Day 4 working with Parents at the Center

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I started work at 6 am writing up step-by-step instructions for the data prep work that needs to be done in Haifa. Breakfast was a surprise. The Dan had already koshered its main kitchen for Passover so there was no Hametz, bread. All around me I could hear guests complaining. In Israel, Passover is a big deal. Schools are closed for a week before Passover so women can clean their kitchens. Having school closed so much is a real problem for working Moms. I thought I was going to work through lunch, but the best laid plans…..Jack, Hilla and I went back to Silgan’s for more salad. Israelis make the best salads! I ended up working until 4 and as I departed I was given a small gift made by the parents and children of the center. During the day I mentioned to Hilla, that one of the staff was asking me to show her how to do work that was way beyond what was within any realistic expectations given that she had only started to work with the application two days earlier. She explained that is how Israelis are… they are always trying to get to the moon, while Americans want things planned in boxes. Trying to get to the moon, is what drives innovation, but it’s not how I’ve been taught to build systems. Perhaps, I’m too old or simply “too American”.

We drove back to Tel Aviv, by a different route than we had taken when we drove up to Haifa. The construction of high-rise residential is astonishing. The prices for real estate in Tel Aviv are comparable to Manhattan, so it looks like a lot of people are doing really well. Also, we were told that European Jews who can afford to, are buying in Tel Aviv to hedge their bets as anti-Semitism grows. We at a restaurant I picked from TripAdvisor in the re-vamped port in the northern part of the city. It was the best meal we had the entire trip. Plus the table overlooked the water and we watched the sun set. There is a lot of energy in Israel and it is most pronounced in Tel Aviv. The only other place I felt this energy was China.



After dinner we went to the hotel I had booked because is had an OK rating and billed itself as being 2.5 miles from Ben Gurion. We had an early flight and wanted to return the rental car the night before. The place was Spartan and uninviting. We also discovered that it is 2.5 miles from a corner of Ben Gurion, but Ben Gurion is so large you have to drive 9 miles to get to the terminals. The shuttle from the Budget return to the terminal where we could get a cab, wasn’t running, so the Budget employee, Tzadek Levi, drove us over in his own car. I still need to send an email to Budget to compliment him.

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