The Office I

I have decided to start a new series of posts that have to do with things that annoy me at the office.
Today's rant... the people who talk like they are in the market (in the "shuk"), whom you can overhear LOUDLY even though they are in the office with the door closed. Now here I am, trying to concentrate on some Java code that is not cooperating and I have to listen to them laughing their effin heads off incessantly.
What to do?
Walk over and ask them to pipe down? hmmm... Not passive Aggressive enough.
Pack up and work from home? Tempting but my remote connection is temporarily disabled.

Now it just happens that one of the culprits sits a couple of cubes next to me, and it also happens that the rest of my team is not here today.
Which makes it a perfect time to play Britney's "Circus" album over and over again without headphones.
Loud.
It achieved not only the goal of distracting me from their Hyena-like laughter, but also served to annoy the one that came back to his desk after the meeting. Or so I hope.
Mission Accomplished.
We'll see if he's too passive aggressive to say something.
Payback's a BITCH!

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!

Sorry I've been away for a while - the holidays (Hanukkah), my being sick and very busy at work unfortunately took precedence.
However as Britney said... I'm here now.
I cannot believe this moment has come. I am giddier than I was when I heard Britney was back. Israel has officially joined the league of civilized Western Nations.

Has Peace come to the Middle East? Better!

Is the recession over? Who Cares???

In the words of an annoying little girl who stared at the TV in a classic Speilberg movie (no doubt waiting for annoying little dogs to show up and take over the neighborhood).....

"THEY'RE HEEEEEEEEERE"

Oh YES! The Chihuahuas have made Aliyah! Beverly Hills Chihuahua is playing in Israel!
I saw the poster while going to see the movie Bolt (really good! Not like that F*cking DUMM-E movie). Miley Cyrus was great, John Travolta - not so much. But I digress! The great thing about movies like this for kids is that you can see them in English AND dubbed to hebrew. Valley-Chihuahuas speaking the Holy Language?

I may have to go see this movie twice!!!!

feels so good to be home

It's good to be back in the US of A, even for a little while.
What I've missed about this country:
*The courteousness of total strangers and service people
*Being able to choose half anf half or skim milk with my burnt-roast Starbucks coffee
*Burnt-roast Starbucks house coffee
*Walking through an airport and dreaming about the distinations displayed on the boards at each gate, its fun to think that all those exotic locations are only a flight away from where I am.
*Being able to return mechandise at the store and get back cash.

Anyway more soon with some pictures.
As we say in America, Happy Thanksgiving.

How desparate would you be to find parking in Tel Aviv?

This desparate?

there are a few posts like this on my street,
mainly outside building entrances. Didn;t seem to bother the good folk who decided to park there. Posts? We don;t care about no stinkin' posts!

I guess after the first time you dent your car on a post like that (maybe by accident), a whole world of parking possibilities opens up to you, cuz hey, you already got the dent.
But if you look closely at the photo on the right you'll see that even Miss Kitty who was hiding out under the wheel is pretty amazed at this idiot.
fixing a dented car - $400
finding a parking place in Tel Aviv - priceless??? until you have to move, that is.


oh and one more thing - I didn;t think this one up (credit goes to Benben, or "Santa's Little Helper"), and I apologize to female drivers everywhere (most of them) but to the tune of a previous post of mine (Tel Aviv And Me: A diatribe), we changed the words to:
"Woman-driver woman-womandriver
you're a woman-driver
oh woman-driver oh
you're a woman-driver, babyYou, you, you areYou, you, you are....."

you get the rest :)

Altezahen

Morning Kittens,

Back to talking about Tel Aviv.... Yesterday Municipal elections were held all over the country and in an impressive bit of administrative magic I was actually eligible to vote in Tel Aviv, being that I am now officially a Tel-Avivian. Now of course this is a dangerous thing since I don;t know the first thing about any of the issues. But off I went to vote on a whim, a hunch and the advice of friends, rather than any real understanding of reality.

Yes, I felt like part of the Republican Base.

I Keed, I keed, of course!

Anyway, my candidate lost, which I am not too broken up about. For city council I voted for the party that promotes animal rights and the environment, cuz I figure people can speak out for themselves but our 4-legged friends need all the help they can get.

But that's not the topic of today's post.

Today I want to introduce you to another (I think) decidedly anachronistic Israeli institution, that of the AlteZahen.

