 'gorumet cuisine' or hatever, but given the reams of people with happy, smiling faces enjoying the food, it doesn't really matter.
After dinner, I went to The Dancing Camel, Tel Aviv's best known craft beer bar. It's tucked in some random corner of Tel Aviv that was walking distance from our dinner, but was worlds away. It was pure Portland style, built in a warehouse.. I quickly learned the owner and brewmaster is from Queens, and most of the staff (and the guests) were US born. They were playing Week 17 NFL on a big screen - the owner being a Giants fan watching an absolutely meaningless close compelling Giants vs. Cowboys game.
The Dancing Camel was good, and I do hope Israel can improve its beer culture. The only thing keeping Israel from being a truly top fflight destination is this. The few craft beer spots they have are better than some other countries (cough** India **cough), but given how present the US's presence is here, I have to imagine this will improve.
We move our journey over to Jordan tomorrow, a well reputed country that should have a lot of high points, but I am a little sad to leave Israel behind. I don't know why my expectations were muted, but Israel has smashed them - much like Chile did last year. Maybe it is the year-end trip of it all.
Today was our last day in Israel. It was also our only day in Tel Aviv. We spent half the day, when combining travel time and tourism, in Jerusalem. Those three statements contain a lot to unpack. Firstly, this is not truly a knock on Tel Aviv. Yes, there is not much organically interesting about Tel Aviv from a tourism perspective. There are a few museums and landmarks. You can take the slow route and go 2-3 days. We took the fast route and took 2-3 hours.
There was a simple list of sights we wanted to hit in Tel Aviv-Yafo, and after we arranged a tidy Google Map multi-stop plan, we realized quickly we could do it in about 90 minutes, stretching to 120 with pictures and rapid visits and the like.
There were a couple other factors for this hasty regard for Tel Aviv. First, there was a desire to go back to Jerusalem in the afternoon, and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre one more time. I won't reveal who had the largest push for that plan. The final factor was the tricky weather, which was supposed to greet us with morning to night rain, and instead did so with beaming sunshine begating threatening clouds begating on and off showers for hours.
Our first stop in our 'See Tel Aviv in 120 minutes driving experience' was the furthest stop from our hotel, the Yitzhak Rabin Center, a modern museum outfitted to honor the life of Yitzhak Rabin (Israeli prime minister who was assassinated after helping to establish the closest thing to peace with Palestine), and Israel's struggle and rise as a nation as a whole. This is the type of place ideally we could have spent an hour or so. We didn't.
The center was nice. There was roughly 300 Israeli military cadets there on visit. The view from the top, overlookimg Yehoshua Park and the northern, greenier, end of Tel Aviv, was beautiful. Despite all this, we had things to do, and the ominous clouds were growing omnious-er.
Our next few stops were driving down the coast towards Yafo, Tel Aviv's old city part of town (in the past, it was a separate city by itself). The Tel Aviv coastline and beaches were mostly empty - not surprising given the weather and time of year, but it didn't take too much imagination to picture how sprawling these beaches must be during the high season.
When we reached Yafo, the dream became more of a reality, with sunlight peaking out, a lively promenade to entice passers by, and a gaggle of surfers in the waters. This beach front was right on the edge of Tel Aviv and Yafo, with Yafo['s old city aura looming on one end, and the modern Tel Aviv, looking quite a bit like San Diego in all the best ways, on the other. We had to struggle a bit for parking (can't imagine the madness driving there would be in the busy season), but soon enough were content to spend a bit of time taking pictures in the little sunlight that was afforded.
We drove around the old city, pulling over to the side of the road a couple times to take a few photos, and make mental notes of where to come back to upon the next, more seasonally appropriate visit to Tel Aviv. In reality, I do picture myself coming back some day. I'll probably have more thoughts on Israel writ large at a later date, but it has been end to end impressive, and given the profligacy of flight options to Tel Aviv from New York, it is fairly easy to come back to.
We got back to our AirBNB about 15 minutes after planned return time, quickly scarfed down a lunch of leftovers from the previous two days (still good), and left for Jerusalem as the heaviest rain started its assault on Tel Aviv.
It is amazing how small Israel is really. The drive between the countries main two cities took about 50 minutes - granted the drive back would be a bit tougher due to more traffic - which is amazing. I make a longer commute each of the days I go into my company's NY office. Of course, unlike the NJ Turnpike and its natural gas refineries, we get to pass limitless open fields, rolling hills, and the type of scenery and greenery I, with my uninformed mind, had no idea existed in Israel.
We reached Jerusalem, familiar ground for all of us after spending four great days traversing its hills. It was as if we never left, as if we were coming home. In some ways, given our religion (especially for my mom) we were.
