What a wonderful time we are having here in Tel Aviv! This is by far one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. It is much different than many cities in the United States because the majority of the buildings are a bright white or yellow color, where as many cities back home have darker colored skyscrapers. I guess that's why it's referred to as the "white city". I'll have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of the Mediterranean food here in Tel Aviv, although Alison seems to be loving it. A nice cheeseburger and fries would be pretty nice but I'm going to stick to trying the cultural foods in all of our stops along the way.
Today was a very busy day! There was a brochure at our hotel with a list of building attractions in the city so we picked out a few that seemed interesting. We were all very excited to get out and see all the wonderful buildings and monuments that Tel Aviv has to offer so we got out to an early start so we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out. Unfortunately since Tel Aviv is such a big city we weren't able to walk to all of the destinations we picked out so we had to catch taxi's along the way. We were warned by the staff at the hotel that taxi drivers in the city were notorious for ripping off tourists by taking them much longer routes to their destination so we were a little cautious about the taxi we got in. Luckily the first taxi we picked up had a driver that spoke decent English and promised us the most direct route to our first destination, which was the Jaffa Clock Tower.
The Jaffa Clock Tower was much smaller than all of us anticipated but it was still a very beautiful structure. The tower is made of limestone and has two clocks at the top. There is also a plaque near the base commemorating the Israelis killed in the battle for the town in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, much like the Bell Tower at NC State, which has a plaque inside with the names students who died in WWI. This was a very cool structure and I'm really glad we got to check it out. Next it was off to the Etzel House, and some how we landed the same cab driver!
Our next destination was the Etzel House. Our cab driver was very knowledgeable of the area and the monuments we wanted to see and gave us a little back ground on the Etzel house. He said its now a museum taht tells the story of the takeover of Jaffa by 600 Etzel (Irgun) troops led by Menachem Begin, who would later serve as prime minister of Israel. Jaffa had long been a Arab city, while Tel Aviv to the north was settled by Jewish immigrants. Thirty-two people were killed in the assault and most Arab residents fled. The rubble was offered to artists to put in sweat equity and establish their workshops and galleries at street level while living over their shops. This transformed it into the artist colony it is today.
Admission into the Museum was 18 Shekels each, a small price to pay for one of the most unique museums any of us had ever been in. The art inside was incredible, it took us forever to pull Alison out of there bc she was so intrigued by this one abstract painting and the rest of us were starving! After finally getting her our of there we hopped in another cab and headed back into the main part of the city. Unfortunately we did not have the same cab driver this time and this one did not speak any English at all. Luckily Matt had a map of the city that he picked up earlier so he was able to point on the map to where we wanted to go. We were all very hungry since we accidentally skipped lunch and it was nearing dinner time. This cab ride seemed to be taking much longer than necessary so we began to examine our map to try and figure out where we were, turns out we were no where near where we wanted to be going so we angrily pointed out to our driver the spot on the map where we wanted to go. Finally we arrived back near the center of the city and our cab fare was way more than our 20 shekel cab rides earlier, this one ended up being 65 shekels. After that expensive and long cab ride we were all more hungry than ever, so we just decided to pick up some dinner at a local street vendor. We each ordered Falafel which is fried balls or patties of spiced, mashed chickpeas or farva beans. It was served in a pita, with pickles, tahina, hummus, cut vegetable salad and harif, a hot sauce. These were 10 shekels each.
Now that we were full and the sun was setting, it was time to head to our last destination of the day. We chose to visit the Dizengoff Fountain at night because we heard it was much prettier when it was dark outside. Luckily we were close enough to walk to the Fountain and didn't have to risk another bad taxi driver. The Dizengoff Fountain was an amazing sight! Its also called the fire and water sculpture and we could definitely tell why. The fountain spun around and sprayed water high into the sky and it appeared like there was fire coming out of the top, it was incredible!
After a long day of sightseeing and long taxi rides it was time to hit the sack. Excited to see what tomorrow has in store!
Total Spending for the day: 237 INS or about 65 US Dollars
-Adam
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