"AlteZahen" is a Yiddish phrase which means, if I am correct, "to carry old things".

Imagine in the olden days of the country, the glory years of old, when a horse and buggy would roam the streets and collect old things that people did not need. It could be clothes, an old stove, books, whatever you wanted to give away. Twice a week or so a man riding this horse and buggy would stroll by, shouting "AlteZahen" at the top of his lungs, and you would know that he is near, drop your bucket that you were milking the goat with (no, not camels even though this is the Middle East), and run over to flag him down and hand over your trash... er, I mean vintage ware.

Well, now close your eyes and imagine in the hustle and bustle of the Tel Aviv morning, that this horse and buggy still exists....

ok, open your eyes. Did your mental image look anything like this??

Yes, the horse and buggy are alive and kicking in Tel Aviv 2008! So this guy strolls down the street shouting "Altezahen" at the top of his lungs. If you flag him down he will stop and pick up whatever stuff you have to give, then take it and try to sell it in the market, I think.

I realize this makes Israel look like a horse-and-buggy sort of place, but well... you can;t argue with the facts :)

On a side note, this is a picture of my street, which you can see is very narrow (one-way). Parking absolutely sucks here.

Anyhoo, that's what I wanted to share. Altezahen. A Yiddish institution for centuries now. One more thought: Wouldn't it be embarrassing if he looked at your crap and refused to take it?

An Open Letter

To Bentzi, The television delivery guy who is supposed to deliver my TV,

Dear Bentzi,
No, I am not "harder to reach than the Prime-Minister".
It's just that at around 5:00 pm, the hour during which you tried to call me 5 times, I was on the road on the way back from work and do not have a hands-free device in my car yet.
And I WOULD have gotten back to you ASAP, except for the fact that your number showed up as "unavailable" and that you did not leave message any of those times.
So when finally called a sixth time and I was already home, I was more than happy to pick up.

And so my observation for today is that Israelis do not leave voice messages. It's like you see a missed call from someone and that's an indication that you should call them back.
That's not to say that I don;t get voicemails, but they are overwhelmingly left by one source, not asking me to call back so much as wondering aloud in an astonished and guilt-inducing voice why I have not called my father and her in over 24 hours.

That's all I have to say, now I need to go call my Mom.

A diatribe

I have to get something off my chest that has nothing to do with Tel Aviv.
It has to do with lazy songwriting.
Although I loved "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce as much as the next guy ("To the left, to the left, everything you own in a box to the left"), I think there should be a rule that you CANNOT, indeed rhyme "minute" with "minute" (Angel you and I discussed this at length), in the immortal lines:

"I can have another man in a minute
in fact he'll be here any minute"

I always felt that was lazy songwriting. Can't you open a dictionary or google a word that rhymes with "minute"??
But rhyming "minute" with "minute" is pure lyrical GENIOUS compared to the following lyrics from a contemporary pop single...

"Womanizer woman-womanizer
you're a womanizer
oh womanizer oh
you're a womanizer, baby
You, you, you are
You, you, you are
Womanizer, Womanizer
Womanizer"

SERIOUSLY, Britney??? It must have taken all of 5 minutes to come up with these lyrics!
MAYBE! Suddenly Beyonce seems like a master-poet. If you're trying to stage a comeback, spend another 90 seconds on your lyrics PLEASE.

That said, it's still a f*cking great song to dance to :)

Idiocracy

I just recently watched the 2005 movie Idiocracy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/), which I highly recommend. It depicts human sociaty in 500 years, dumbed down by consumarism. the funny things was that during the first 5 minutes of our hero being transported to the future I saw two familiar elements:
1. Mass piles of garbage as high as buildings
2. A guy sitting on a chair watching a multi-screen TV, with a built-in toilet and drinking spigot, so he would never have to get up.
Hey wait a minute! Any of that sound familiar? Why yes, you must be saying, sounds like elements from the movie Wall-E.
And since Wall-E came out AFTER Idiocracy, one must only assume that they knocked off those things from this movie. ALLEGEDLY.
Another reason for me to hate that fucking robot.

Holy Deliveries, Batman!!! My stuff's here

Last week I got the call that my shipment has cleared customs and it will be a few days before I got it. This morning it cleared the Haifa port and it is on its way!!!
As a courtesy to my 3 regular readers, I have decided to live-blog the event...

