Getting Jiggy With Teli

Hello Lover

So how has life been since touching down at Ben Gurion International Airport to begin our new life in The Holy Land?  Well, let me see.  Not so holy so far.  But you never know.  I spent the first few days in a sort of jetlaged, traumatised, exhausted haze.  Snoozing in the afternoons and eating far too much hummus.  My kind of life.  Not sure if it was legitimate jetlag though, or just a wallow.  Wallowing is sometimes fun.  You refuse to leave the house, eat in bed and get crumbs everywhere, and wear leggings without underpants when you do sneak out to the shop to get more hummus.

But unfortunately there was a lot to do - the time was not yet nigh to become a morbidly obese recluse with crumbs stuck to my leggings and a birds nest the size of a small dog at the back of my head.....one day.....one fine day........

I've visited Israel many times before - but I want to take just a tiny bit of time to describe what it is like here in Tel Aviv upon first viewing when everything is fresh.

Nice

Boulevard

The first thing that comes across is how fast paced everything is. The city isn't massive - about 400 000 people live here - but it feels crowded and a little frantic on occasion. It's definitely noisy.  If you ever think of knocking up a pad here -and there is a lot of construction going on - invest in some double glazing. But as busy and crowded as it is, it is also extremely beautiful and inviting.


The Mediterranean Sea stretches entirely along the west of the city - from the ancient southern port of Yafo - or Jaffa - an area teaming with really old buildings, flea markets and a large Arab population - up to the northern part of Tel Aviv, past the new port - which is a modern collection of outdoor restaurants and big name shops along a huge boardwalk.  Running alongside the beach is a wide, flat, paved boulevard, which is totally chockers, at all times of the day and night.  There are scores of runners, walkers, bikers, rollerbladers, skateboarders, kids, oldies, (and everyone in between), dogs, cats, pigeons, people playing board games, masses of people getting right into a type of paddle board game, dancing groups, beach cafes, exercise equipment, kid's play equipment and seriously hot bodies wearing very few clothes.  The beach is always packed - even at this time of year - late October.  Usually this is a time when most of the Northern Hemisphere is breaking out the duffel coats and ordering stew.  Not here.  The weather is sublime, and everyone is sunbaking and surfing and swimming and rolling in the sand.  The temperature is in the high 20s at the moment, and the sea is warm.  Summer seems to stretch on for a good 9 months of the year.

Jaffa

Tel Aviv cafe life

This beachside part and lifestyle, frames Tel Aviv, and in my opinion is one thing that makes it so incredibly special.  Throughout the rest of the city - which is called "The White City" due to the style of architecture and colour of the buildings - life is pumping.  Streetside cafes with leafy plants and a retro edge are packed at all times, and locals and tourists spill out onto the streets late into the night.  Everybody here seems to have a lot to say, so the atmosphere is always buzzing with people having extremely animated conversations.  There is a lot of beeping and even more traffic. People ride their bikes on the footpath without helmets, and you wonder how they mange to avoid the crowds of pedestrians.  Hoards of dogs walk the streets with their owners, and freely poo everywhere.  All I can say is keep a look out.  Dogshit on your white loafers is not a thing of the past in Israel.   Lots of fresh juice stands overflow with displays of all kinds of fruit.  It is pomegranate season right now, and when you ask for a large rimon  - the dark crimson juice comes out with a kind of "crack" as the fruity seeds explode from the metal juice pressers.

Almost like brains really......

Night time action

Mmmmm

The coffee is good, as is pretty much anything you order in restaurants.  It always seems so fresh and unbelievably tasty, and salad is served with anything you ask for.  It's almost worth a visit to the country for the sole purpose of stuffing your face - and I will need to write several posts to properly address the pure deliciousness of what is going on here.

In some parts of the Tel Aviv, the trees are old and gnarled, and spill across the concrete and up through the cement.  They shade the dusty streets from the unrelenting sun that is part of life in the Middle East.  Olive trees drop their fruit all over the city streets, which shrivel in the sun and get squashed underfoot.  There are many shady parks packed full of play equipment for the hoards of children Tel Aviv is home to.  People typically know English, which makes it easy for us slacker types who rely on "Efshar beh Anglit" (Is it possible in English?) to get by.  But actually, I want to know what's going on around me - what people are saying to each other, and to me.  Passersby throw comments around all the time.  The city is alive, it is welcoming and it is fun.

City Trees

Shlomi and his mates give their all

Sometimes when wandering around, you hear pumping trance, and think to yourself "What?  A street party???"And a street party it is - for five extremely religious dudes going all out - dancing their way to a techno ecstasy, riding large on a religious high.  A couple of the guys dance in the traffic, one rocks out on the roof of the bass shaking van, one goes crazy near passersby, and another hands out reading material with a picture of some old hippy-looking religious dude wearing a dirty dressing gown.  He looks happy enough though.  Chalks and I wondered how the cult of the religious trance gang kicked off,  because it is world's away from most of the religious guys you occasionally spot around town (Tel Aviv is the city of sin - so larger numbers of the religious are mostly living in Jerusalem).  We decided that a few years back - possibly in the mid 90s - some Israelis dudes, who were taking far too much acid on the beaches of Goa, had some kind of religious epiphany while listening to some sick techno track.......and thus it begun......Trancing for The Lord.

