Social Life

I haven't posted in the last 2 nights because I have been invited out quite a bit. Thursday night Rafi invited me to a party in this area in southern Tel Aviv called Neve Tzedek. Rafi is a journalist, and the party was primarily journalists. It was in this amazing apartment that was decorated all Renaissance England style. I invited some friends along as well. My new friend Itamar pointed out that there were even some celbrities at the party. Apparently Michal Yanai (the one in the picture) was at the party. Itamar told me she was a soap star or something like that, and lately hasn't been doing anything, so she was probably trying to get some journalistic attention at the party. Either way I didn't meet her, and I didn't even notice her. And even if I had met her, I woundn't know who she was. It's like Jacob's Dad standing in line at starbucks behind Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Then yesterday my new American friend Jonah (and friends with Lepow, as I mentioned) invited me over to his house, as he has a huge porch and was having people over. He has an very intersting international circle, and the people were great. There were 2 mexicans, one brit, one aussie, two south africans, 3 israelis, two americans and me. We stayed up talking politics and drinking till around 3:30 am.

Tonight I'm invited out again, my friend from New York, Mor invited me out as she is having a little gathering for her friends at a place by my house called Joe's Cafe.

Gyms

Over the past two weeks or so I have been searching for a gym to go to, as has become my habit since I was living in new york. I found a couple of sort of cheap gyms in the city, and then some small really expensive ones. Then, I finally went to the massive sport complex at the University. The place is huge, by Israeli standards. One olympic size pool, two smaller pools, full soccer field, two outdoor basketball courts, one indoor basketball arena (I guess for the university team, maybe, and it also doubles as the indoor soccer field). Fairly large and clean/modern gym facility, two large multi-purpose studios, two tennis courts, and even a squash court.
(Check out their website here, and their map here).

I mention this because the site kind of reminds me of RIMAC at UCSD. RIMAC was our sport facility in college, and in retrospect was an absolutely amazing place. I believe it is still the 2nd largest sport facility in the states. Granted, the Israeli counterpart here is significantly smaller and more compact, but so is everything here. The other reason I mention it is because, much like RIMAC, the university facility is open to the public as well (much like campus Libraries are also open to the public). Here is the catch, as a student, I'm paying literally a fourth of the price for the going public. Its exactly 100 shekels a month for me, roughly $22.50, which is fairly cheap (especially for Manhattan prices).

Funny Story

Here is a funny story for you. About 70 years ago my great great grandfather (my grandmother's grandfather) had a piece of land in Yaffo about a quarter of a dunam (roughly 170 square meters , or 1600 square feet). This property got lost in the fray and was passed down to his sons, who held it for another 30 years or so and then it fell between the cracks and emerged on the desk of a lawyer who finally was able to sell the property and disperse the inheritance to the remaining "kids" (the grandkids who are now in their eighties). The inheritance was fairly substantial, even after the city of Tel Aviv took out unpaid property tax going back to 1943 (no kidding on that one) So I was invited along to see these old timers. From left to right: Royi, my second cousin who is 2 years younger than me (katie, he gives you a big hug). He drove his grandmother (my great aunt) Shula. Next to her in the red is her sister (my grandmother), followed by my grandfather. Next to him is Yaakov, my grandmother's cousin (at a strapping 83 years young). Followed by the youngest cousin, Ilana, I believe at 76. Then, on the far right is Roni, who is the son of the other inheritor, who passed many years ago. Roni is techinically my father's cousin, but apparently the last time anybody saw him was at his Bar Mitzvah, literally over 25 years ago.

Royi and I left them there and went to get some lunch.

More Tel Aviv

I wont bore you with what I did at the bank today, but this afternoon and evening was a lot of fun. I met up with a friend of mine and my sisters named Mor and we went to this cafe on the beach and had a coffee and caught up. Below is the view from the coffee place, which is relatively north at Hilton Beach (named for the hotel that overlooks it). Then we walked south to the area between Gordon Beach and Frishman Beach (named for the two streets that reach it). Gordon Beach is the closest to my house, at a whopping 8 minute walk, roughly one kilometer. As you can see, the sun was setting, but the water was still warm, as there is a warm current that flows through the Mediterannean Sea along the coast of Israel, I believe it starts aroung north Cario and flows all the way up toward Turkey. If you look at the far left of the photo, that is basically where Yaffo starts. If you recal from my previous post I had a photo from Yaffo looking north, and this is from Tel Aviv looking south. you can see the same hotels along the strip in both photos from two different angles.
The other thing that is interesting about the Tel Aviv beachfront is that the buildings that actually line the shore are relatively nasty. They ahve always been nasty and only in the recent years have they started to be rebuilt. If you expand the photo below you can see they are rebuilding some of the disgusting old buildings (see the crane) and next to it you can see the smaller buildings that are fairly delapidated... I'm postive that over the coming 20 years this entire beachfront will get a massive face lift, as it is prime real estate.
This evening my friend Rafi invited me to Yaffo, he is housesitting for a friend. The apartment was amazing. There is an area of Yaffo where all the old Arabesque buildings have been refurbished and the architecture is stunning. The apartment was amazing and had this massive roof deck where we all sat. I have to go back durring the daylight hours to take photos, but the area was stunning.