8:38 pm : ok, so I'm not much of a live blogger. I think the problem is that when you quote-unquote "live", you don;t have time to quote-unquote "blog".
Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty hectic, the boxes started piling in, The General directed them downstairs, the Engineer checked them off thelists as they arrived, I unwrapped the packages in the paper so the movers could take it back with them, and Santa's little helper and the iElf were kept busy helping with everything.
All in all - everything arrived safely (it seems), and no more drama ensued.
At approximately 6:00 pm I lay down on my newly constructed bed to take a 10 minute nap.
At approximately 8:00 pm I woke up from my 10 minute nap. God, I missed my bed!!!!!


Here is a first look at my apartment with the boxes and the sofa finally assembled. And...... my bed! If you notice on the picture on the right - Elvis (my snowboard) is peeking out there.
He still feels bad about what happened...










2:20 pm - the first two packages arrived in the house! MAZAL TOV!!!

2:18 pm it's on!!! Much drama - The Big container van could not access my street (very narrow) so they parked outside of town (Reading parking lot) and decided to send the stff in two trips with a smaller van. Santa's little helper and I drove out to meet them there where the ceremoniously opened the container, and I drove back and left Santa's little helper there.

12:10 am: T-20: What's the appropriate music for such an occasion? Stevie Wonder works for ANY occasion. Stevie it is. Fulfillingness First Finale and Square Circle...

11:20 am: T-70: Cleaning the house. Not so much because of the movers as because my mother's coming to help. Can;t let her see a dirty house. Hide the laundry, clean the sink, usual pre-General visit stuff.

11:00 am: T-90: Got the call from the movers that they just left Haifa, so it will be about 90 minutes before they arrive. They asked me to make sure they have a place to park and I said sure. There's nowhere to park on my street. We'll deal with it when they get here and it's too late for them to refuse service.
Called Mom and Dad ("The General" and "The Engineer"), they will depart Headquarters shortly and arrive at the scene ASAP.
Texted Benben and Idan ("Santa's little helper" and the "iElf").

Yom Kippur

Hello Daaaahlings,

Sorry for the lapse in posting, I have been quite busy. With what, you ask? Well, I'll tell you all about it in the next posts.

Let's start with that funnest of Jewish Holidays... Yom Kippur! Where you get to atone for everything that you've done wrong in the last year and start a blank slate for the new one. Isn;t sinning and being forgiven fun?!?!

Every week on the Sabbath (Sundown Friday till Sundown Saturday) most businesses close. Those that do not (restaurants, 7-11's, movie theatres, etc...) are not considered "kosher" and therefore are not patronized by the religious community. Which is fine by us seculars :)

But even on a Sabbath you can still find plenty of coffee-shops, restaurants and stores open to entertain you. On Yom Kippur, however, EVERYTHING is closed. The country basically shuts down for 24 hours.

No TV, no Radio, No restaurants/cafes/shops.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Thanks God for the internet!

Also on this day, no-one drives their cars (except for emergency vehicles). So the streets of Israel are empty of cars, and thats when the kiddies take over with their bikes (why cars are not allowed but bikes are is another story). It's actually quite surreal to see the streets all empty and people walking on them and strolling about. I took a couple of pictures of Dizengof and Ben Yehuda street:

This is Ben Yehuda Street, a main thoroughfare, close to my house. Barely a dog and a person on the street :)

And to the right is Dizengof Square, which is on the main street of Tel Aviv. As you can see, just people walking. Very surreal.

I also took a walk on the beach promenade (beaches were all full, yo) and found these gentlemen that were apaprently having a good time with some pigeons.... I wonder what they're atoning for...

Hey-Yelllll YEAH!!!

Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
Beverly Hills Chihuahua, $29 million
Eagle Eye, $17.7 million
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, $12 million
Nights in Rodanthe, $7.4 million
Appaloosa, $5 million
Lakeview Terrace, $4.5 million
Burn After Reading, $4.1 million
Fireproof, $4.07 million
An American Carol, $3.8 million
Religulous, $3.5 million

http://vids.eonline.com/services/link/bcpid1396519019/bctid1834405130

Shana Tova!!! (Happy New Year)

This is the Eve of the Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashana.

People work half a day today (Monday) and tomorrow and Wednesday are holiday! Gotta love a short work-week.

