Me? Worry?

Before leaving Canada I became aware that the government suggested Canadian citizens visiting Israel do register with the Embassy here in Tel Aviv. So on my first day here  I called them to register (I also floss regularly). The standard voice mail jail was incomprehensible in any language so I sent them an email, and promptly forgot about it.

Two days later, I received a similarly incomprehensible email back (Dear Madam…) with instructions on how to register online. I let a day or so go by and went online. After what seemed like a long time filling online forms, I pressed Submit – and got an error message. So I emailed them to say they needed to QA their website once in a while… and that I didn’t know whether or not I was in fact registered.

 This morning, four days later,  I received another email (Dear Madam…) with boilerplate instructions; not answering my question; and suggesting I come by the embassy to register (with the friendly caveat “we do not schedule appointments”). I don't think I am going to go.

My conclusion: I think I have “gone native.” I have been here a week and am not worried. 

People of all ages walk around in costume

This man was not in costume

Started the day at the gym, with my second freebie personal training session. I confirmed that Emanuela was a Sargent in the Army (she was) plus bonded with her, as she destroyed any shred of gym self-esteem I might still have had. Today is her birthday and she was going out with friends and invited me to join them (contrary to what the photo of her that I posted earlier might suggest, we are in fact very close in age; it must be the water here). I was too stupid and made an excuse saying I was busy, and immediately regretted it. I now plan to hang out at the gym in the hopes she invites me again.

My sort of country. 

Here is why:

Exhibit 1:  Please see the window sign at this bakery on Dizengoff, right outside the gym.

Sign reads: Eat Fresh Pastries Every Morning

Exhibit 2: It is of course still Purim. People, young and old, continue to walk about in costume. Please see this bakery's selection of hamantaschen in the photo below.

Huge selection of freshly baked Hamantaschen

The best part? 

I bought one after the gym (!) and asked the baker to choose one with his favorite filling for me: It was a halva-filled one! In two bites I destroyed all of Emanuela's good work.

Tel Aviv is full, absolutely full of cafes. Large ones, small ones, fancy ones, plain ones, modern ones, European/traditional looking ones and more, and each one is full of people, from early in the morning until who-knows-when (certainly past my bed time). The main item I see people have there, whether they are alone or in groups, is a laptop. Tel Aviv has to be one of the most wired cities in the world, and one of the reasons credited for the high tech start-up boom is precisely this proliferation of "wired third places" where people can work and collaborate and caffeinate. But that is not all, I read in the paper that the municipality wants to extend free WiFi further, as a means to further encourage entrepreneurship. 

In other words, one could not be blamed for thinking that no one works in a proper office, but today I learned differently. I was invited to meet with a start-up company where the team works in a beautiful tower overlooking the Mediterranean. It was such a pleasure to meet with them and see these really, really smart young people envision something, a solution to a problem, and then simply plunge in and, well, just solve the problem. Plus, the coffee they served wasn't half bad either.

Getting there was a different story. I was running a bit late so after I set out on foot, I  decided to take a bus. I have been here for a week and the office tower is in an area of town I have walked to several times so I (having inherited my mother's sense of direction) was sure I could bus my way there. I hopped on the number 18 bus and told the driver where I was going. A brief discussion with, oh, just 2 or 3 other passengers ensued, and there was agreement that the bus would get me pretty close to where I was going, and that I could just walk over after. I thanked the almost 1/2  minyan that had helped and sat close to the driver (lest he forget about me; after all, my sense of direction isn't quite as good as my mother's).

After a few minutes, the bus turned left when my instincts told me we needed to go right, so I pointed this out to the driver. He looked at me annoyed and told he hadn't forgotten about me and that I  should just sit down and he'd let me know.

Once seated again I started to think about the driver: the buses are plentiful, clean, modern and well equipped, but his job is stressful. In addition to dealing with Israeli-style driving practices, he has to deal with full loads of passengers, take their money, give them the right change, deal with pesky tourists who get on buses unsure of where they are going and, oh yes, watch out for terrorists wanting to get on the bus to blow themselves and the busload of passengers up.

From the meeting I walked to the Helena Rubinstein Museum, where the current exhibit is called “I Am a Berliner” and presents a remarkable diversity of practices ranging from abstraction and realism to highly expressive, narrative, and post-narrative painting. These distinct painterly positions, which are represented by the 18 artists featured in this exhibitions, all involve a self-reflexive investigation of the painterly process and of the nature of contemporary painting. 

(Can you tell I cut and pasted this last paragraph from their website?)

On my way home I remembered to buy laundry detergent. This was the challenge:

Partial selection of laundry detergents

I am becoming extremely sensitive to the issues of literacy. Not knowing how to read is hell.

I then finished the day at the same soup counter I went to last night, where to my utmost delight I learned that each one of the varieties of soup has a different type of Kibbeh meat ball to go with it!