There were just so many cute little cafes and boutiques lining the street! Every block was lined up with restaurants and cafes, and the weather being as nice as it was, people were sitting outside, enjoying their meals, sandwiches, coffees or snacks, reading something, tending to their kids or company and just chilling. It surprised me to see women wearing shorts, tanktops and summer skirts. Neither in Jerusalem nor in Ramallah (of course) would I ever see that. But I guess I was in tel aviv so things were a bit different.
M and i got to tel aviv after a series of buses. We woke up Sunday morning and headed towards the bus stop around 7am to catch the bus from Gabriel’s house to the central bus station. The central bus station in tel aviv was so freakin confusing to navigate. I hear it’s the biggest bus station in the world. Our destination was the Egyptian embassy and to figure out how to get there or which bus to take at least, we went up to the information desk lady who told us that our bus would be across the street next to a cellphone place.
Not entirely sure of when to get off of the bus, we realized we got to our destination in tel aviv when we saw the side of the building with paintings of Egyptian mummies on it.
The first sleaze bag that I’ve encountered as well as the first gyp that I’ve encountered so far : the guy behind the window at the embassy.
The process wasn’t long but I am currently dealing with passport separation anxiety as I wont be seeing that little booklet until next week.
We strolled through the city knowing that we had the day to ourselves! And we were already in the city, the weather was gorgeous, so it was perfect to take advantage of the opportunity. We just walked in every which random direction just exploring the city, window shopping (which was fun until you realized that you don’t have money to spend on cute dresses). When we’d get hungry we’d sit at a café to pull out a book, or a journal or just to chat a bit. It was a fantastic afternoon and because I haven’t really gone anywhere in the past month, being so freakin broke and being penniless (shekel less I should say rather), this weekend was definitely a treat. And it was also M’s one year anniversary of being here in the holy land.
We celebrated with sushi (which felt heavenly) and nice little sweet treats. Seeing the beach was also beautiful, seeing the coasts of the Mediterranean, which runs alongside tel aviv. It was peaceful.
We took another bus to get to Jaffa. An old fort from the Ottoman empire turned into a walking museum it felt like with the fort still in tact. Shops were built inside the fort and walking around, there was no clearly lain out path, which made it so amazingly cool. I’ve definitely coined it as one of the coolest places I’ve seen. Jaffa, noted.
Knowing that getting back home would be a time consuming ordeal, we started our trek back around 5pm. And I think we got home around 9:30pm. This is without having to worry about checkpoints, because you don’t get stopped when you are coming back to Ramallah. Tel aviv is only 37 miles away from Ramallah.
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