Insane amounts of sugar going on here

Talking of joy, Valli and Cordi started their first day of Kindergarden a few days after we arrived.  They were so excited.  They immediately raced in and started on a Winnie The Pooh puzzle and didn't even register my tragic grabs for attention.  Cordi threw me an exasperated "BYE Mum" over her shoulder on my fourth attempt for some goodbye love.  Valli ignored me totally.  I crept away dejected.  All the other mothers were saying how jealous they were that the girls didn't bawl and cling to my skirt (one mother said it took her an hour every morning to shake her son off her leg) - but to be honest, it was a shock (and a possible blow to the ego - was I not adored??? Those bloody ingrates - I will beat them until they love me).  No wonder they are having the time of their lives though.  Israel is a kid's paradise.  They have already attended 2 birthday parties (one with 2 bouncy castles, a pile of pizza and cake, and a mountain of lollies), and have another party for a set of twins coming up this Friday.  They go to the playground everyday, attend art classes across town, and already know everyone in their class by name.  They've picked garden produce, had a jam session and gone beach crazy - including going psycho nude with their cousin Mia under the beach showers.  They seem to have slotted in nicely.

Liad and Cordi duet

Group Jam

Munching out on top of mosaics

Cordi plucks an eggplant form the vine

Beach times

True Happiness

Nude Screaming

For me, I think it's going to take a little longer.  For one, there's the previously mentioned language issues.  Then there's the public face of politeness I have, that doesn't really mesh with the Israelis in Israel effect.  And then there's the driving.  But first, let's tackle the issues we had getting a rental car here.  Chalks had decided that he was going to hire a nice car for our time here.  Why not?,  thought he.  But first we had to hire a crapmobile and drive it to the outskirts of the city to get our hands on a good one.  Upon arrival, the young dude rolled up in front of us with the most banged up Mercedes I have ever seen.  That's also the thing here.  Every single car in this city is covered with more scrapes and dents than a bronze statue of George W Bush in the central square of Baghdad.  Filling out the vehicle condition report takes about 20 minutes and stretches over an entire page.  We got in and it totally stunk of ciggies.  In violation of the 'No Smoking' sign there had been a cigarette actually stubbed out on the back seat.  The young guy's response "This is Israel.  There are no rules".  I guess he had a point.  It was seriously disgusting though.  To fix the problem, the detailing dude hung an air freshener from the rear vision mirror.  Now it smelt like a toilet.  A toilet in which the occupant had smoked a lot of ciggies.  Chalks pointed out this very fact to the attendant, and she laughed.  We drove away in the crapmobile.

A fucking mess

And now to the driving.  I'm pretty sure I went on about this long and hard last time I was here, including my refusal to get behind the wheel.  Well, with my dearly beloved jetsetting off to Amsterdam to run a marathon (Yeah, SURE that was what he was doing), I found myself alone, and with the primary responsibility for driving the girls to school everyday.  I'm not the greatest on the other side of the road.  Actually, I'm not the greatest on any side of the road.  But when I'm driving on the right I seem to have severe issues in judging the front passenger corner.  This was only too apparent on the first day I drove the girls to and from school on my lonesome.  I have only one driving repertoire - and that is - to school and home from school.  Apart from that I have nothing.  So you can imagine my distress when our driveway was blocked by some arsehole with his hazard lights on.  Anyone who intends to drive here, get used to those hazard lights - never will they get more use than in Tel Aviv.  Stop anytime anywhere - it's fine as long as you flick that flashing switch.  Feel like parking on the footpath over a pathetic tourist's driveway?  Go the old faithful hazards, no probs at all.

But of course it was a problem.....for me.  Unable to pull in I was forced to cross into unfamiliar territory and drive on.  I started sweating.  I had to drive all the way to the school, and then all the way back, just so that I would know the way.  I was panicking the car would still be there and lost focus for a second.  SMASH!!! - I hit one of those kerbside green garbage bins on the passenger side at full speed.  Whoops.  I could see nearby people throwing up their hands in disgust in the rear vision mirror as I sped on.......and forgot to look straight ahead.  An Ethiopian crossed the road right in front of me and to avoid an actual death of more than a rubbish bin, I had to slam on the brakes as hard as I could. The jaywalking fool's life was spared.  By this stage I was sweating and shaking.  You can imagine my horror when I spotted the hazard flasher still parked over my precious driveway.

I remembered Chalk's words "To get anything done in this country you have to go mental".  No problem, I am actually mental, so it was barely a stretch.  I started beeping and yelling "Who's car is this???"  "Who's BLOODY car is this????".  More beeping, more yelling.  I saw some guy spot me from inside an office and he came out.  Imagining him to be the perpetrator, I cranked up the screaming "Get this car out of my way, I can't get into my driveway.  I've been driving round for an hour, for the love of GOD!!!".  Then he started screaming his head off at me "It's not my car, I don't know who's car it is, what do you want from MEEEEEEEE".  And then back to an now hysterical me, "I just want that idiot to move his FUCKING CAR!!!" And so on and so on......In the end a passerby took pity on my and directed me around the offending vehicle through a space tighter than my year 12 formal dress.  I had already started sobbing.  By the time I got into my apartment I was really howling.  I had failed in my first fight.  Poor Valli and Cordi - what a display for a couple of 4 year olds.  It was awful.  I was feeling really shit about myself, and despairing of my abilities to cope on my own in an unfamiliar land.  But then Valentina slipped her little hand into mine, and with concern she said the cutest thing I have ever heard her say (and the list is long),

"It's a busy world out there Mum".

And so it is my darling.  So it is.