Pre Tel Aviv

SO many more things to talk about but the details on my Israel trip are starting to fade. Quickly ...

Non verbal communication: There is a system of car horn beeps that mean something in Israel. Two short beeps is a courtesy signal indicating that the light is about to change, just in case you were not paying attention. One long beep means that you have committed a serious traffic blunder (sticking your hand out of the window and waving side-to-side twice means you acknowledge your blunder and apologize). There are beeps to agree with protesters. Other beeps to congratulate newlyweds.

Tel Be'er Sheva : The ancient city of Be'er Sheva. It was interesting to see the system of water storage and distribution they created a loooong time ago, very effective. Also a good view of the modern Be'er Sheva.


View of Be'er Sheva from Tel Be'er Sheva


Mini Israel: A park where you can walk through slightly scaled down version of the country. Its cheesy at first glance but its actually a good way to see all the regions.


Mini Tel Aviv

Palestinians: Walking through and photographing Be'er Sheva one day a Palestinian man stopped to talk to me. He got off his bike, asked a lot of questions about where I was from and what I was doing in Israel. He explained that he lived in the West Bank but came into Be'er Sheva to work, odd jobs since as he put it, he had no skills to survive in a modern world. He extended his hand, which I shook. There were a lot of awkward silences then, out of the blue, he said "I love America" and got back on his bike. Its was a nice thought, really, but I doubted he had or will ever see America. And I was kind of glad to see him pedal away.

East Jerusalem: We got lost driving through Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives and wound up in an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Yikes, there is a striking difference between the central and east part of town. Garbage, old cars and unattended children everywhere! I actually saw a woman dump trash from her balcony into the street where the kids were playing. Gross. People, even kids, did not smile in East Jerusalem. I was glad to leave it.


Black Hats : We walked through (more like around) some of the ultra orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Cousin Marnina gave us all an education of recognizing the different flavors of ultra-orthodox.

Arad : This is where my family lived when they landed in Israel. Its the city before the descent to the Dead Sea and there are some lookouts with great views of the Dead Sea region.

Theres more but let's move on to the last stop - Tel Aviv.