Friday, 21 August, 2009
Hot and cold in Tel Aviv
Well we are coming to the end of our first week in Israel. It is hot, very hot, and yet the biggest problem is the cold, more specifically the freezing air conditioning in cars, buses, cafes, shops etc.
Despite good intentions we only managed to actually swim twice, the Gordon beach is less than five minutes walk from where we are staying but for the first few days we discovered that by the time we got up it was too late, too hot. After a while we realised that have to go to the beach first, then come back and have breakfast.
This is the first time we have actually stayed in Tel Aviv, in the past it was usually Herzilya Pituach or Jerusalem. It is a different experience. TA is a totally hedonistic city, with bikinis, boutiques ad brilliant restaurants. High rises tower over crumbling two storey buildings; excitingly designed new housing developments contrast with shabby public housing shikunim.
Most people are very friendly and helpful, with the exception of bus drivers who specialise in a short and brutal form of communication more allied with our ancestors the apes that sophisticated educated modern man.
Discussions about politics centre around the corruption of the government minsters rather than on the Israel-Palestine issue. Sometimes references to Arabs are very racist and I am struggling to find a way to respond without actually causing total rifts with family members while at the same time making it clear that I do not agree with or wish to tolerate those types of remarks. Sigh, it isn't easy but I will find a way.
Today we leave TA for Haifa and the Galilee for four days, we will visit Kfir and Adi this lunchtime and stay overnight in Haifa with old friends of Vicky. Next day on to the northern border to other friends and then down to Vered Hagalil ranch house for the last night. En route I am also planning to visit at least two Crusader fortresses, my project for this trip.
We will be back in TA on Tuesday night, staying again for three nights at our unique Gordon Hostel/Hotel which certainly takes us back in time but is curiously comforting as it is much more like a friendly youth hostel than an impersonal hotel. Cleanliness is not next to godliness here, but you can't have everything, I think.
After that we move into a flat we have rented for the last two and a half weeks.
Monday, 31 August, 2009
We celebrated Vicky's birthday and our anniversary by going to very highly recommended posh restaurants in TA. If you want to see my reaction go to Trip Adviser, TA restaurants. Sufficient to say that their pretensions far outstrip their culinary abilities and their prices exceed both. At the same time we have found fabulous food in restaurants and cafes serving both local food (yes also felafel and humous) and the veggie/ salad type.
The trip to the north last weekend was memorable. The Galilee is so different from the coastal plain. It was good to see family and friends in Haifa, the Upper Galilee and the Golan and to hear about their lives, their aspirations and their resignations.
We also managed to take in three Crusader-epoch fortresses: After a night in Haifa we headed for Monfort near Acre which was sold by the French knights to the Teutonic knights and in the process swapped its romantic-sounding name for the harsher Starkenberg (Strong Fort in German). Because it is located in a wadi and the heat was 35-40 degrees we opted for a view of it across the valley instead of hiking 40 mins each way.
R&R in Mayan Baruch on the Lebanese border with Ronit and Shlomo who saddened us with tales of the demise of the kibbutz ideals and the replacement of the original social values by monetary measurements.
Plunged back into medieval history the next morning at Nimrod Castle, on the foothills of the Hermon which was built by the Muslims to block any attempt by the Crusaders to attack Damascus. It is big, impressive with fabulous views over the coastal plain. And it worked.
While on the Golan we visited a friend of V's who lives in Katzrin, the main Israel settlement on the plateau. Were given a tour around the town, explanations of the Jewish-only history of the region and a million reasons why Israel should not give up the Golan! All slightly sad really.
Reached Vered Hagalil guest-house ranch in time to watch the sun set over the Sea of Galilee/Kinneret. Checking out the next day we noticed a rack of books by the counter, and a close look revealed that they were all written by Helga Dudman, someone who I worked with at the Jerusalem Post Tel Aviv Bureau for about a year 1976/77.
