Tel Aviv

July 9, 2010

I am again 3 days behind writing this, so it will be short and sweet. Our internet was out for who knows how long and it was pretty stressful for Michelle and I to be away from our blogs, and for Michelle and Diane to be away from Skype.

Anyway, on Friday we decided to go to Tel Aviv to see the market, the beach, and the town of Joffa. We made arrangements for a taxi driver named Sammi to take us there. He has a big van and while negotiating the price he said he would take 200 shekels off the price if he could bring his wife and kids along. They are muslim and the family does not speak much english but it was so much fun. I played peek a boo and sang nonsense songs with the kids on the way there. We then split up from them and spent two hours in the crowded market. It was a cacophony of sights, sound and smells. Sammi and his family then picked us up to go to the beach but we ended up getting caught in a huge traffic snarl because the main road along the beach was closed to vehicles. Sammi ended up letting us out and we walked to the beach, leaving him to deal with the narrow crowded roads and honking, yelling people.

As we walked up to the beach we saw the reason for the traffic, there was a big parade with rock bands and thousands of young people following each semi. We made our way to the beach which was really nice. The meditteranean sea is really warm and quite clean so we had fun.

After two and a half hours we made it back to Sammi and he fought his way through the traffic to the ancient city of Joffa. This is the city where Jonah took off from,and where Simon Peter's house was. The streets and buildings were very old, the streets very narrow and it was charming.

We then went back to the van and Sammi took us to a restaurant where they served us 23 varieties of salad and we each got a whole fish, fried with head and fins and everything! It was delicious. It was Sammi and his wifes' anniversary so we picked up the tab. The drive home was fun, with their daughter dancing in the arab way, on the seat as we drove. It was a blessing to get to know, at least a little, a muslim family and we hope they were blessed as well.