Thinking how lucky I am

Monday is like Tuesday because the work week here starts on Sunday (get it?).

Right off the bat this morning I had to make a strategic decision: either carry an umbrella based on what I was seeing when looking out the window, or carry my sunglasses based on the online weather forecast. I am glad to report my decision was wrong: I took the umbrella and it’s still inside my purse, unopened, with the Shopper’s Drug Mart price tag. Finally, the weather tuned out glorious!

I had a business lunch planned with M and O in a lovely area called Neve Tzedeck, located south; about a 30 minute walk away from my apartment.  

On my way there I saw something I had yet to see (or may be just notice): a café which serves take-away coffees. Oh, how home-sick I got. Even though no one else for miles around was walking with a take-away coffee, I could not resist buying a cappuccino and walking with it in my hands, sipping away. Bliss!

I arrived at Neve Tzedek about an hour early and very much enjoyed strolling about, watching a group of teens on a school field trip; watching less than emaciated ballet dancers taking a smoking break in the sunshine (the Suzanne Dellal Center for Dance and Theater in located there); and taking a picture of a tourist from Germany (who had lived in Edmonton, of course), at her request.

Neve Tzedek  is very interesting and the pace is very slow. It was the first neighborhood built in the “new” city of Tel Aviv, back in 1887; it was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa.  The architecture is definitely one of the highlights in the area where the original homes incorporated design elements from the Jugendstil/Art Noveau and later Bauhaus Art movements. (Very advanced for the time, they featured luxuries such as private bathrooms).

 At the beginning of the 20th century Neve Tzedek was the home of many artists and writers, but in the following years the area suffered from neglect and the old houses and streets crumbled away. Only in the 1980s the place recaptured its former prestige, and apparently has since become a stylish yuppie residence with plenty of restaurants, galleries and designer shops.  It is so different than Yaffa just a stone’s throw away as well as the rest of gritty Tel Aviv.

I think the photo above captures so much of this place: in the background, the shiny new business towers and the blue skies; in the foreground the low-level buildings of Neve Tzedeck, the cobblestone street, a bicyclist representing the popularity of the bike here, and a restaurant with outdoor seating – and with a guy working on his laptop (surely wirelessly.  As if not pretty much every café and restaurant here offers free wireless, the Tel Aviv municipality begun offering free and unlimited public wireless Internet recently, starting with a pilot project).

Our lunch was at Suzanna, located in a small old house which captures the atmosphere of the place. I had a most terrific dish called khreime, a spicy Libyan-style fish, which I had to eat very slowly as it is full of small bones (I am petrified of choking; needing a Heimlich Maneuver would not have made a great first impression with O and M).

The lunch conversation was terrific, touching equally on food, business and Jewish Geography. Not unpredictably as it is turning out, M had been to Vancouver –twice. But the amazing part happened when I mentioned I was born in Chile. M named an acquaintance of his who is also from Chile and, guess what, after a quick phone call he ascertained his friend is first cousins with a school classmate of mine.

After lunch I met Rita, a wonderful friend of a friend (and now *my* friend!) on Rothschild Boulevard and Allenby Street. According to Google maps, the distance between the restaurant and the meeting place is 600 meters, or an 8 minute walk. My hosts offered me a ride, which gave me my first taste of Tel Aviv traffic – and reminded me precisely of why I didn’t want to rent a car while here (Rita, sorry again I was so late!)

Rita and I enjoyed a leisurely walk down Rothschild (one of the principal and most expensive streets in the city, with a wide, tree-lined central strip with pedestrian and bike lanes). We ended our walk at a café, eating cheesecake (OK, we actually shared the cake, so going from a leisurely lunch to a leisurely coffee and cake was not as decadent as it may seem…).

After meeting Rita I hurried to yet another café to meet an uncle. I could not possibly drink more coffee so I ended the day with a glass of wine, sitting outdoors, enjoying the conversation and thinking how lucky I am.