Visitors: Rose, Yael, the Alaskans, & Daniel Bedingfield



Ariela, Rose, & I at Gazoz





Rose at the beach

Rose is who I mentioned in my last post, someone who came to Tel Aviv just for the week on a "cultural" experience. The program didn't have much planned for her, so I ended up being her unofficial welcoming committee. This ended up being fantastic because we got along great! She's from Brooklyn-- the accent that you hear on tv and in movies-- definitely true! :)

Rose's first full day here, we walked along the beach and went to Shuk Carmel (the marketplace). Part of the week, Rose's friend, Ariela, joined us. The three of us got to go to a club called Gazoza in the port, which was a MegaEvent party put on by TLV Connect. It was their winter themed night. Honestly, it was just strange going to a club in a tank top and the decorations are of snowmen hanging from the ceiling. Oh well. This club completely and utterly ripped us all off on prices for a drink. This one took the cake for me-- vodka and cranberry-- 51 shekels!!! And I'm pretty sure that was almost all cranberry juice.  



Shuk Carmel



Next up, my fun filled day of hanging out with one of my best friends, Yael! Yael is from Israel, lived in Ohio for several years, and within the past year, moved to Arizona. Now, I got to see her for a few hours, just me and her. Yay!!! She picked me up and we went to Jaffo to go to the market. They had great stores with funky items and collectibles, like the lamps that you see pictured, but they also had the center of the "market," which is the flea market. Flea is right. It looks like someone just threw a bunch of junk together from garage sales and left it all on the ground for you to dig through. I definitely did not want to dig through anything, especially with the smell of the place. Bleh! I'll stick to the stores, thank you. Anyway, I did well that day and bargained down two out of the three purchases I made. The best part of our day was going to Abulafia's Bakery. Mmmmmmmmm. I'm in heaven, so much so that I have no idea what to describe first. There are these deliciousness that are similar to a calzone, but inside there is Bulgarian cheese, or you can have eggs. There are fried goods covered with honey. Bureckas filled with potato. Sesame seed bagels. Sandwiches. Everything.Is.So.Good. There is a constant line at Abulafia's. It doesn't matter the time of day or night. And don't think of a bakery that you walk into. It's an open bakery. I hope the cute picture of Yael by the bakery helps with my description of it. After eating and shopping, Yael and I did our favorite thing--- we ate some more! :) She took me to a cute place in Neva Tzedek called Susanna's. We had some type of meatballs covered in tzatziki sauce, and we each had a lightly fried dough sandwich-- mine was filled with eggplant and goat cheese, hers was filled with liver. Both excellent!!!

The invasion of the Alaskans! Introducing Andy Miller. He worked at Kent State as the JCSC at Hillel when I was a student. We were not allowed to be friends because they had a strict policy about the JCSC having any fun with students, besides during programs, even if everyone was close in age. We have always been friends even if we were never allowed to hang out. Pictured is Andy and I having our very first drink together after being friends for 8 years! :) Andy brought along his best friend, also from Alaska, Jeremiah. Jeremiah and I get along super duper well!!! Within 5 minutes of meeting him, Rose came over to my apartment and she thought Jeremiah was my friend from Hillel. Ha! So the three of us-- Andy, Jeremiah, and I-- had a great time all over Tel Aviv and Jaffo! The first night we hung out, we ate at a restaurant called "Jeremiah," of course! And we went to a few bars with other Oranim participants. The next night, however, was really awesome!!! We got in a cab and told him to take us to the best chummus in Jaffo. He said "I'm not sure about the best chummus, but I know of the best shakshuka." So off we went to Dr. Shakshuka. Honestly, we could forget the shakshuka. Can shakshuka really be spectacular?! But everything else really was!!! It was by far, the best Middle Eastern meal that I've had here thus far. Then we wandered around Jaffo at night, coming across Hookah bars, small restaurants and bars down various alleys. We saw a hell of a lot of bats. I took a video of a swarm of them. Again, I will have to wait until I have better internet service to post any of them. We also saw a lot of the sites at night. It was fantastic! Then we completely changed the atmosphere of the night by going to the Theater Club in Jaffo, where we were told a fun student party was taking place. They were definitely right! There were live drumming performances, then a dj. This was an awesome "club" for the night!! I found out later that the group that I'm working with at Tel Aviv University put on this party. Ooooh yeah! This will be a great job!!!   

 

On Friday, I spent some time at Shuk Carmel again. This time, all of the artists were around, including some circus acts. Friday night was interesting. It was Kabballat Shabbat, which is a potluck Shabbat dinner. At first, I wasn't really happy that we were required to be a part of this for the main reason that I go to my family on Friday nights. But in the end, it worked out great and I was with my "family" of new friends. I ended up just buying rugalach for dessert. Many of the students cooked and made different types of salads, pasta, even some chicken. We also had to go to synagogue as a group. We went to Beit Daniel, by the Yarkon (river). It's a reformed synagogue and I actually quite enjoyed it. Many of the songs I knew, except that the melody was completely different. Here, people wear whatever they want to synagogue-- jeans, boots, sandals, t-shirts. It's very weird for me to see that. After dinner, we went as a huge group to a pub called Backy's, but pronounced Becky's. Someone forgot to do spellcheck.

On Saturday, I had lunch with Sivan and her family. I was looking forward to this for a couple of weeks and they did not disappoint! Great food and great company!!! That night was Rose's last night. I had found out about Daniel Bedingfield performing a free show in Tel Aviv at the tiniest club ever called Rothschild 12. Rich, Rose, and I went there and were going to meet Sivan and Efrat. While on the way, it started pouring. Sigh. We were totally soaked, and THEN we had to wait in line. The security guard was being a complete ass. But in the meantime, Daniel Bedingfield came out of the club to talk to everyone still in the pouring rain. I don't think many people realized that it was him. You know me... I definitely did and had my camera ready! Unfortunately for Rose, I handed my camera to someone who clearly has never taken a photo before. There are actually two photos. The first one, she cut off everybody's head. The first and second one, Rose was not included. I took another pic of Rose later standing by Daniel's back! haha. Back to the ass security guard, due to him and the rain, we decided to hang out in a-- gasp!!!-- smoke-free bar to get warm. After spending some time there, we went back to the show, and saw one hell of a performance by Daniel Bedingfield. He completely surprised me with his vocal range, and even more surprising, his beatbox skills. Brilliant show! At 1:30am, Daniel was STILL performing because he was loving every second of it, and as much as we were, we all had to go to work in the morning, so home we went. I'm still marveling in that show!