Turned out she was living in a retirement section of a kibbutz on the shores of Lake Tiberias, so we paid her a surprise visit. Surprise for her and more like shock for me to see this wizened old lady in an ill-fitting nightdress who opened the door to her dim, grim, one-room lodgings.
Though she didn't really have a clue who we were, she was happy to reminisce about her past, sing songs with Vicky and tell us tales about her youthful exploits in post WWll Germany being "A bad girl with a good education". She still has a sparky and vivacious way about her. When she hears it’s Vicky’s birthday she takes a copy of her book about Tel Aviv, “Street People”, and writes a dedication
Long drive back to TA in the gathering darkness and intensifying traffic for our last three nights in the Gordon Hostel/Hotel.
3 September 2009
Tel Aviv in a flat is a different place than TA in a hotel. Its not just more space, it more like changing from being a tourist into a resident. You go to the local grocery to buy milk and yogurt, and not just bottled water and beer, you learn the bus routes, check out which are the best local cafes. Above all, you spread yourself around the flat. As nature abhors a vacuum, so you must take possession of every part of the flat.
After four days at 19 Hirschenberg St it is becoming part of us and we are part of the neighbourhood. Seem to be lots of stray cats, and lots of stray people to feed them,. Most surprising was to look out the window at 7am this morning and see a woman fully dressed, hair combed sitting on a black armchair in the yard of a nearby building caressing a couple of stray cats.
Vicky's cousin Rafi came for breakfast and we could linger as long as we liked, no impatient waiter hovering, this evening Etty and Shmuel will drop by and on Friday afternoon we have invited everyone in the extended family to come between 3 and 5pm. Now that's what I call being brave, or is it foolhardy?
Went to Yafo for a "guided tour" offered by the TA Municipality. The guide was easily the worst I ever encountered in any country, ever. But at least we got to walk around Jaffa and bumped into a genuine living artist in Ilana Gur's Museum. There she was, Ilana, large as life and twice as handsome. Not sure how great her art is but was overwhelmed by the volume of her output.
Visited Jerusalem the other evening, but am still absorbing and assessing the impact of what has happened to that town.
More later.
Hot and cold in Tel Aviv
Well we are coming to the end of our first week in Israel. It is hot, very hot, and yet the biggest problem is the cold, more specifically the freezing air conditioning in cars, buses, cafes, shops etc.
Despite good intentions we only managed to actually swim twice, the Gordon beach is less than five minutes walk from where we are staying but for the first few days we discovered that by the time we got up it was too late, too hot. After a while we realised that have to go to the beach first, then come back and have breakfast.
This is the first time we have actually stayed in Tel Aviv, in the past it was usually Herzilya Pituach or Jerusalem. It is a different experience. TA is a totally hedonistic city, with bikinis, boutiques ad brilliant restaurants. High rises tower over crumbling two storey buildings; excitingly designed new housing developments contrast with shabby public housing shikunim.
Most people are very friendly and helpful, with the exception of bus drivers who specialise in a short and brutal form of communication more allied with our ancestors the apes that sophisticated educated modern man.
Discussions about politics centre around the corruption of the government minsters rather than on the Israel-Palestine issue. Sometimes references to Arabs are very racist and I am struggling to find a way to respond without actually causing total rifts with family members while at the same time making it clear that I do not agree with or wish to tolerate those types of remarks. Sigh, it isn't easy but I will find a way.
Today we leave TA for Haifa and the Galilee for four days, we will visit Kfir and Adi this lunchtime and stay overnight in Haifa with old friends of Vicky. Next day on to the northern border to other friends and then down to Vered Hagalil ranch house for the last night. En route I am also planning to visit at least two Crusader fortresses, my project for this trip.
We will be back in TA on Tuesday night, staying again for three nights at our unique Gordon Hostel/Hotel which certainly takes us back in time but is curiously comforting as it is much more like a friendly youth hostel than an impersonal hotel. Cleanliness is not next to godliness here, but you can't have everything, I think.
After that we move into a flat we have rented for the last two and a half weeks.