We ahd some time to experience a few new thigns before heading to the Church of the Holy Speulchre for one last procession. First, was the Mamila mall, who's garage we parked in. The mall is open air, cut into the side of the rock outisde the old city, with gleaming limestone built stores. This is another example of how nice Jerusalem is. I expected Tel Aviv to be squarely first world. I did not expect the same coming in with Jerusalem, and have been more than pleasantly (ecstacticly?) surprised at this point.
The other first was buying something from teh bustling Muslim Quarter that surrounds (ironically) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We had walked past these stalls many times before, but had bought nary a thing.. Actually, I think my parents may have bought something, but for me, I entered my last day in Israel realizing I would be, as of now, leaving Israel with nothing to take home. Corrective action was required.
The Muslim Quarter is like any other souk, with tons of vendors who will all tell you how much they are breaking their heart by giving you a good deal shaving off five shekels. Bargaining is a tough game. Sometimes, you don;t know a good deal. My mom wanted a olive-wood cross in the shape of the cross that adorns so many churches in the Holy Land. The first vendor gave us a 'list price' of 60 shekels, and we were confident we could get it to at least 45. We left because it was so close to the Jaffa Gate that it was overpriced. As we quickly found out, it was underpriced, and we came back with our tails between our legs to buy it on the way out - for 45 shekels.
I ended up getting some nice coasters (of course, my hoarding tendencies continue) and a nice dish where you can serve olives with bread or a spread, with a nice decoraative loaves and fishes scene played out on the dish - you know, something religions! These weren't the best of quality knickknacks., but will at least have some utilization in the future house that I currently don't have.
After shopping until we had our fill, we headed over to an absolutely packed Church of the Holy Sepulchre. If anything, coming back made us thankful to the man upstairs that we came the first time on the day we did. We had to wait about 30 minutes to see the tomb. We overheard a tour guide telling his group the wait was going to be two hours.
The 4pm procession, the main experience we came back to, well, experience, was about 5x as full this time, partially because of a 20-strong group of young seminarians, who embarrassed us all by being able to recite the Latin components with general ease.
The procession was so full, the Church itself so full, that it was almost annoying, while also being delightful. The amount that this place means to so many people, roughly 30-40% of the world's population, is staggering, and in theory should dictate hour long lines to witness the place where the key figure in the religion was crucified, died and was buried (dammit, quoted scripture again!) should not be a surprise. But they were.
It was a powerful moment, especially thits time with a good amount of the procession being able to chip in with the responses in Latin, as we created a roving hoard that went around the church rather than the tame following we had prior. It is a great loophole as well to get unfettered access to the chapels commemorating Jesus's crucifixion and death, avoiding the long lines (probably 45-60 minutes today) for those sites.
After the procession, we ran through a hurried confession, and a quick walk back to our salvo that was the Mamila mall for a coffee before heading back to Tel Aviv. I still find it a bit ridiculous that we were so easily able to go back and forth between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I also think the proximity of all parts of Israel from each other spot is a major selling point. It's like packing an empire's worth of civilization into the tri-state area.
We got back to Tel Aviv and went to Ha'Achim for dinner, a trendy eatery known best for its weekend brunch, but still good (and packed) for weekday dinner. Our initial reservation was for Mashya, an upscale eatery, who's timing we drastically missed after traffic turned the 50 minute trip to Tel Aviv into 90 minutes (traffic, sadly, is a shared issue between the Plainsboro-NYC drive with the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem one). The food was good, each dish made with a few components that all tasted and played well. It wasn't true 'gorumet cuisine' or hatever, but given the reams of people with happy, smiling faces enjoying the food, it doesn't really matter.
After dinner, I went to The Dancing Camel, Tel Aviv's best known craft beer bar. It's tucked in some random corner of Tel Aviv that was walking distance from our dinner, but was worlds away. It was pure Portland style, built in a warehouse.. I quickly learned the owner and brewmaster is from Queens, and most of the staff (and the guests) were US born. They were playing Week 17 NFL on a big screen - the owner being a Giants fan watching an absolutely meaningless close compelling Giants vs. Cowboys game.
The Dancing Camel was good, and I do hope Israel can improve its beer culture. The only thing keeping Israel from being a truly top fflight destination is this. The few craft beer spots they have are better than some other countries (cough** India **cough), but given how present the US's presence is here, I have to imagine this will improve.
We move our journey over to Jordan tomorrow, a well reputed country that should have a lot of high points, but I am a little sad to leave Israel behind. I don't know why my expectations were muted, but Israel has smashed them - much like Chile did last year. Maybe it is the year-end trip of it all.