Flea Market

I forgot to post about this last week, but I walked all the way down to the flea market in Yafo last week. Yafo, which is one of the oldest remaining cities in the region and dates back to the Phonecians or even before. The city now is a little run down but is also going through the early stages of gentrification.

Yafo has this crazy flea market where you can buy literally everything. From a bed frame to cucumbers, from designer "Deezel" jeans to persian rugs. Its crazy. (Coco, I have to take you here, you will love it).

The Market itself covers a wide expanse of streets, but it also has a this central area as well where they mostly sell the clothing/jewlery/hookas and smaller things. This is the photo of the interior, I can't describe to you how dense it is. My shoulders barely squeezed in between that bag on the left and the rack of pants on the right (I took this photo by my hip because I didn't want people to notice and be offended.

I walked out of the market and toward the ancient city of Yafo, which used to be the biggest port in the Mediterannean 2000 years ago. Up on the hill I took this photo looking north toward the city of Tel Aviv. All in all, the walk was about 3 hours from my house to here, but I also stopped for lunch, and also for a coffee.

Random Encounters

So I have had 3 random encounters in the last three days. First, on the way to Ultimate practice this past Wed. we picked up a new player. Turns out the new players is this kid Rafi (for those who know him) that I know from way back in summer camp days. We were counselors together, and I haven't seen him in literally 8 years.
Then, yesterday, I got a coffee with Andy Sinton (for those who know him) who now lives in Jerusalem and is doing his post-doc in Math at Hebrew University (something about the Caculus behind matrices of geometric spaces, Firas you might know about this). I haven't seen him in ten years practically, since he and I graduated college together. Turns out he is married to the older sister of Elana, another firend of mine from San Francisco.
Then, later last night I went out to this new bar called Izen with Pros and his crew and I met this girl named Jesse who turns out is best friends with Maura in San Francisco.

Small world. Well, small anglo world in Israel is more correct.

Mike's Place

Dan and Sabrina came to visit me today and are officially my first visitors. Granted they only came down the hill from Jerusalem, but still. We went to dinner and then drinks at Mike's Place in honor of Lepow. (PS, Jesse, the waitress there said she didn't remember who you were, and she has been working there for 2 years, sorry).

We have Wi-Fi!

I finally have wireless internet in the house!!! I'm so excited!!! Another item off the list of things to do! Here is what remains, in chronological order: Tomorrow I finally get my apartment in order becuase I have been slacking about doing that due to laziness and the desire to deal with getting wifi done with. Also go to Ikea becuase they are having a sale and I need a really cheap bookshelf and they have one for 80 Shekels, rougly 17 bucks. Tuesday I finalize the paperwork for national health insurance. Wed. I do laundry.

Tonight I also baby sat my little cousin (technically my cousin once removed). We watched Mulan (again). Then played around for half an hour till his father (my direct cousin from my mother's side) returned home. They also live in Tel Aviv, so it was a quick 10 minute walk.

Here is Tomer and I on the couch. Tomer is four and half. He told me that one of the kids from his preschool called him stupid today so he told him to shut up. Seems logical.

Southern Tel Aviv

I have plenty of free time for the coming 5 weeks until school starts, so I have started to explore my city a bit. Today I went to the southern part of Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv, like Manhattan, has a disticnt North vs. South mentality. Like people who live about 14th street vs. people who live below 14th street (or in SF like those who live north of Cal vs. south of Cal). My neighborhood is in the north part, which is considered more Yuppie and stuck up. The most stuck up area, equivalent to the Upper East Side of Tel Aviv is the most northern tip of the actual city, the area just north of the Uni, called Ramat Aviv Gimel. They even made a soap opera with that name a few years back. I went to the area called Florentine, which can be most closely equated to the East Village of New York. It is filled with young people, small coffee shops, bars, boutiques, and is going through a massive restoration project right now. You can see from the photo that the buildings are smaller, more dense, the streets are narrower, etc. It's actually a really cool area, the photo doesn't do justice to the general vibe of the area. And much like East Villagers in New York, they will argue to the teeth that their neighborhood is the best in the city. I actually like my neighborhood quite a bit, which reminds me a lot of the vibe of Polk Gulch area in SF. Just yuppie enough, but not sickeningly snobby like the Marina or Murray Hill.
On the walk down to this neighborhood I passed by the major shopping strip of the city, called Shenkein street. The street itself has tons of boutiques, high end ones at that. The neighboring streets around it have tons of shops as well selling everything you can imagine, mostly knock-offs. You can see from the photo above that the shop I passed on the walk was selling Abercrombie shirts.... hmm....