So Happy New Year, whether you celebrate it or not! I will be having the Holiday dinner tonight at my brother's in Kfar Saba, and spend the next couple of days relaxing in Tel Aviv - hopefully the weather will be beach-friendly :)

Couple of Random shots I took......

This is my apartment building from the outside! My apartment is the middle floor with the open blinds in the front. I didn;t take a picture of the street but you would see that there is absolutely nowhere to park on it.

Deborah this one's for you... I just thought it was funny. It's an Orthodox hotel on Ben Yehuda street - so of course very Kosher and stuff. Hey, the Orthodox want to try out the Tel Aviv nightlife too! :)

And last but not least... li'l ole me at the company picnic for the new year in the Carmel Mountains in Haifa - beautiful place to picnic!

SHANA TOVA!

It happened again!

It happened again!
I was at the gym and a trainer who was working with a client asked me in English how many more sets I have.
DO I HAVE "AMERICAN" written on my forehead????
and how do I get it off?
Maybe it's the Camp Pendleton cut-off shirt I'm wearing? I don;t get it. I even got an Israeli haircut!
Ideas, anyone?
Asaf??

UPDATE: I'm not sure if an Israeli haircut looks any different than an American one, but it was cut by an Israeli hairstylist. It was kind of surreal too, I felt like I was in a scene from a mix between the movie "Barber Shop" and "Beauty Shop", because there were a bunch of 14 year-old girls sitting around the shop doing nothing talking to the two male hairdressers in their thirties, discussing whether Coca Cola contained Carob's (look it up, they're delicious) or not.
anyway, due to popular demand, here is the resulting haircut, pic taken at work today..

In Memorium

Eleanor Hanley

1923 - 2008

There's family that you're born with and there's family that you choose.

You were part of the latter, and you will be missed.

Rest in peace

תהיה נפשך צרורה בצרור החיים

Old Town Mexican Cafe it ain't!

A nice Carne Asada Burrito. Con Queso. With salsa on the side.
mmmmmm....
That's one of the things I miss most about San Diego.
Mexican food is not that big in Israel, and when you find it, it is usually more of a texmex thing.
So it was with great trepedition that I approached "Mexicana", the Mexican restaurant that's right around the corner from my house.

So I donning my Old Navy "El Paso" T-shirt (total coincidence I assure you!) and readying myself for an adventure, I met my friend Idan for dinner at this fine establishment.
The verdict? Old Town Mexican Cafe it ain't. Or Colima's for that matter (Oh Conga Burrito, I miss you!). But it was ok, good ina pinch when you need some mexican flare (and who doesn;t every now and then? Right, Gustavo?)
I understand that as a restaurant proprietor you want to adapt your menu to the local demographic that will be patronizing your store, but I think putting Ricotta cheese in the burrito might be taking it a little too far.
The Margarita wasn't really a Margarita, it was some slush with no discernable trace of Tequila.
One really yummy thing, though, was the Churros for dessert. This was a true fusion accomplishment, as it was covered in a Halva sauce with vanilla ice-cream. It was delicious!!

So although it wasn;t to-die-for and definitely is no substitute for Colima's, they have a take-out and delivery menu and I grabbed one just in case I feel a little Mexican and a little Lazy one night :)

Standing out

I was at the gym the other day and wanted to use a leg-press machine that was being used by a trainer training a client. I waited until I thought they were done and put my towel on it, only to have him turn around and tell me that they had one more set.
But here's the thing.... he spoke to me in English! Albeit broken-Israeli-accent English.
He doesn't know me, I never spoke to him, for all he knew I was just another guy working out, and yet he had a feeling I was a foreigner.
Hmmm....
Is it that obvious??
I answered back in Hebrew that I would wait, no problem.
But I wondered, do I look that out of place? that different? Granted, I was wearing my Camp Pendleton Mud run workout shirt, but that's hardly a big deal...
My curiosiy getting the better of me, I asked him why he thought he should speak English to me... He answered he just got that impression, maybe because my workout gloves were not available in Israel.
That's not the first time somebody has said or implied that I look American, which is ironic because of my "buy-clothes-not-on-the-continent-you-wear-them" rule, which means that most of my wardrobe was bought in Israel in the last 11 years!
I guess I wear Israeli clothes, but I wear them in an American manner.
Whatever that means.
And it's not a bad thing! I'm all for being different and standing out in a crowd.
I just usually like to be aware of what it is I'm doing that's different :)

You do WHAT on the first date?

coming back from lunch today at work, a fellow Employee walked out of the elevator (I stood by and let him pass - honest!) wearing a shirt that read "I Fuck On The First Date".
Now, it's funny. But at work? I could only imagine if I walked into the San Diego campus wearing that shirt. I would be fired quicker than a firecracker on the 4th of July. But here, no one flinches. Hmm. Gotta love it :)
This follows a conversation I heard in the break room between two guys about how it would be more interesting for the male employees if the company installed poles in the breakroom for the female employees to dance on. The female employee that overheard it responded, without missing a beat, "tell your friends the next show is at 4 pm".

