Thursday, July 30, 2015

Tel Aviv My City


My eldest daughter in Yafo. T.A is in the background.
I would like to tell you a few things about my favorite city. I long to live close enough to walk around the city regularly. My city is Tel Aviv, Israel. Yes, I like a lot of cities. I know that most people would consider Jerusalem to be their favorite city at least in Israel. I do enjoy visiting Jerusalem and I am a patron of the Jerusalem Museum. (I especially like the archaeology exhibits). However I love the atmosphere in Tel Aviv. When I am in Tel Aviv I feel at home.

Tel Aviv is a diverse city. There are mom and pop shops next door to big international names. On the side streets you can find modern buildings squished into spaces in a way that you can think that maybe they were always there. Some of them perhaps were and are refurbished and built anew. As you can see many businesses and home owners get very creative when it comes to the outside of their dwellings
When you get to Yafo you can see older structures that are beautifully built with their large stones and bricks. The newer buildings are there but they try to keep with the spirit of the ancient city. Yafo is a beach city and you can see the Mediterranean when looking west peeking out between the buildings.
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And then their is the sea. I cannot body surf like I can in the Pacific coast of California. The sea is calm and relaxing to swim in, yet you still need to remember that it is still an ocean and know how to deal with an undertow. Once in a while there are jellyfish that can be quite painful if just merely touched by one. Fortunately, they don't allow you to swim when they are in shallow swimming water. The coastline is breathtaking. As another example of diversity; I can walk along the "Teyelet" (boardwalk) and see all kinds of people and hear many languages. The list of languages that I heard on my last walk on the Teyelet was Hebrew, English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Amharic and one other that I could not recognize. It is the summer and many people from other countries as well as Israelis are visiting Tel Aviv. There are impromptu booths selling rainbow kites that many people enjoy and they add to the landscape beautifully.
St performer dancing with fire
I got to be in my favorite city with my 3 adult children, it does not get any better than that! We walked on the Teyelet all the way from Tel Aviv to Yafo. We also took a slight detour and crossed the street to the old train station. It has turned into an outdoor mall and we had some fun and saw some street performers.
  There are many more things to do in this beautiful city. When in Israel don't forget to give her a chance.