Weekend in the White City

After a three hour bus ride (normally this ride is just under an hour), upon which I fell asleep a number of times only to wake up in the same position on the road as when I had fallen asleep, I finally arrived in the north Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Aviv, where I was staying for the weekend with my friend from the aliya flight, Karen. She met me at the bus stop, which, on the side of a major expressway-esque street without any sidewalk or intersection, was hardly a proper place to stop for anything. We went to the grocery store straight away and I had some fun making some observations about the differences between the supermarkets in Chicago and Tel Aviv. Though there is certainly a plethora of packaged bread in the stores here, they also had unwrapped and uncut loaves and also provided a free slicer. Interesting. What was really impressive and mouth-watering were the varieties and quantities found in the hummus aisle. Mainly hummus, but also Turkish salad, tahina, matbucha and other wonders of the sauce world. We (really just Karen) made dinner both Thursday and Friday nights and relaxed on her very spacious rooftop. I finally learned how to play shesh-besh (backgammon) and I'm very excited to take on my next opponent!

Whereas a pedestrian mall is a typical meeting place in many cities, in Tel Aviv it's definitely the beach. In our case, Gordon Beach. I met friends, new and old, and enjoyed a few hours on the sand and in the water, which was quite serene and relaxing. Though it normally takes me about twenty minutes to get used to the temperature of a body of water or pool, the eastern shores of the Mediterranean were welcoming even to my tastes and did not necessitate a moment's pause. Most of my waking daylight hours were spent on the beach and transitioned into nice sunsets.

Before heading back to Jerusalem, I met up with Yael, a good friend from Melbourne who just made aliya the prior day and whom I hadn't seen for a long while as well as Avital and Ofer, a fun couple who I met only within the last few months but are very nice and took me along to a beach cafe/bar with them to celebrate their friend's birthday. Not long thereafter I was back at the ulpan for the start of another week of language immersion classes.

If Jerusalem should remain above my highest joys, then Tel Aviv certainly must be included amongst the highest joys.