Oh and on an unrelated note - Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton together? Funniest thing EVER!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnRUKIMegn8

OMG OMG OMG, check another performance off the list

As you may know, my alltime absolute favorite musician is Beth Hart (http://www.bethhart.com/), but you may NOT know that my absolute favorite Israeli musician is Leah Shabat (http://http://www.leahshabat.com). Leah is a very talented composer and has written the music for some of the most popular songs in Israel. She has a very earthy voice (my Mom describes it as SandPaper) but I, needless to say, do not agree.

So imagine my surprise when my friend Alon told me she was performing the other night at a cafe in Jaffa (just south of Tel Aviv).

I have all her CD's and her music has always been my connection to home, I would listen to it whenever I was homesick, and her duets CD was a Friday afternoon staple in my car - it marked the beginning of the weekend on the way home from work!

To make a long story short - the show was great, very intimate. She sang all her hits, and I sang along with them. After the show I walked up and talked to her and told her how much I appreciated her music.

It was one of those moments that I could have died happy.

Advertising Tel-Aviv style

In Hebrew the word "Clearance" (as in "Clearance Sale") is also the word for Extermination, Elimination or just plain taking someone out. I was walking along Dizengoff Street a couple of nights ago and saw a shoe store that was having a Clearance sale and found a nifty way of advertising it in the window...
How do you exterminate? With uzi's, M-16's and the like, of course....
So a shoe extermination looked like this...

Note the arsenal, the chalk-outlines of the shoes and the police tape.
I think it's hilarious, but probably would elicit protests and angry letters in San Diego.

But I bet Sarah Palin would approve of this!

Bush's next job

I took these photos a couple of weeks ago but wanted to share them...

I think the Israeli marketing people for McDonalds have found a great new calling for Dubya... Hocking Hamburgers....

Apparently McDonalds was holding daily raffles to win tickets to the Beijing Olympics, and nothing says American Food more than George W. Bush.

The question remains, however:

Would you buy a hamburger from this man?!?!

one of those days

Last couple of days have been a little tough.
There was more car trouble and it took me half a day to go between agencies and municipal offices to get my resident's parking permit.
I can't put into words exaclt how much parking sucks in this city. There is a joke someone told me that people looking for apartments in Tel Aviv first find an empty parking spot and then rent an apartment close to it. Sounds about right.
I'm homesick for San Diego. It's really easy to wish I was back on my couch on Arnold Street with the A/C on, reading a book and watching Chelsea Lately. Maybe because I am still waiting for that couch to arrive :)
I miss everyone, hope you're all well!

Car Trouble

I moved into my new apartment as mentioned below, and in the 24 hours that I have been there I've learned what trouble it is to own a car in Tel Aviv.

Parking here is HORRENDOUS.

First of all, if you don;t have a resident-sticker on your car, you are nothing. Less than nothing.

But to get one, I have to go to the ministry of the interior and change my home address in my ID card. Since they work about 3 days a week, 3 hours at a time, it's no easy feat.

In the meantime, I can;t really park anywhere, a lesson I learned the hard way, becuase in the 24 hours since I moved in, my car has been:

1. Towed
2. Ticketed for illegal parking (after I returned it from the tow-yard)
3. hit by a moving car while parked in the street, thereby denting the back bumper (sometime between the time I released it from towing and the time I discovered the parking ticket).

Lucky it's a rental from the leasing office. All of this didn;t phase, however, and I marched on like a trooper.
So this morning I decided to move the car to a free parking lot outside of town (actually about a 30 minute walk from my house) and leave it there for the day until I decide what to do, and it wasn;t until I realized that I had just locked myself out of the apartment that I started feeling things could be going a little easier.
Anyway, a few frantic phonecalls and a new lock later, I am ready to head to the beach for a Friday Afternoon swim.
I leave you with a few new pics of Tel Aviv: This is the Reading power plant in North Tel Aviv, where the Sea Port is. In the foreground is the Yarkon River. This is a really beautiful area thats been developed in the last few years.

