one night in tel aviv

On Thursday afternoon, Max and I hopped on a train to go to Tel Aviv. This was my first major trip outside of the village, so I was pretty stoked. At the train station, they checked our bags and made us go through a metal detector. I still haven't gotten over the whole security situation in this country, and I don't think Max has either despite having been here for almost half a year.

We got to Tel Aviv and wandered around until we could check into our hostel, which was in the Florentine area. I could talk about our walk, which was lovely, but I won't bore you with the details. Basically, we got very lost but thanks to the Lonely Planet guidebook that my cousin got me for Christmas and some help from strangers, we found our way. What you really need to know is that we made it to the beach by sunset, and looking out onto the Mediterranean was really beautiful.

After some delicious falafel for dinner, we found the hostel. Then we went out with Max's friends from the village, who met us in Tel Aviv. We went to some bars, drank some beer. Again, I won't bore you with details. The highlight of the night came from a friend's recommendation. It's open all day, every day, and it serves only breakfast. It's called Benedict, and it was absolutely delicious. Mimosas and omelets at 1AM? Yes, please! Max got this dish called shakshouka, and I have to say the description of the dish on the Wikipedia page really doesn't do it justice, and neither does this picture.

We went to bed with our bellies full of breakfast and woke up the next morning only to be hungry again. We seriously debated going back to Benedict for second breakfast but thought better of it and went to a different café instead.

It was pouring outside by the time we finished eating, so we decided to go to the Dizengoff Tower to see a movie. We missed the noon showing, and because it was Friday, we couldn't see a later show because then we wouldn't be able to catch a train. In fact, by the time we left Tel Aviv at 2:30PM, the stores around us were starting to shut down.

But we braved the bad weather and went to the Carmel Market instead. I'm a sucker for a good market, and this was a good market. Lots of food, trinkets and people. We drank freshly squeezed pomegranate-orange juice and wandered.  

We then made our way back to the train station, were asked to show our passports by the security guards at the front and then grabbed the next train to Modi'in. All in all, a successful trip to Tel Aviv. My experience was perfectly tourist-y, and I'm so okay with that. Basically, I ate a lot of good food and spent good time with some good people. That's all I can really hope for from any traveling experience.