I continued walking to the Shouk in Yafo as well in a search to find a cheep bookshelf, but I will tell you all about that tomorrow.

Who's in Norway?

If you look at the very bottom of this page there is a Stat Counter that I added. If you click on it you will be directed to a page that has great futures like daily hits, amount of time spent on the site, etc. My favorite part is the "Recent Visitor Map" (where I can track who is reading my site from where since I know where you all live! For example, Dingle in Vegas recently checked out the site again)

So tonight I looked at it, and I had someone on this site from the town of Stavanger, in Norway. I don't have any idea who could be there unless one of you is on a trip. What is even more bizarre, is that they were on the site for OVER AN HOUR. An hour and 2 minutes and 38 seconds to be exact...

PS, Shout out to Mel and Sarina. Happy now???

Haifa

So this weekend I went up to Haifa to visit my mother's side of the family (My father's live in Jerusalem). My aunt (mother's sister) has been living in the same apartment for as long as I can remember in the neighborhood called Carmelia, (you can see it on the map below toward the southern end of the city). Haifa itself is an interesting city, it was built up from the port on the inner side and grew up the mountain, and then spread. It is a gorgeous city with views of the Mediterranean Sea from every point, and the beaches on the Western Side are fantastic, much better than the Tel Aviv beaches (which are pretty good to begin with). The other intersting aspect of Haifa is that it is culturally mixed Arab and Israeli. Jersualem and Tel Aviv also have Arabs, but the neighborhoods are fairly segregated. Haifa is the only large city in Israel where both Arabs and Israelis live in the same apartment complex and go to the same coffee shops. Haifa is also much more calm than either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. I spent Friday night with my cousin, the son of my aunt, and his friends in their apartment in the area called Bat Galim, which is the most northern tip. Bat Galim is interesting because it has always been one of the shoddiest neighborhoods, and only now is beginning a process of growth, party from the gentrification of students looking for cheap housing (like the area of Southern Harlem went through 5 years ago). Bat Galim was also the area that was primarily targetted in Haifa by Hezbollah, and my cousin showed me some of the damaged buildings. Haifa is also where my father went to university, at the Technion, which is still one of the preeminent technical/engineeringg schools in the world. Below is the view from my aunts apartment looking west down the hill to the Mediterannean...

ultimate in Israel

So tonight I played a scrimmage game. I have been adopted by the team called the Holy Landers (go figure) and we played against the Disc Dragons... I tried to get some photos but it was too dark, I will have to wait until the hat tournament next Sunday. The teams are interesting because there is nobody aged 18 to 22, since they are all in the Army. So there are a group of people 24 to 34, and then some younger high schoolers aged 17 and 18. In any case, it was great to run around, and they actually have a decent field, which surpised me. They actually have practices twice a week and run drills and everything, which was great to see.

You can check out the site for the team here (also in english)

Benny, I think you should move here and join the team...

Progress

Every day I make a little progress... For example, today I got cable in the apartment, and tomorrow I get internet. Then Thursday I sign up for national health insurance (socialists) and in the afternoon I sign up for classes (Macro and Econometrics as well as two mini-courses of my choosing). Basically, what I'm saying is that every day I make a little more progress, but every day something random comes up.

For example, the office for the health insurance only has open reception on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 8:00 to noon. So I asked the cable guy to come at 8am so I could take the bus to the health insurance place and deal with it this morning. The guy actually showed up on time, and was totally decent, but there was a wiring problem in the apartment, so he was there till about 11:45 fixing it, which means that I can't deal with health insurance now till Thursday. Little stuff like this happens all of the time here, the various beurocracies don't exact "talk" to each other, but so far all of this has been easily overcome.

The other progress that I make is with day to day comfort. For example, I went looking for a gym, and turns out the best deal is through the university (obviously), but I have started to go jogging at night (after it cools down) and I even have ultimate games twice a week already (I'll take photos tomorrow night for sure). Those who know me well (Katie) know that I'm a creature of habit. 10:45 am on Saturday I'm at the Nook, for example. 11:50 am on Tuesday I take a pre-lunch break with Steven and Christine.

The last aspect of progress is various creature comforts of the apartment. I bought a Brita filter (Tel Aviv water tastes like crap), I bought hand soap, I even bought my little electric water pot you see in the photo. Every single human being I know in this country has one of these, yet I don't know a single american who does, and I know they sell them as well.