What I'm going to miss.....

this movie may reach Tel Aviv (I'm not sure though), but I am really sorry I am going to miss the premiere.

Charlie - we're renting it when you come visit.

Justin - thanks for the pic :)

He-yell YEAH

I found it. I effin found it.
I didn;t want to say anything before I got the keys and was able to stake my claim, but it happened and now I officially have an apartment in Tel Aviv!
It's nice and roomy, a 10 minute walk from the beach. I will send out the address in an email, if you didn;t recieve it and want it, let me know and I will send it to you.
Dealing with the Landlord has been quite an ordeal too, but I'm just happy to have a place.
My parents and I have spent the last two days cleaning it top to bottom and getting it ready.
My air-shipment has arrived too so I have some basic kitchen supplies and clothes.
The furniture should arrive in a month or so.
I will post pics and go into details tomorrow, but for now.... HEYELLL YEAH!
And Kittens, you're all invited to stay :)

Tel Aviv Sea Port

Another gem I found in the city is the Tel Aviv Sea Port, a bustling commercial area right on the water (well yeah, it's a port...) that boasts great restaurants, shopping, a beautiful wooden boardwalk and nightclubs (the TLV club is there).

It is walking distance from my hotel so I walked over at sunset, it was really beautiful. Kayakers were getting ready to head out for a sunset cruise.

The boardwalk itself is right on the water. It encompasses what used to be the Tel Aviv sea port. It is used for biking, roller-blading, line dancing, Hora dancing. And of course it is lit up at night and looks beautiful - perfect for a romantic Summer night stroll (any takers??)

One final image - me in at the Sea Port:

I am loving Tel Aviv at night!

Alcohol

From going out to bars and clubs a few times since I've gotten here, I have noticed this difference between alcoholic drinks in San Diego and in Tel Aviv:

1. Tel Aviv drinks are not as strong. Of course, when you've set the bar at Urban Mo's, I'm not sure ANYWHERE in the world makes strong drinks. It seems they take care to REALLY measure the shot and are not as generous with it.
2. They don;t like to use a lot of ice. Really. You get maybe two or three ice cubes. And on a hot night on the beach thats not really enough. So I asked for more ice. I got another two ice cubes. I know there's a water shortage in Israel but this is rediculous.
3. It SEEMS like drinks are more expensive here but I think that's just because of the conversion to shekels. Two Gin and Tonics last night cost about 75 shekels, which at 3.5 shekels to the dollar come out to about $11 a drink. It's certainly not Nunu's, but hell, it ain;t Stingaree either.

Anyway, being the investigative reporter that I am (Brenda Starr has nothing on me), I will continue to look for that perfect combination of cold, strong and cheap drinks, and will report back!

Update: It has been brought to my attention that prepared ice is kind of expensive in Israel. That might have something to do with the stinginess...

Cultural musings #1 or How to enter an Elevator

Being Americanized for so long, I obviously notice differences between Israeli and American culture, and I will report these differences here.
One such difference is the way people enter elevators. In the US it is customary to wait until everyone has gotten off an elevator before stepping into it.

Not so in the Middle East, apparently.

Here it seems customary to try and enter the elevator before anyone has gotten off.
Now, granted, this system seems to have a few flaws: First of all, if the elevator was full coming down, you will not have room to get on board. Second, you're getting in the way of people trying to get out.
All this seems to not matter. But I have to say that I don;t think only Israeli's are guilty of this. The hotel I am staying in is full of French tourists and they seem to be just as guilty of it too, if not more so (Sorry, Lionel!). Did they learn quickly from the Israelis? Or did they bring this custom from the land of the Croissant??
Either way, it may strike you as very rude, as it did me. On second thought, though, I don;t think people are doing it out of rudeness. I think they are just perpetually in a hurry.
As for me? Turns out you adapt to elevator etiquette pretty quickly. So if next time you meet me in an elevator I run you over trying to get in, it's not because I'm rude.
I'm just in a hurry.

