15/1 and 17/1: Tel Aviv

The place that I am staying is about half an hour in a car from Tel Aviv. I have been to Tel Aviv on my own two times. But before I tell more about that feel like ranting about Hebrew. Hebrew is a completely different alphabet than the Latin alphabet that we use in most of Europe and the rest of the world. But unlike languages like Mandarin or Hindi where the written word is beautiful, Hebrew seems like nothing more than lines (much like Latin really, but those lines I know!), lines that I can’t even begin to understand. Which is probably why it frustrates me so much, street signs and bus stops only in Hebrew doesn’t help me at all, even if I know how to say it. Luckily the street signs in Tel Aviv are also in English. The first time I went to Tel Aviv on my own I went to the Diaspora museum because a book I have called: a 1000 places to see before you die, mentions this one. It tells the story about Jews in the Diaspora by focusing on major aspects of Jewish life like family, community, faith, culture among the nations and the return to Zion. It has a lot of beautiful models of synagogues from all over the world, many of which were destroyed during World War II. After that I took a bike, Tel Aviv has a wonderful biking system with bikes practically everywhere in the city – you can borrow a bike from any station and leave it at any other station, and went to the waterfront. From there I biked down toward the kids’ father’s workplace as he would be giving me a lift back with him. On the way while I was enjoying the view a guy came over, he was older than my father, bald and kind of chubby, he started talking to me and I really didn’t want to talk to him so I stayed polite for a few moments until he saw my phone and asked if I wanted his number, then I just raced off. He yelled: “we could also make love!” after me, I just stepped on it a bit more. Today I also went to Tel Aviv this time through the city, but mostly the waterfront down to Jaffa, Yafo or whatever you want to call it. I also biked most of the way today, until I was in the old part of Jaffa from where I walked up and there I had an ice-cream and enjoyed the last of the sunshine. It is Friday today, which means that by sunset it will be the Shabbat, which in turn means that there won’t be any public transportation. I thought that it didn’t stop before sunset, but it stops at 2 pm. I didn’t go there before 1 pm, so I would have had to take a bus straight back. So they had to come and get me and I said that I thought there would be something later, but then the father was like: “no, I told you that they end early on Friday.” I just thought, well great, you saw me leaving a little before 1 pm, you could have figured out I wouldn’t have made it with a bus back at 2 pm! But never mind, I had a nice day. When I was waiting for him two people started conversations with me. The first scared away some pigeons and then he asked if it was his fault, we agreed that it was since I was standing still, after a little more talk we went on our way. A little while after another guy came up to me, he, like the other one, started off in Hebrew. “You don’t speak Hebrew?” I answered in the negative and then he asked me where I am from and went on to show me pictures of a trip he took to Denmark. But by then the father was there to pick me up.