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!