Offer Nissim

This past Friday I finally had a taste of the Tel Aviv nightlife, and it was the perfect introduction. Offer Nissim, a world-famous Israeli DJ, was spinning at the TLV nightclub.
I am not a big DJ fanatic and I can;t tell them apart, but Offer is very unique and I can identify his music. I think he's fantastic. Everyone in Southern Cal knows him too :)
This is my favorite song of his:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXMhchvbHtE

Anyway, My friend Asaf (one S!!) and I got there around 2:00 am (kudos to Asaf for getting us in for free). The place was PACKED SOLID! Apparently Offer is also very popular in Israel as well. Ten minutes after we got there he came on.
This being my first time ever seeing him, I was in awe. There was such energy in the crowd. His platform was right above the dance floor so he had great contact with the people. The spotlight was on him, and he seemed to be orchestrating the music as it was playing. People were responding to him, to the music, to each other. It was pretty amazing. There were dancers around him as well, but interestingly the spotlights were on him only, they were dancing in the dark.
Asaf cashed it in around 4:30, but I kept dancing until around 6:00 am. When I walked out of the club it was dawn and I decided to walk to the hotel, since it was pretty close. My leg was not cooperating very well (after a night of dancing, I wanted it to walk as well???) but I made it and fell into a fitfull slumber.
Until I woke up to go to the beach :)

The Hunt!

Picture it......
We are on a hunt in the urban jungle that is Tel Aviv....
The predator: You!
The prey: The oft-heard-of but rarely seen species known as Apartmentus Decentus, or the common Descent Apartment. Now, the species Apartmentus is very common, but the Decentus subspecies is a very rare sighting. Its cousin, Apartmentus Crapus, is waaaay more common.
Telling them apart can be a challenge too, since their mating calls can be confusing. The Apartmentus Crapus will advertise itself as an Apartmentus Decentus and only when you actually venture into the jungle and lay your eyes upon it, do you realize that you have been had.
It is then you realize that Apartmentus Crapus was nothing more than a trap set for you by the predator above you on the urban food chain, the shady-ious Slum Lordius. If you are not careful, this bottom-feeding scum-sucker of a predator will trick you into signing a lease and living in a drug-den of an apartment that's 3 feet wide and has no windows. Oh yeah, the demand for apartments in Tel Aviv is so high that owners have taken up the practice of dividing their apartments into two OR THREE smaller apartments and renting them out as Studios or 1-bedrooms!

So in my attempt to find an apartment in Tel Aviv I have come to the conclusion that you have 3 choices before you:

1. Overpay for a crappy drug-den of a rat-infested apartment
2. Overpay more for a semi-decent place
3. Overpay even more for a decent apartment

I am trying to avoid option #1 and am willing to consider #2 if all else fails, but I would REALLY like to find option #3. Since supply of this apartment archtype is low and demand is high, the search becomes almost surreal. You have to check listings in real-time and call and be the first person to see it and stake a claim to it. Hell, sometimes you have to see it BEFORE the first person who sees it. Yeah, makes sense, huh?

And if you've seen it and expressed interest in it, is it yours? Well, not necessarily. You may find yourself in a bidding war with other people who are interested and then the advertised rent is just a launching pad for the auction.

This adventure is not for the faint of heart. But I will persevere and persist in the hunt. I had a really cute one within my grasp only to have it fall through because I suspect someone else offered more for it. Oh well.
But once I find it, poodles, you are all invited to visit :)

Night-Beach!

Is this Las Vegas? Nope, it's a beach in Tel Aviv.

This was taken during a little walk I took to ward off the jetlag.

Oh yeah, and did you know Tel Aviv has palm trees? and they're electric too! Eat your heart out Southern Cal!!!

Matkot (Paddles)

So what do Israelis do at the beach? Well, naturally they play "Matkot" or "Paddles". This game consists of two paddles and a ball which gets, well, paddled between them. The object is very simple - keep the ball off the ground.

People of all skill levels play this game, so the ball remains in the air anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of seconds (like ifI were to play, hey - it's been 11 years!)

I got a few random shots of people playing just to prove my point. By inductive reasoning, you can assume that if these people play, everyone else does too :)

Tel Aviv Beach, or I found the Pretty!!!!

Whenever I used to tell people I was from Israel, they would sometimes immediately reply "oh Israeli men are so hot" or "Israeli women are so hot", which I certainly do not argue with.

so I don't mind telling you that in the few days that I have been here, I was kind of wondering where all these hotties were hiding, why was I not seeing any of the pretty???

