Trip to Tel Aviv

Fernando and Me in the old city
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Our management was kind enough to tell us we would have a day off (Saturday) for King Hussein’s birthday two days in advance. Immediately I started thinking where I could go for the extended weekend. We tried to grab a plane ticket for Cairo with 5 hours before flight time but that proved to be impossible since they do not issue electronic tickets for Air Egypt flights; not to mention leaving work, packing and getting to the airport would also have presented a challenge. We decided to head across the Israeli border once again.

Tel Aviv beach from Yafo (old city)
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We left the hotel at around 5:00pm and arrived at the Sheikh Hussein Bridge about 2 hours later. Boarder crossing wasn’t bad at all this time and since we knew the procedure it went fairly quickly. We emerged from the Israeli border around 8pm to see no busses, no taxis….nothing. We finally found this nice guy who offered to give us a ride to Bet She’an, a near by town. As we were discussing various solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the subject of where we were headed came up. Our driver convinced us that Tel Aviv was a great place and that seemed to be all the persuasion that we needed. The moment we pulled up to the town the final bus was leaving the station. We grabbed our bags and flagged down the bus. After paying a small fee of NIS9 (NIS1= $4= €5= JD6) we asked some nice Israelis where we were going……I’ve always wanted to visit Afula, or I really didn’t have an option. Either way we could catch a connecting bus to Tel Aviv which was good. Everyone on the bus was very curious as to what an American and a Spaniard were doing in Bet She’an. That’s what I love about traveling thought small villages and places less traveled, people are always interested in what your doing, where you’re going and coming from. It’s not like the big tourist cities. Once in Tel Aviv a nice girl led us to a taxi and told him to take us to a hostel. When we got in the cab it was clear that the driver was Palestinian. He welcomed my dreadful Arabic after rolling up the windows of the cab and once again we discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At around 11 we arrived and found a great place to stay for NIS100 that included a private bathroom. In typical Spanish fashion, we ate dinner around 11:30, went to a pub around 1 and stopped in an awful club around 2. I remembered very quickly why I don’t go to clubs. The drinks were NIS40, it was packed with drunken Russians, and there was a 6’4” blonde haired transvestite with the largest chest that I have ever seen. Not to mention that with the loud music and flashing lights it’s surprising that no one had a seizure. I also discovered quickly why Tel Aviv is probably one of the most happening cities in the Middle East (and that’s not meant as an oxymoron, Beirut and Dubai are extremely lively cities from what I have been told.)

After paying a small fee of NIS9, we asked some nice Israelis where we were going

The clock tower in Yafo
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The next morning we wondered around Tel Aviv and saw some of the sites. It’s really a great city for walking, big sidewalks, lots of markets, and it’s only about 8 square kilometers. We also enjoyed the beach and even though we didn’t go swimming, the water was still very agreeable. There was no shortage of water sports. The sea was littered with windsurfers and kite surfers. We ended the evening early by taking dinner at a small restaurant and having a beer at our hostel; which brings me to my next experience, hostels. I have done the hostel experience in Spain and don’t get me wrong I met plenty of characters there but this particular experience was somewhat different. Between the mix of old, cranky, Jewish, New York women to the old Russian guys that sat in front of the T.V. in the lounge 24hours a day, to the Japanese guy that was working in a socialist work camp (Kibbutz, if you don’t know about them, do a search, its very interesting) who had come to visit his friends and get high, it was a very interesting experience.

Fernando enjoying a beer along the Tel Aviv coast
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The following day we planned to spend most of our time traveling since much of Israel is shut down on the Shabbat. We walked to the bus station only to find it closed. It turned out that there was a shuttle system that connected most of the major cities. The only draw back is that you have to wait until this bus (holds 9) is full. So we waited for about 2 hours while our driver recruited an eclectic collection of people for the trip to Afula. Once again, this is the part of the trip that I enjoy the most. Our bus was mainly filled with Palestinians so we had a great mix of Arabic, Hebrew, English and Spanish. There were many immigrants from Argentina to Israel during the build up of Jews in Israel. I also met a half Argentinean half Israeli girl on the bus, beautiful, smart and full of life. Israel is such a different world than Jordan. When we arrived in Afula we took a taxi back to the boarder and once again we had a Palestinian driver who was very welcoming once he found out we lived in Jordan and spoke Arabic.

I hope this is just one of many trips to Israel as there is so much to discover there.