Jaffa's mine Oye-ster

When I was looking for apartments in Israel, a friend told me to avoid the southern neighborhoods of Tel-Aviv. I almost took his advice, but, at the last minute, found a great apartment in Jaffa, Tel-Aviv. The craigslist-ing advertised a rooftop deck, a five-minute walk to the best hummus place in Israel, and a ten-minute walk to the beach. I couldn’t resist. And so I began a great three-week stay in Jaffa.

In these three weeks, every time I told someone I lived in Jaffa, they gave me a funny look. “Isn’t it dangerous,” many would ask. “Don’t leave your house at night,” others would warn. And while there may be parts of the city that are more prone to violence, my area was pretty amazing. So I’m dedicating this blog to all the great things about Jaffa.

Abu Hassan Hummus

I know, I know. I'm getting two blog posts out of the hummus place, but I couldn't resist. The first time I went to this place, I asked for an English menu. The waiter looked at me weird and then laughed. He said, “Hummus.” You know the place has to be good when they have one menu item. You know the place has to be amazing, when they the one menu item is hummus. I never really knew the power of hummus until I visited Abu Hassan and saw the flocks of people waiting in line to get hummus. A must try if you are in Israel.

Hummus, Egg, and Pita

Chips and Hummus...rival to Chips and Cheese? Comment below.

Capitolina

My boss thinks this place is the best ice cream shop in Israel. I’d agree except I actually haven’t had any other ice cream (Hebrew: glida. I’m learning Hebrew!) shops. But with homemade flavors, like lemon mint; grapefruit and Campari; pears and port; yogurt, dates, and banana; caramelized bananas and almond dacquoise; Indian kulfi, and coconut and lemongrass--its kind of hard to convince yourself to enter a ice cream shop where the craziest flavor is “mint chocolate chip.”

Capitolina (My best guess at a transliteration)

 Some of my favorite flavors

 Lemon Mint Sorbet

Grapefruit and Campari Sorbet

Caramelized Bananas and Almond Dacquoise (whatever that even means)

 Indian Kulfi

Coffee Shops Galore

There is a whole section of Old Jaffa City that is going through a gentrification process. New coffee shops and restaurants are refurbishing the crumbling buildings of the old city, leaving a nice mixture of the old and the new. During the day, there are cute coffee shops with retro furniture and iced coffee. At night, the place comes alive with strings of lights and lives bands. 

 View down the street from one of the many coffee shops in Jaffa

Across the street

 From what I can tell, their version of a Caramel Macchiato

 At night

                            

Felt like I was on a movie set

And then these guys showed up and I started looking around for the film crew.

Boardwalk

My evening run. 

 Start of my run

 To my left

More to my left

 On my way back.

                            

 Old Jaffa City

Go Go Gadget Zoom

Beach

Let's go to the beach, each; Let's go get away. 

                            

 Tel Aviv in the distance. Stork!

Sunset

Sunny Days: 35

Rainy Days: 0

Reliving My Childhood: JanSport Backpacks, Peanut Butter, and Cutting in Line

Greetings from Israel, where the teens sling a machine gun over one shoulder and a JanSport backpack over the other; where the world comes to a screeching at 5pm on Friday; and where the average price of a small container of peanut butter is $7.

But none of these things bug me as much as one thing: Israeli's don't stand in lines.

Well, they do stand in lines. But then they disregard the lines.

It honestly feels like first grade snack time all over again. Everyone is going to get a snack, but there is always one kid who feels like he needs to cut to the front of the line to get his snack first.

I was warned about this, just like I was warned about the machine guns and shabbat. But for some reason, being warned, and actually experiencing the irritation of waiting in line to get onto the bus and watching a woman shove her way past you and the 20 other people waiting to board the bus just erks me.

And its not like there is a risk of her not getting onto the bus. We all get on the bus. ALWAYS.

Or yesterday, I was waiting to buy a ticket for the tram in Jerusalem. Apparently they were racing formula one cars in Jerusalem yesterday (normal), so lines for the tram were really long. But people more or less got the gist of the line concept. You wait. Then when it is your turn, you pay your money, and you go.

Not this old guy. He proceeds to walk straight to the front of the line, demands a ticket, gets the ticket, pays, and leaves.

Huh? My jaw literally dropped.

I just don't get it. And I hope I never do. Because I'll tell you what, if I show up to Customs at the Ben Gurion Airport in August and push my way to the front of the line, demanding to be first, I'm pretty sure I will end up detained by some of those JanSport carrying, machine gun slinging teenagers.

And on an unrelated note, pictures of the wall dividing Israel and Palestine.

Tel Aviv Pride 2013

In Tel Aviv, Pride isn't just a parade or a late night party. Pride is a week long extravaganza. And I'm not talking the fake "week-long" pride events in the States, where they do a "film screening" one night and have like a speaker talk another night. In Tel Aviv, they legitimately have parties happening 24/7 for seven days. They also have a gay beach open all week. And there are guys walking the boardwalk in their leather speedos, suspenders, conductor hats, and doc martins. Normal.

The parade is different too. Rather than being an opportunity for political, cultural, and religious demonstrations--like in the US--the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv is like a giant, migrating dance party through the streets of Tel Aviv. There aren't many signs or protestors. The floats don't really move with the crowd. They are more or less stationary. The people are meant to walk around the floats and continue walking along the street to the beach. However, there was one particular float with a lot of attractive men and great music, which led to a major traffic jam in the parade. Everyone literally just stood around this float and danced for quite a while. 

But we all managed to make it to the beach, where I joined an estimated 1o0,000 people in a massive beach party that lasted until sunset. Live bands played, vendors sold witty paraphernalia, and old men revealed more of themselves than I would have preferred. 

The Scene

On the Boardwalk

Virtually empty...everyone left for the Parade

The Spectators

The Parade

'cause all I see are stilettos, I guess I never got the memo

Diva

Follow that flag!

The Beach

The parade leads directly to the beach...

...where 100,000 of your closest friends are ready to have a party

 The beach

 Oy Vey!

The main stage

 In front of the British Embassy

I found the flag!

Sunny Day Count: 11

Rainy Day Count: 0