A Long Walk Home

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Wednesday 23 June

Another summer’s day in Tel Aviv, and finally some bearable weather - only 29 degrees, a full 10 degrees cooler than the weekend, and not nearly as windy as yesterday. Still pretty hot out in the sun, but that oppressive, debilitating desert heat had lifted.

We were booked in at the Palmach Museum presentation in two separate sessions, as Dean was too young to attend. Greg and I went to the 9.30 am session, which I found very interesting and informative. The material is presented in a very unusual manner compared with your normal museum. There are no information panels or exhibits behind glass. Instead, visitors move through a series of rooms which form the backdrop of various scenes in the history of the Palmach, or “Striking Force”. The story is presented on large screens in each room, and it is told through the personal experiences of a group of recruits who joined up when the organisation was set up in 1941, to counter a possible German attack in Palestine. Thereafter they played a central role in the War of Independence, where some of the group lost their lives. The presentation concluded with a poem written by one of the recruits, which I found very moving. Those who died, the poet wrote, were the silver platter on which Erez Yisrael was handed to the Jewish people. The entire presentation was in Hebrew, but we were given hand-held audio devises which played the English translation. It took a while to get used to the loud background ‘noise’ of the Hebrew while trying to concentrate on the softer English at one’s ear. Other than that, it was wonderfully presented and another unique and worthwhile Israel experience.

After our tour finished, Russel, Ryan and Dean picked us up and we drove to the Old Port area, where Greg, Dean and I got out the car and Russel and Ryan returned to the Museum for their 12 o’ clock session. We sat outside a frozen yoghurt bar where Greg enjoyed a strawberry yoghurt with mango and banana and strawberry syrup, and Dean had a mango juice. We looked out over the small port where the waves were crashing against the breakers, in contrast to the calm that we had observed in the preceding days. We then walked along the wooden pier to see the sea up close, and felt the cool spray of the Mediterranean ocean. We left the pier and walked south towards the beachfront, passing a lone fisherman just at the exact moment he caught a small fish, much to Dean’s delight. We passed the five star hotels with their private (?) beaches, and then mistakenly wandered into a walled-off single sex beach on a men only day! We quickly back-tracked and made our way up the hill to the park above the beaches, where Greg admired the sculptures and posed for photographs at each one. In the process I thought I had broken my camera after it fell out of its case and smashed to the ground. Fortunately I managed to re-attach the covering which had come loose and it seems to be working okay.

At around this time, Dean fell asleep in the pram and Greg and I alternated pushing it along the bumpy path. We made our way back down to the beachfront and walked past all the beaches until we reached Bograshov Beach, and then went back to the flat. Russel and Ryan arrived back shortly after - we had been walking, albeit slowly, for almost two hours!

After some lunch in the flat and a bit of downtime, we changed into our beach gear and headed back to Bograshov beach. However, either because of the rough sea or the ubiquitous jellyfish, there was no swimming allowed. We did see a large number of people in the water further south, so we walked across the sand until we arrived at what must be the biggest summer teenage beach hangout since Clifton first beach in its heyday. The boys headed straight for the water, while I made myself comfortable on a deck chair under an umbrella, for a fee of course. I people-watched, amazed at how uninhibited the youngsters were, with bodies of all shapes and sizes prancing around in bikinis. (In Haifa I had noticed how the oldies were equally uninhibited, walking along the beachfront in costumes and a few even in bikinis!). The boys had a ball in the water, rough as it was. Fortunately they didn’t encounter any jellyfish in the water (the swimming area was netted, but the waves could very easily have washed some jellyfish in.

After showering and bathing we (excluding Ryan, who was too tired) walked up to Bograshov Rd for dinner at one of the many pavement cafes. Then back home for a fairly early night.

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