Tel Aviv

Jet lag is a thing of the past...I think. We don't have time to enjoy lagging; we are moving.
Our condo is great - two bedrooms, two baths with water heated by sunlight during the day and electtricity by night.

Yesterday was our first day on the town. We met up with our guide, Pamela Levene, on the boardwalk. Her daughter works at a restaurant where everything is made fresh on the premises. We had a typical Israeli breakfast with eggs, cheese, tuna, pickles, fresh bread and muffins. Delicious. Fishermen were on the wharf fishing while we ate. A gorgeous white egret sat on the railing watching them fish -- apparently he watches the fishermen until they catch something and then swoops down and nabs the fish. Unfortunately for us the fishermen never caught anything! Two other guys were out in the rolling sea on a very flat boat with nets and oars and they were fishing as well. It was impressive to watch them fish (standing) through the swells.

We got a big lesson about the building of the port and then hopped in a taxi to go to the far end of the port to end up in the Armenian section of Old Jaffa (famous for those Jaffa oranges). We popped into a little shop that was really interesting. A young married couple bought the shop and then began to renovate it. As they stripped off all of the plaster a very old structure was revealed with the shop having a definite divide -- completely made of rock but from two different time periods. they uncovered a tiled floor that was originally a turkish bath a thousand or so years ago. They had an ancient Roman helmet hanging by the doorway but were not convinced it was original -- really old but they had found it at a flea market and could not verify its age. When they went to put in some air conditioning they found another room and old pottery shards and bones were in there was they did the excavation. It was very cool.

We went by an area near by that is being excavated and they had found ancient mud bricks which are actually made out of mud and straw. Apparently some sort of chemical reaction takes plae when you mix straw and mud together which makes the bricks very strong and durable. The've been buried underground now for a thousand or more years and are still intact. When the Jews were enslaved and forced to go to Egypt a lot of them were put to work making mud bricks but the Pharoah got a kick out of not allowing straw to be put into the bricks....therefore the bricks would fall apart which allowed him to have the Jews beaten or worse. Sadistic little devils, weren't they?

Our tour guide talked so much that we all started to go crazy. Abe shut down, I shut down and so did Ashleigh. However, she was completely oblivious. Benj has been touring Europe on his own all year with only a guide book so he really enjoyed all the information she was giving out. Maybe if it hadn't been hot we would have been more into it. We started to get giddy. I don't think she once thought that we weren't into all the info she was handing out -- such as about the Shoelace, or Shoeless or Shuliss family....they were responsible for getting people to start moving out of Jaffa int oa new neighbourhood with a new style of houses in the late 1800's. We just didn't care. A plot was hatched....a lie was told....we had to be done by 4 for dinner (dinner wasn't actually until 7....THE NEXT DAY)...but we had to get away from her.

Oh cannot forget this....we stopped for a lemonade in themiddle of the day in a small Arab juice bar. I kid you not but this man did not like us. He was very rude, wouldn't answer our questions and just basically gave us a very hard time. However, we were too tired to get up and move so we endured his abuse and just hoped the glasses were clean. Benj watched him chopping carrots to make carrot juice and a big carrot fell on the floor.....he noticed Benj watching him and so kicked the carrot away but we are pretty sure it got picked up later and added to the carrot pile for the next batch of juice. The best was yet to come. A young boy of about 18 was working there. As he walked by to the juicing machine Ashleigh noticed that not only did he have his pants sagged...they were sagged BELOW his ass and he had on no underwear. Well this provided us with a lot of hilarity for the next while.

We caught a cab back to the Marina. A drink was suggestsed and Ashleigh and I practically dove into the bottle. We only meant to have a glass or two but two turned into three which turned in four and then we thought we were the funniest people on the planet. Basically we were just burning off stress from the day with the guide! Smadar (ex sister-in-law) joined us with her daughter, Yael, and off we went to dinner. The marina is a great place as you are on the sea, the breeze is always lovely, there are tons of choices of restaurants, and the sun setting over the sailboats is extremely beautiful. As you enter the marina shopping area the security guard checks your bag and that's it. It feels very safe. I asked Ashleigh how she felt and she said safety hasn't entered her mind since she arrived...my experience exactly. She was only surprised with how modern everything is -- but then we haven't been to Jerusalem yet for her to see the ancient parts of the city.

Tomorrow night is Nuit Blance as we call it or White Night....and the celebration will be celebrating the 100 years of Tel Aviv's existance. Music, food, and celebrations will be everywhere. Security will be tight. We intend to go but we need to stay awake until at least 10 p.m. before we even think of going out.

Benj has gone out every night with Yael and her friends. Bonfires on the beach, ice cream at ice cream bars, birthday parties, a barbeque for someone else...he's really getting the idea of what life is like for 20 somethings in Israel. Ashleigh wants to do it but she falls apart every night with fatigue....still jetlag I think.

Yael now has her ticket to come to the U.S. She will fly out one day after us and go straight to TX and then we will go to Phoenix and drive up to Telluride. she's excited. I'm sure she's a bit shocked to hear that there was potentila snow falling in Telluride yesterday.

We had to cancel our guide for Day Three. We just couldn't handle the thought of having her with us overnight. Don't get me wrong. She's brilliant and really well informed.....she just burned us out. We worked out a good cancellation fee and it is a fait accomplit.....just us plus JAck for the Dead Sea and Camels. I think it is a good decision.

My photos are not going up on to facebook the way I want. The computer is not uploading them properly. I'm really annoyed. However, I'll keep trying.