Eden House Tel Aviv

... he'd spent 9 weeks there after his army service on New York, which he could possibly see himself moving to at some point; on the gradual erosion of the traditional kibbutz paradigm, which he sees disappearing entirely in a generation; and on politics, which for a time he followed passionate as every young Israeli does but sorta realized never changes when, after a 4-month trip to the US, he came home, surveyed the scene, and noticed that, well ...

... by the whole spiritual journey that they think they are the Messiah and have to be admitted to hospital to be ‘re-programmed’. Apparently there is almost 200 cases a year and that 10% of those people don’t have any history of mental illness.

When you arrive, it’s not hard to see why. There are tour groups on religious pilgrimages everywhere you go.

We found a great hotel right in the old city and spent a ...

... Tel Aviv isn’t cool. It is – intimidatingly so. Its just that its not what you expected.

The night I arrived, I was ready to have all my preconceptions proved right. It was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and the city was just starting to wake up from its sun-stupor and come to life. The bars near the beech were crowded with Israelis, and American, French, British and Australian tourists. I heard thumping music from ...

... to our right, and the lifeguard did warn swimmers to be careful or stay away from certain areas. But the cove was such that even hundreds of feet from the shore, the water was still just above the knees (between waves)--I never made it far enough where I didn't have to almost sit down to be immersed in the water.

Six hours later, time to pack up and head home to clean up. Sorry to go, we walked slowly past the beaches and up the small hill, taking a ...

... are having our desired slowdown for the last third of the trip, here in Tel Aviv.

By noon, we had moved our growing baggage into our apartment and unpacked again so as to feel at home. The place is in a gay-friendly (or gay-owned?) building a couple of blocks from the beach, on busy, broad Ben Yehuda St. (named for the man who revived the Hebrew language), bedecked in rainbow flags for this Friday's Gay Pride parade. We've got strong air conditioning ...

... getting it all back on the other side, so I put my wallet (with chain) in the sack, too, but no--it was being stored for the duration of our visit. Good thing Kevin had his wallet still, or we'd be hard-pressed to pay for lunch at the cafeteria. (As at many eating establishments in Jerusalem, it was kosher, meaning it served either meat dishes or dairy, but not both. This one was meat, thank goodness.) We joined the ...

... firmly-that they needed to come back at 9:00 when other groups would be free to enter and pray. Now it was time for the Catholic Mass, and this is what I had come for. I entered the edicule along with about five other people. The priest came in and went into the tomb itself and began the liturgy. My Latin is good enough that I could follow the service and make the responses in English. There we were, in one of the most holy places on earth, the burial place of our Lord, a ...

... see. Horrible! Makes me shudder now, just remembering it! We drove from Nazareth to Meggido or Armageddon. Here we watched a film and had a look at the view, pretty impressive. What I liked about the place was all the millipedes - there were heaps, pretty impressive. I successfully gave me roomate, Rayka a rather good fright by brushing her neck with a foreign object. Shamefully, not minutes later, she successfully recipricated and ...

... look when I've told people I'm into these movies. Tel Aviv By Night tour We went for an 8:30 tour provided by the city of Tel Aviv in the artsy area of Neve Tzedek. It reminds me a lot of Montmartre in Paris, unfortunately my camera phone worked really badly at night and I couldn't really capture the intrigue of this area. As it turned out, Bec and I were the ONLY people taking this tour, so we spent two hours with our guide Doron, who was really chatty with us ...

... Gate is the only place for cars to go through and follow some of the ramparts before exiting somewhere on the other side, not far away from the Haram al Sharif. From Jaffa Gate to the Holy Sepulchre and other saintly places and marvels of all three monotheistic religions, everything has to be done on foot. The streets are narrow, narrower even than the Medieval streets of some villages and town centers in Europe. We walk in constant shade, thanks to the narrowness and the ...