2nd TLV weekend

Day 18 of Summer 2009. I guess I am finally getting the hang of this. (except the Friday/Saturday weekend setup, as of now)

So last Friday I went to the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade with Mara, after which I tagged along with her to the shuk as she bought some vegetables and cheeses. The midday heat was simply oppressive but I put mind over matter in braving it. And then my friend Barak picked me up from Mara’s apartment around 3pm. He showed me around the empty campus of Tel Aviv University, including the sports center complete with indoor swimming pools, the Faculty of Law, and the Jewish Heritage synagogue.

We ended up going to old port city of Jaffa afterwards, but not before picking up his friend Uri, somewhere in King George St. who served to be our tour guide around. We started the walk from the beach where Tel Aviv meets the sea of Jaffa and saw lots of people swimming and playing on the sand. As you can see, I took quite a number of pictures. The views of Tel Aviv from Jaffa is breathtaking, especially if you gaze at it with the waves of the Mediterranean (as you might have noticed, I’m a huge fan.) rhythmically crashing on the beach.

Jaffa itself is amazing – in fact, picturesque would be an understatement. You can read up on its fascinating history in the Wikipedia entry here.I could feel the history in the stones on its walls, the narrow steps, ponder on the pieces of art mounted on its walls, and just absorb the traditions that seem to reverberate from everywhere.

This particular door fascinated me at length. The entire door was made to look like it was carved straight out from a piece of wood, and yet evokes a very modern feel to it by the addition of the metal security keypad.

You also have these artsy pieces mounted randomly on the walls.

We also had the random but fortunate accident of being invited inside the house of famous Israeli painter and sculptor Menashe Kadishman at some point during our self-guided tour.In fact, the owner of the Hayek Contemporary Art museum also opened the doors for us. I guess looking like a foreigner, complete with a touristy Nikon slung over my shoulders, makes a local more welcoming and eager to show off one’s surroundings. Here is an example of the many provocative pieces in the museum, part of an exhibit called Anorexic Bodies.

Lastly, I finally got to see the second Catholic church in Tel Aviv (and there are only 2 of them in the entire city). Here is a picture of the interior of St. Peter’s and another picture of Jaffa at night.

Of course, my Friday night did not end there. In keeping with the Tel Aviv bubble, I went out with my colleague Itamar for a drink at half past eleven in the evening at Norman’s Bar, near Sheinkin. As usual, I got drunk (from just one full glass of the Israeli beer Dancing Camel) but I managed this time to go home in one piece.

Yesterday, I took a 1-hour sherut ride up to the northern city of Haifa where I met up with Karin, who was my classmate in Arabic 1 last term and an MIT graduate student. She is interning at Mada al-Carmel and we joined the tour of the Baha’i Gardens. We also tried our best to practice our abysmal Arabic (and fusha at that) with the amused vendors over at the Arab market.

It was a busy and exhausting weekend overall and being the lazy bum that I am, I am looking forward to just spending a quiet Saturday afternoon sipping coffee and reading a book or chatting with a friend. Maybe next weekend, I’ll do just that. More pictures from this weekend are in my Flickr album.