"It's your last week; make the best of it"

I am now on the home stretch, will be flying home in less than a week.  After three months, some things that I know are different and were 'new' three months ago, are now actually routine -- and I don’t even notice them.  Time to go home. I miss Rafi and my real life. 

I probably still have little Stars of David in my eyes and do not care (I was told by someone I respect and like that I am a bit naive about Israel - and I think he was being kind). My appreciation for this country has grown immensely.  I am resisting the urge to start analyzing what I got out of this trip, what it all means. Maybe it was just a vacation, and that is fine too. Regardless, I will have the rest of my life to think about it.

Rafi gave me some good advice: "It's your last week; make the best of it." But it is not as easy as it sounds considering I have done so much and enjoyed so much. What do I really want to do again, one last time?

So, here are a few of the things I have been doing to make the best of it.

I went to the beach, Frishman beach, which is a 12 minute walk from the apartment. I parked myself on a chair under an umbrella, with a copy of Ha'aretz newspaper (they were out of the Jerusalem Post, so I held my nose and acquiesced) and enjoyed the little picnic I had brought. Five hours later, I went home.

This picture was taken earlier last week at another beach but it captures the feeling

The next day for dinner, I had kibbeh soup at the local counter on Kikar Rabin, even though it was probably 25 C at 7 pm. While I was there, there was a huge commotion outside and I rushed out to see what it was. I am glad I had been at this small restaurant many times before, otherwise the waiter would have thought I was leaving without paying. It turned out to be a sub-group of the Breslover Hassidic sect, colloquially known as the “Na Nach's.”  I had heard they conduct on-the-street outreach with its roving musical vans and dancers, but I hadn’t seen them before. The funniest (to me, anyway) and most predictable thing was that I had to explain to the waiter who they were and what they were doing. The waiter is a third generation Israeli.

"Na Nachs" dancing on the street

The following day, I had an Israeli breakfast at one of the two cafes next door to the apartment while chatting with the owner. Pure bliss. (And no, I should not have had the Nutella, but it was all for "one last time" purposes.)

I then crossed off the list the last major site in Tel Aviv that I had not visited yet, the EretzIsrael Museum, as I joined the group from Machon Avshalom (the institute for adult studies I meant to but rarely did go to because I got too busy from week one on), one last time. 

The Museum is a multidisciplinary museum covering a variety of fields, including Archaeology, Judaica, Ethnography, History and Culture of the Land of Israel and traditional arts and crafts (i.e., a high-brow mish-mash but, to be noted, their gift shop probably has one of the better store selections in Tel Aviv). 

The unique character of the Museum comes across in the many pavilions spread over the vast grounds that form the Museum Park, with each pavilion dedicated to a different cultural theme. Unfortunately for the rest of the Machon group, they spent a lot of time telling me and E., the Chilean-born person I had met there, to lower our voices. For the little that I attended, they will remember me as "the troublemaker."

At the Eretz Israel Museum

The most interesting part was seeing the reconstructed Israelite house from the Biblical Monarchy period (Biblical scholars have dated the kingdom from c.1026 BCE to c. 930 BCE, though there are differences of opinion as to exact dates. Why am I not surprised about that part?).

Keeping house

Authentic reconstruction of Israelite house (minus the air conditioning unit at the back, which carbon dating would probably place as more recent than the Biblical Monarchy period)

From there, my friend Lea picked me up and we went to the beach (to a seaside restaurant, to be more specific) this time in Ramat Aviv, North of Tel Aviv. We had an excellent time talking about childhood friends and classmates (not always the same thing), always under the "cone of silence" of course.

With Lea in Ramat Aviv

Continuing with only "making the best of it" in my last week, yesterday I had the pleasure of taking the train and going to the Galil to lead a planning workshop for a company there, my first real, bona fide Israeli high-tech client. 

While I do not want to write about work on this blog, I can say that those who know me know how much I love my work, so engaging with the smart, creative and open-minded client team yesterday was a big part of my goal to experience what life here is all about. The experience certainly is a significant highlight of my Israeli adventure.

Also in the name of "making the best of it" I have been doing a bit of shopping.  In Israel you can find all the big name-brands in the shopping centres, but there are also a lot of really nice Israeli designers who produce good quality (I hope), well designed clothing, shoes and purses. I now own a few examples - and hope all the paperwork to get the VAT back at the airport pays off.

Today I went to get my hair cut one last time here. D&B says there are 2,307 hair salons in Israel and I am guessing 2,001 are in Tel Aviv. There are probably one hundred hair salons just between my apartment and Eli Berga's Salon on Ben Yehuda Street. But Emanuela, who has Yemenite-curly hair, introduced him to me and I love how he cuts my lame-curly hair.  I know that when I come back next time, I will call Eli first.

With Eli Berga

Today is Friday (and since "Sunday is Monday" here, then "Friday is Saturday," right?) and one of my favourite things I absolutely had to do this last week was to go to Dizengoff Street, walk along the street and enjoy the crowds at the cafes. This is what Tel Aviv is all about -- at least for this naive visitor.

So, from getting my hair cut, I went to meet a new-found cousin, Micol, for lunch at Cafe Michal on Dizengoff.  

Micol is a cousin of my late father on his mother's side, who connected with my sister via the web a few years ago (Micol had drawn a family tree for me).  When she found us, it was quite remarkable, as my father became an abandoned orphan as a nine year old during the Holocaust, and he remembered very little about his mother's family and so we knew even less. 

Micol is a Librarian at a local University but (sorry, here comes a cliché), she is exactly the opposite of what you would expect (however, now that I think about it, it is probably because she is a Librarian that she has become so good at finding relatives).  Micol is chatty and has a great laugh and is very creative in a number of arts and crafts. I very enjoyed finally meeting her and look forward to many rounds of DrawSomething Free with her (I trusted her enough to let her in my online addiction to it).

With Micol at Cafe Michal

Micol told me at lunch that she is passionate about genealogy and has found relatives all over the world and connected them to each other. Many live in Israel and they actually like each other and have become family again. An amazing example of collecting the shards and releasing their light.