Monday, 31 August, 2009
We celebrated Vicky's birthday and our anniversary by going to very highly recommended posh restaurants in TA. If you want to see my reaction go to Trip Adviser, TA restaurants. Sufficient to say that their pretensions far outstrip their culinary abilities and their prices exceed both. At the same time we have found fabulous food in restaurants and cafes serving both local food (yes also felafel and humous) and the veggie/ salad type.
The trip to the north last weekend was memorable. The Galilee is so different from the coastal plain. It was good to see family and friends in Haifa, the Upper Galilee and the Golan and to hear about their lives, their aspirations and their resignations.
We also managed to take in three Crusader-epoch fortresses: After a night in Haifa we headed for Monfort near Acre which was sold by the French knights to the Teutonic knights and in the process swapped its romantic-sounding name for the harsher Starkenberg (Strong Fort in German). Because it is located in a wadi and the heat was 35-40 degrees we opted for a view of it across the valley instead of hiking 40 mins each way.
R&R in Mayan Baruch on the Lebanese border with Ronit and Shlomo who saddened us with tales of the demise of the kibbutz ideals and the replacement of the original social values by monetary measurements.
Plunged back into medieval history the next morning at Nimrod Castle, on the foothills of the Hermon which was built by the Muslims to block any attempt by the Crusaders to attack Damascus. It is big, impressive with fabulous views over the coastal plain. And it worked.
While on the Golan we visited a friend of V's who lives in Katzrin, the main Israel settlement on the plateau. Were given a tour around the town, explanations of the Jewish-only history of the region and a million reasons why Israel should not give up the Golan! All slightly sad really.
Reached Vered Hagalil guest-house ranch in time to watch the sun set over the Sea of Galilee/Kinneret. Checking out the next day we noticed a rack of books by the counter, and a close look revealed that they were all written by Helga Dudman, someone who I worked with at the Jerusalem Post Tel Aviv Bureau for about a year 1976/77.
Turned out she was living in a retirement section of a kibbutz on the shores of Lake Tiberias, so we paid her a surprise visit. Surprise for her and more like shock for me to see this wizened old lady in an ill-fitting nightdress who opened the door to her dim, grim, one-room lodgings.
Though she didn't really have a clue who we were, she was happy to reminisce about her past, sing songs with Vicky and tell us tales about her youthful exploits in post WWll Germany being "A bad girl with a good education". She still has a sparky and vivacious way about her. When she hears it’s Vicky’s birthday she takes a copy of her book about Tel Aviv, “Street People”, and writes a dedication
Long drive back to TA in the gathering darkness and intensifying traffic for our last three nights in the Gordon Hostel/Hotel.
3 September 2009
Tel Aviv in a flat is a different place than TA in a hotel. Its not just more space, it more like changing from being a tourist into a resident. You go to the local grocery to buy milk and yogurt, and not just bottled water and beer, you learn the bus routes, check out which are the best local cafes. Above all, you spread yourself around the flat. As nature abhors a vacuum, so you must take possession of every part of the flat.
After four days at 19 Hirschenberg St it is becoming part of us and we are part of the neighbourhood. Seem to be lots of stray cats, and lots of stray people to feed them,. Most surprising was to look out the window at 7am this morning and see a woman fully dressed, hair combed sitting on a black armchair in the yard of a nearby building caressing a couple of stray cats.
Vicky's cousin Rafi came for breakfast and we could linger as long as we liked, no impatient waiter hovering, this evening Etty and Shmuel will drop by and on Friday afternoon we have invited everyone in the extended family to come between 3 and 5pm. Now that's what I call being brave, or is it foolhardy?
Went to Yafo for a "guided tour" offered by the TA Municipality. The guide was easily the worst I ever encountered in any country, ever. But at least we got to walk around Jaffa and bumped into a genuine living artist in Ilana Gur's Museum. There she was, Ilana, large as life and twice as handsome. Not sure how great her art is but was overwhelmed by the volume of her output.
Visited Jerusalem the other evening, but am still absorbing and assessing the impact of what has happened to that town.
More later.
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