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Published: April 4th 2014
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"Ouzima"
Hip Tel Aviv restaurant where we had dinner with Yoav and Orr. We arrived at our hotel about three. It is such a modest hotel that we had a hard time finding it. The lobby is nothing to write home about but the bathroom is new, the bed is great and we are across the street from the American Embassy, should the be a reason that we need to see the ambassador.
It was a glorious day and our hotel is 1 block away from the Mediterranean so we went for a walk along the promenade. The sun was shining, people were on the beach and everything felt "normal". It struck me how unusual this is relative to what is happening in the surrounding countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. I watched movie recently about two teenagers, one in Gaza and one in Tel Aviv. In the movie they become friends on the Internet, and in their sharing what was happening in each of their lives the viewer got to see what life is like in Israel and Gaza. The boy in Gaza has no future and lives in fear. Not only are there occasional Israelis air strikes but on a daily basis he is terrified of the police in Gaza
who at the beginning of the film arrest and torture him thinking that he might be a collaborator. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. The girl in Tel Aviv, does her homework, goes on dates and lives a life similar to the lives my children lived. She lives the “normal” life that you see on the promenade in Tel Aviv. People are jogging and talking on their phones, relaxing on the beach talking on their phones, pushing small children in strollers and talking on their phones and simply relaxing in the sun…..and talking on their phones.
Our friends, Yoav and Orr, met us at our hotel at 6 and took us on a walking tour of Tel Aviv. The markets, the fashionable shopping area, the historic district where the Ethiopian refugees had lived that is now very upscale with a large theatre complex and the renovated “train station” that is full of lovely shops. The “train station” had been an actual train station on the line that ran from Jerusalem to Beirut; not a highly traveled route these days. It has a Ronen Chen store and I have this sentimental connection to their clothes since I bought one of their shirts on a trip to Israel almost a decade ago. Orr told us the ice cream store has the best ice cream in Tel Aviv. Since our friends know a lot about good food, I’m committed to revisiting the area to buy a gift for Beatsie, a shirt for me and get an ice cream. The only problem with our walking tour was that I have no idea where we were in the city or the relationship of one place to another. On my own, I wouldn’t be able to get back to any of the areas we visited and I’m sure many of the places will look very different during the day vs. 9 o’clock at night. We had dinner at a small, casual restaurant that serves Israeli food tapas style. Treif was pretty much what was on the menu: shellfish, shellfish and more shellfish. The meal was great; every dish used ingredients I’ve had in slightly different ways than I’m used to. Besides, I’ve always been a big fan of having a little of this and a little of that. After dinner we walked by an outdoor "gym" constructed by the Israeli government so people who can't afford a gym membership can have a place to work out. There were a couple of people using it as we passed by.
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