Shalom,
After 5 days of learning, my first vacations started. It is Roshashana, which means, that in Israel we celebrate the new year. And where is the best place to celebrate in Israel?...Right Tel Aviv. So after the lesson on Thursday I made a little nap. My roommate woke me up 8 minutes before our bus to Tel Aviv would arrive. So I had to pack my bag for 6 days in 8 minutes...It worked. After we waited 30 minutes for the bus, passed the connecting bus, took a train instead and drove over an hour for 3 km by bus in Tel Aviv, we finally arrived. Kindly some volunteers, who are working in Tel Aviv gave us a place to stay for the holidays. We bought food for the next 6 days, because in Israel, when there are holidays, the days are really holy. No buses, no supermarket, nothing. Then, the rest of the night we found out what the party life in Tel Aviv is like.
Friday
The next day we went to visit the "old part" of Tel Aviv, Jaffa. It is really beautiful. The streets are full of little flea markets. In every corner is a little coffee shop and everywhere is music. The buildings are very old, parts of them very beautiful, parts of them very dilapidated. The mentality is very different to Haifa.
After that we went to the beach. Also a big difference to Haifa. The beach was full of young people and dogs. Nearly everybody has a dog in Tel Aviv. The waves had been very high (over 3 meters), so it was sportive being in the water. We played beach ball and enjoyed the sun. My father called from the rainy Hamburg. It was difficult not to show my malicious joy 😁. Sorry dad.
Luckily three of the volunteers bought themselves bicycles, we were allowed to use. So it was easy to get from A to B. Charlotte, one of the volunteers in Tel Aviv joined us and it seems, that she is very happy about new visitors. Because the colocation of here is a little bit lazy. Do not understand me wrong, they have a great colocation and everybody seems to be happy, but the apartment they have is really big and enjoyable, so the volunteers are not really motivated to get out. In that way we are lucky to have such an minimalistic colocation.
So we took the bikes and went to Florentine. It is like the hipster part of Tel Aviv.
Shabat already, so everything was closed and it was not very exciting walking through that part of the town. After we enjoyed a meal at mcdonalds, and Mcdonalds here is very different to what I know, because it seems like they are using real meet, we went back and enjoyed a calm evening.
Saturday
On Saturday we woke up a bit earlier and went to the museum of arts in Tel Aviv. It was interesting but it is very big. So, if ever go there, take your time. You can see every kind of art there. Modern, classic, photography etc....
I rent an electric city roller, we ate something and met our friends Kathy and Mirjam. They are also visiting Tel Aviv, but they live in another colocation. We went to the beach and after that we wanted to go to the Azrieli Observatory, but sadly it was closed. We had been four people but we just have three bikes, so one person had to take the bus. I can tell you taking the bus in Tel Aviv is not really easy. After getting home in 1 hour and meeting a guy from Berlin, who offered me a job🎉 I took a shower, ate something and we went out again.
The night was pretty cool, because it ended in the sea at 3 o clock in the morning.
Sunday
So the stores opened again, cause Shabat was over. We went to big market, which was quiet impressive and to Florentine again. The whole day we just visited the city.
In the afternoon we made our homeworks...yes I have to do homeworks again...and took our time for relaxing a little bit.
In the evening Roshashana begins. I introduced the colocation a little bit into the traditions of roshashana and after that I went to the synagogue. A neighbor was very kind and took me with him.
I can say the synagogue is different to the one I know at home, but it was a really great feeling hearing the rabbi and the whole community.
I called my parents and grandparents to wish them a happy new year and enjoyed the evening at the apartment.
So the first days in Tel Aviv had been really busy, but very interesting. I met a lot of new people and made a lot of new experiences. In the end Tel Aviv is a really big city with every types of people.
Happy new year🎉Shana Tova🎉
SK
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