Last night was also my first night in the apartment, and I slept well, thank you very much. (Katie, I made a copy of the keys for you, but don't go making a copy and giving it to Joanna)

Rehavia

So this weekend I was in Jerusalem with my family/friends there. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are so radically different its almost shocking. Different demographics, different feel, different atmosphere (physical and otherwise). I wont get in to the details of it for this post, but I did want to write about the area called Rehavia, where my grandparents have lived for literally 60 years. It's a gorgeous area of limestone buildings and narrow sloping streets (pictures don't do it justice). Let me mention that the entire city is made of limestone. Buildings from last month, from 150 years ago, from 2000 years ago, and from 3500 year ago, all limestone.

The area of Rehavia used to be secular german immigrants, post WWII, but, like the large majority of the rest of Jerusalem, has become very religious over the last two decades. The seculars get older, and the baby boom generation of our parents have left to go to Tel Aviv or other places. The entire neighborhood is these limestone buildings hidden behind the trees. Some are gorgeious, like this one, which is being refurbished. My guess is that it is late 19th century, clearly arab influence from the arches and the porch. Other buildings are not so nice, and there are plenty of disgusting areas in the city as well.

This building is newer, and is in a more rundown area of northern Rehavia, where it overlaps with another neighborhood. I stll like it because of the interesting angle of the bulding, and how the porches overlap the corners. I make it sound like the city is huge with all these little areas, but in fact, its tiny. (Tel aviv is actually even smaller, the actual city itself that is). Walking from one end of Rehavia to another is literally 10 minutes, but the vibe is amazing. I can't explain enough how buitiful the city is, even the uglier buildings. It is unlike any city I have ever seen.

Anyhow, this weekend was spent with family, and I also saw Prosnit and Dan Victor. (Lepow, Pros and I are eagerly awaiting your arrival). Both of them are here for a year, so and I have a feeling that Prosnit will be crashing on my couch in Tel Aviv a lot.

I will post more on Jerusalem later, I'm sure.

Israeli Necessities

There are two things that every Israel needs to survive in this country. The first is the ID card. Everything functions through the ID card. You can't pay bills, get a bank account, sign up for medial insurance, or pretty much anything else besides it. The closest approximation for US is a social security number. Imagine trying to get health insurance or pay taxes or get a W4 form without it. We in the states are all just used to it so we don't think about it. Long story short, I got mine, finally! It was actually one of the easier things to deal with, and the Ministry of Interior, where I got it, was surpsingly effecient considering the infamous beurocratic mess that is usually associated with government offices.

The second, and arguably more important item on the list of Israeli Necessities is the cell phone. Israel, along with Iceland, Luxembourg, and Norway, ranks as the country with the most cell phones per capita. Over 80% of the Israeli population has a cell phone.... I have seen people here with 2 cell phones on their belt (Joanna, do not date these people, as much as I know you like belt accessories on men, please please stay away from this).

The company I chose to go with is Cellcom, which had a great deal for students, and I'm abusing any student deal I can get right now. There are 3 major cell phone carriers in Israel, who pretty much form an oligopoly on the whole thing. Cellcom, Orange (british I believe) and Pelephone. Pelephone is the oldest, I think going as far back as 1993. The word "Pele" (pronounced like the Brazilian soccer player) means miracle. So Pelephone litterally stands for "miracle phone".

Also cheers to Jonny Hong Kong for being my first international caller, beating out even my mother!

The first Week

So the first week has been spent trying to organize everything, piece by piece. Internet, phone, cable, bills, bank account, sheets for the bed, etc... Slowly I'm progressing, and every day is easier. I also have to deal with the school part of it, which is a whole different ordeal (the photo is of the Berglas school of Economics at Tel Aviv University). The whole campus is strung with Wi-Fi! How cool is that! Also below is a photo of the number 25 bus that will be my main mode of transport from my apartment in the heart of the city to the campus, which is in the north part of the city, on the other side of the Yarkon River. Yes, the bus has air conditioning.
One thing that this city despirately needs is a subway system. It is also a city that would greatly benefit from it as well... (unlike in LA where there is absolutely no need for a subway).

More soon...

My Street

So this is my street, in the middle of Tel Aviv. I'm in the 2nd house on the left. It's a very typical tel aviv street, as much of the city is comprised of the buildings you see. The area around it is amazing, I seriously found a fantastic apartment right in the heart of everything. I took this photo on Thursday, my first full day in the city. I tried to open a bank account and get a cell phone and such, but in order to do that you need an identity card, the equivalent of a social security number.

On Friday morning I met my new landlord at my new apartment. It's small, but really cute, and LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION! (you know how it is). Then, my father and I went to Ikea (yes, they have Ikea here, Julia, it's not the 3rd world) and got a desk and little end table. I will post photos of the apartment only when it's finally livable.

Over the weekend I caught up with friends and family that I haven't seen in a long time, but I still haven't had time to go to the beach.

more to come from the craziness of my first week as I try to create a new life!