Around Tel Aviv
By BrendanGetting to Tel Aviv was the first hard part of the trip. United delayed us two hours on the ground because some of the seat-back screens didn't work. I would've just reimbursed people in those seats and gotten the plane moving. What a waste of time. While they were restarting the system 17 times - because clearly that's the only way to fix software problems - I got a glimpse of what they were running. A version of Linux from nearly a decade ago (specifically, the Red Hat build from November 19, 2004). Some poor United employee probably threw this system together years ago and no one has updated it since. No wonder there were issues.
Once our 50-person group made it through a 12 hour plane ride and customs we met our tour guide and headed out on what would become an all too familiar bus for downtown Tel Aviv. Freshly-paved roads and skyscrapers were our first sights.
We were welcomed into Tel Aviv with this friendly graffiti on the side of the road.
But we quickly maneuvered our way slightly out of town to the much older city of Jaffa. There stone and small pedestrian paths dominated. It also afforded great views of the city from its elevated position across the water.
This is what Tel Aviv and its coast look like from Jaffa.
This is an old stone gate on one of the small side streets of Jaffa. I don't know what it says, but I love the way it looks.
We had our first meal in the busy marketplace of Jaffa. It was a falafel lunch with four different "salads" to add as a topping. Just like the bus, I quickly became too familiar with falafel, as it was consistently one of the only choices for lunch.
This company's branding is so good that I bet you can tell what it is even though you can't read the language.
We eventually crossed back through the city to a resort town to the North called Netanya. There we watched the sun set on the Mediterranean as the sea lapped at the shore a hundred feet below the bluff our hotel was on. It was a quiet, relaxing place to spend our first night in country.
Sunset on the Mediterranean. Doin' it right.