Keep in mind, however, that I was busy doing one of the following things (in descending order of time consumed):

1. working
2. apartment hunting (which consists of 90% being stuck in traffic in Tel Aviv or lost and 10% actually looking at apartments)
3. trying to sleep
4. catching up with family

Anyway yesterday after work I decided I was going to make use of the fact that the hotel has a beach adjacent to it and took a walk on the beach. and good news! I found the pretty! Now I'm not one to take pics of random pretty people on the beach (that would be pervy), so you'll have to use your imagination, but here is what the beach looked likeon a Wednesday afternoon:

People are playing volleyball, hanging out, etc... which leads one to ponder... doesn't the pretty need to work? I know it's summer vacation and all, but still....

This is the Tel Aviv Beach boardwalk.

So imagine my excitement when I saw the pretty people out and about. Most of the people with their shirts off had every right to be that way. And if that's how it is on a Wednesday afternoon, imagine Saturday morning, when it's national going-to-the-beach-day!

Next time... the national pasttime at the beach, and how it looks at night.

Around Tel Aviv

I was driving down Ibn Gvirol Street yesterday and noticed this from my window.

I'm not sure if it a who from whoville or a baby chicken, but it found its way to the roof of the Tel Aviv Municipal building in Rabin Square...

First night and morning in Tel Aviv

Picture it...

Monday at 12:30 am (ok so basically it's already Tuesday), just your typical night in the (almost) middle fo the week (work week is Sunday-Thursday in the Holy Land. We love our Fridays off, apparently. You know, to go to Synagogue and stuff...)
And the bars and cafes in the city are... PACKED! It's amazing.

I met my friend Asaf for a beer in the Florentin neighborhood and it was bustling! Looking at this picture it doesn;t do it justice, the place was busier than it looks here. EVERY place was busier that it looks here. Can you imagine that, San Diego???
I just might like it here......


Last night was the first night I spent in Tel Aviv, in a hotel. This morning I awoke to these views...
The view from my hotel balcony was this...

Miami Beach? Marina Del Ray? No Bitches, it's the T.A.!!!!!


And then facing the city, the skyline looked like this in the sunrise...

I'll try to take a picture of it at Sunset.

Btw - How do I know I am not here on vacation like I used to always be?

I've been in Israel 4 whole days now and have not gone shopping ONCE!

First days at work

Well its been a long weekend!

I drove to Haifa for my first day of work. Here I am in front of my little rental Fiat Punto that I used to drive an hour and a half to Haifa, to the HP LAbs offices. The offices are located in the grounds of the Technion, which is like the Israeli MIT.

The view from the offices is astounding. It is of the Haifa Bay. Yes that is the oceanin the background.

I have also gone to the offices in Yehud, which are about 20 minutes east of Tel Aviv, they are much bigger! Mercury has built a new building which is very impressive.

I've been looking for an apartment feverishly. It is very difficult in this city - Supply is low and demand is high. You don;t need to be Adam Smith to figure out what that does to rental rates... yeah. Not pretty.

You'd think this was Manhattan.

Oh, and I have a new cell phone number. I will send it out to people but if you didn;t get it and want it, lemme know (not publishing it here MWAHAHAHAHA)

well I made it!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog.

The purpose of this blog is to document my adventures in Israel, after 11 years in the USA. It's like a journey rediscovering a new land, and I'm taking you with me (whoever you may be).

I feel like Rhoda..... Tel Aviv, this is your last chance!!



Flights went ok. I had a moment at the San Diego gate where I considered abandoning everything and hightailing it to Laguna Beach, and a moment in Newark where I almost did the same to New York or Allentown (go figure!), but I ended up staying the course.

I did call my good friend Naomi and asked her to reassure me that I was doing the right thing while I was sitting at the McDonalds chomping on some chicken McNuggets, and she did. Naomi - I have faith! It was nourishment for the body as well as the soul.

Upon arriving I had a fantastic home-cooked meal (thanks, Dad!), slept like a maniac (thanks, jetlag!), went swimming at the Country Club where I worked when I was 17 and went to my favorite coffee shop in Ra'anana.

First day at work is tomorrow. Cross your fingers!

Oh and before I go ---- one gratuitous shot from my Goodbye Dinner at Mo's. Just me and my ho's......

Hello World

First blogging test :)