Israel: Free Time

The next two days we had nothing scheduled to do. We had planned it that way because it was the Jewish Sabbath and things would be closed – we didn’t know about the holiday though until we arrived in Israel. We spent the free days (the two together: Friday and Saturday and then the one separate on Wednesday – we had scheduled a free tour of Tel Aviv for that day but it was cancelled because of the holiday) mostly at the beach. It was very hot and sunny and the Mediterranean Sea was so nice. We bought some towels and used a machine to rent 2 beach chairs and 2 umbrellas. You then had to search the beach for the guy who sets-up the chairs and umbrellas for you. We had two different guys and I didn’t like either one. They acted as though they didn’t speak English when you spoke to them and then you would hear them flirting in English to other people. You also couldn’t pick where you wanted them to set everything up – wherever they were standing when you finally found them was where they put everything.

One thing that was funny is a group of Americans were telling funny and dirty jokes in English near my beach chair and when one of them said they should be quiet because what they were saying was rude and inappropriate another one of them replied that I was a Sabra (a native-born Israeli) and so didn’t understand them anyways. I’m not sure if being called a Sabra is good or not but they were telling some very funny jokes and I had to keep from laughing. By the time we left the beach I had a minor sun bun (luckily we managed to find a store that had after-sun lotion and sun screen – it wasn’t easy to find since the name of the store was only in Hebrew and we were told the name in English.) During our free days we ate breakfast at the hotel (we didn’t know what most of the items were, but there were a lot of them – their potatoes with garlic sauce were great.) We then had lunch at a café or restaurant on the beach and a few times went to an ice cream shop (I kept getting asked if I wanted my milkshake made with milk or water – which is weird.)

We walked a little further into Tel Aviv one day to get some shawarma and eventually we found a place. On the second free day we were too tired to walk anywhere for dinner and so we asked the Russian receptionist to help us order Dominos’ Pizza and have it delivered. Their website was only in Hebrew and a little confusing, but the receptionist did a great job and in the end we not only had good tasting pizza, but also the first non-Kosher food (our pizza had ham on it) in 5 days.

Another good thing on our free days was being able to wear shorts and sandals. It was always so hot and yet on the tours I had to wear pants and shoes (even though other people were not dressed correctly and still allowed into the different religious sites.) The two back-to-back free days were nice since we went swimming at the beach both days and the third free day at the end of the trip was peaceful since we got to relax after having four 12 hour tours in a row.