Tel Aviv Shabbat

Last weekend, a whole group of us decided to head up to Tel Aviv for the day. After Ulpan we got on a bus and made the trek. I ended up sitting on the floor the whole way since the bus was full, but it wasn't too bad. Once we got there we made our way over to our hostel and checked in. We go up to our rooms to change into our bathing suits and I notice a problem: I forgot mine along with my towel. Great. Luckily, Nick had an extra pair of mesh shorts that he let me borrow and use instead. If only they hadn't been sooooo short. But they did the job.

We then walked a few blocks to the beach and got a late lunch of falafel. Not great, but not too bad either. Then it was beach time. I had forgotten just how soft the sand is there; it's not like sand on other beaches that can be rough. This sand is just really, really soft. It feels great to walk on... when it's not incredibly hot that is. But the problem of hot sand is easily solved by simply going in the water, which is so warm you can just jump right in. Wonderful.

After a few hours on the beach swimming, body surfing and seeing an amazing sunset, Ian, Shay, Robb and I decided to go walk around the city a little bit. We walked over to the mall to see if District 9 was playing; it wasn't. So we walked around a little bit and explored the mall for a while.

I had been in touch with my friends Yamit and Dani (her little brother) who live in Tel Aviv and we were trying to hang out with each other. I don't know if it was the language barrier or what, but after telling us he'd meet us at the mall with his car in 10-15 minutes, we waited for about an hour before I called again and he finally come over.

They took us to the port where there are lots of trendy bars. There were four of us in the back seat, so Robb and Ian kept having to put their heads down as we passed the police so we wouldn't get a ticket. Dani was very vocal about how he felt about the police. It was pretty funny.

It was great to see them again. Last time I saw Dani, he was maybe 15 and now he's 20 and in the army... but still just as crazy as he was last time I saw him. Yamit is doing great and it's much easier to talk to her in Hebrew now that I've been in Ulpan for a while.

After a few drinks they brought us back to beach where we met up with the rest of the group and walked back to the hostel. We hung out for a while on the balcony. Shelly and Rebbecca thought it might be a good idea to walk to Jaffa - we were not close at all. We decided against it and went to bed instead. It was pretty late.

We woke up the next morning and checked out of the hostel. Shay had to leave to go to the airport because he was going home, so we all said our good-byes. We then walked around looking for some breakfast. A few of us got bagels as a restaurant. Very disappointing. Tel Aviv is not New York and the bagels were terrible and very salty. We then split up to explore the city. Ian, Nick and I walked down to Sheinken, checking out little shops on the way. We then decided to walk through the shuk to get to the beach. What we didn't realize was that we were walking south, not west towards the beach. So when we finally got out of the shuk, we were almost in Jaffa (we could see the mosques). So we walked to the beach and then walked up to meet up with the rest of the group.

When we got there none of us really wanted to go back to Be'er Sheva so we decided to stay for Shabbat. We went back to the hostel (after swimming for a while) and checked back in. I then had to go to a grocery store to buy food for Shabbat. We then changed and then everyone went back tot he beach while Dori and I went to the Shul down the street. It was really beautiful and the cantor had a great voice, but it was more of a performance than a service. There was an American father with his two adult sons sitting in front of me who were completely lost. I tried to help them follow along but they were completely lost and left before Kabbalat Shabbat was over. I sat with this French Jew and Dori ended up sitting with his friend. But we both ran into the problem that we didn't speak French, they didn't speak English. So we made do with Hebrew, though his wasn't so great so I had to speak very slowly. I asked them to join us for dinner and told him he could speak with our friend May who is French-Canadian, but they already had plans. So we went back to the beach by ourselves.

We met up with the rest of the guys at a picnic table on the beach. I made Kiddush and then we all had some challah with nutella. Delicious. I then made some sandwiches of peanut butter and nutella and they got some pizza. We hung out on the beach for a while, some of the guys went swimming, played kings and then went back to the hostel.

On Shabbat morning we woke up around 11:30 and checked out. We then went to a restaurant to get some lunch. Well, everyone else got lunch, I brought my food and made some sandwiches. The girls at the table next to ours turned out to be from New Jersey (non-Syrians from Deal) so Ian and I made some small talk.

Then it was time to go to the beach again. We staked out a spot in the shade and played some cards. We then went in the water and stayed there for hours. Literally. I must have been in the water for at least four hours. It was so great.

I then started look for stars and finally davened on the beach. Afterward, we went out to dinner at a cool Mexican place and then got on the train back to Be'er Sheva. All in all, not a bad Shabbat.