November 14 through 19, 2022
First week in Israel, first impressions ...
1) The weather is perfect! 70s to 80s every day, with occasional refreshing rain showers. If I could choose a climate for life, it might be this one. 🔆
2) Everything is expensive, especially food. A jar of peanut butter costs about $4 in the US and is about $8 here. Same for cereal, meat, sauce, etc. Eating out is also expensive but only by a little bit. 🥘
3) Our VRBO place is well-situated, right in the heart of Tel Aviv and close to the beach and cafes and nightlife 💃. The apartment is also a bit bare-bones ... no oven (huh?), no dryer (but not that unusual in this part of the world), hot water has to be "turned on" every day, and the kitchen has minimal supplies. Luckily I find the outside city noise endearing and reminiscent of my Brooklyn childhood (not sure Art feels the same way). But the price is right and the location is perfect, so I guess it's all "good enough." 😏
4) We are very close to several beaches (the closest is about a 5-7 minute walk) and there's a lovely beach path that we've walked a few times already 🌴. We even got to see a unique version of volleyball being played in which the players didn't use their hands (sort of a soccer-volleyball game). Very cool to watch, almost made Art want to relive his volleyball days. 😂
5) We've been doing laundry for days (no facilities in Cyprus or Malta) and finally are caught up. The secret is to bring the drying rack inside before the rain starts... ☔
6) We made our way over to the Carmel Market one day and it's amazing. They have everything you'd want, especially fresh produce, and it seems to be *the* place to shop. I'm planning to visit again (just not right before Shabbat). 😬 Fun aside: the Carmel Market is where I took my only award-winning photo on our previous trip to Israel 👍
7) Lots of people here understand English though not everyone is fluent. Most street/store signs and groceries, however, are in Hebrew. We're figuring things out slowly. Wish we had Ariel with us to translate ... 😍
8) We were treated to Shabbat dinner at David Presser's house (Art's backgammon friend) which was quite lovely. I do love a good ex-pat Shabbat dinner. 😋 Aside: I went to a local bakery on Thursday and asked if they'd have challah the next day. The gal looked at me and said "Of course we will!" Duh 🤦. (... but what a refreshing change from Vons: "what's challah?") And it's been lovely seeing mezuzahs on (just about) every door in town!
9) We also went out to explore during and after Shabbat which was fascinating (very full coffee shops and parks during Shabbat, nightlife starts back up and stores reopen right after Shabbat ends). It's also been nice to be back in a country with right-hand-side driving so we know which way to look 👀
10) Seeing my maiden name all over the place is a real high 😃. We are quite close to Dizengoff Street so we see it a lot! I also learned the other day about a Diaspora Museum that has genealogy databases so we will certainly make it over there sometime (and maybe finally connect the dots to my famous relative!).
I think I was expecting Tel Aviv to be "shinier" but it has its dirty / construction projects / traffic areas. Much like NYC, I suppose (plus we've only seen one area at this point so I can't really generalize). It does have a very cosmopolitan feel.
We recently got an Israeli phone number (via SIM card) so we feel very much like locals now😅 We have about 9 weeks here and I'm quickly realizing that we'll have barely enough time to see all that I want to see LOL 😅. I'm sure we'll manage to do plenty. This week was a gradual transition time and a pretty relaxed week. I flip-flopped between enjoying the downtime and feeling restless (as usual). Next week I plan to see much more (after all we only have 9 weeks left!).
Shalom, Deena and Art
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