Too hot in Beit Sahour, and even hotter in Beir Zeit. But not in Tel Aviv! Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv was actually once a Palestinian airport called Lod Airport before the Israelis took it over. After dropping Maureen and Jiries off at the airport we headed over to Jaffa, the Palestinian old city adjacent to Tel Aviv, which is a new city built mostly on the land of Jaffa (Yafa in Arabic, Yafo in Hebrew). We walked around Jaffa for a couple hours, admiring the beautiful beach scenery and the old stone buildings. It is very obvious which buildings are owned by Arab Israelis because they are pretty much in shambles but the Israeli government refuses to give them building permits to fix them. There is a surprising amount of land owned by the church there (Greek Orthodox and Catholic). Since it was a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, almost every shop was closed, but the ones run by Muslims and Christians were open.
Tel Aviv:
Jaffa old city map
Jaffa:
This is an Arab home, you can tell because it is in rough shape (and it is in the Arab neighborhood where all the houses pretty much look like this)
A mosque under construction:
Street allies:
This is an advertisement for Israeli apartments they are building over demolished Arab homes:
Conservative Israelis (most people dress really Western; i.e. it is acceptable to walk around near the beach in a bikini):
View of Tel Aviv from Jaffa:
A mosque next to the water:
This is a church built on a spot where St. Peter once hung out:
Old Palestinian building in Jaffa owned by the church now:
The harbor:
Passageways through Jaffa neighborhood next to the water
This is my favorite picture, you can see the bissa (cat) on the steps:
A fishing boat in the harbor:
There are around 1 million Russian immigrants in Israel and the Russian mafia is notorious for drug trafficking. Most signs in Israel are usually in Hebrew, Arabic, English, and Russian. This is Jiries outside of Russian-owned restaurant:
This is the Arab place where we got lunch- I had a bread pocket-like thing filled with mashed potato and egg, it was zakey (delicious)!
Tel Aviv
The beach was totally packed but we claimed a small area of sand that was big enough to fit a couple towels. We swam a few times, but there was no shade in the sand so we called it an early day.
New settlement houses in the West Bank on the way home:
Shortly after we got home, it was time to go to the engagement party of Rawan, a woman who I work with at the Palestine Wildlife Society. There were five priests there, and a couple hundred people. Rawan wore a beautiful sparkling turquoise dress that would have been appropriate for a royal ball. I forgot to mention this last time I went to an engagement party- at the end, when you walk out of the building, they have a table with cake and candy and shots of whiskey and Arak (licorice flavored Arabic alcohol). Actually they soak the candy in Arak, which was a surprise for me when I popped one in my mouth in the car.
Loads of people:
It's blurry, but you can see Rawan and her new fiance in the center:
Rawan looked beaaaautiful!
After the engagement party Jiries and I grabbed dinner at Ramzi Chicken in Bethlehem. It was really delicious fried chicken with garlic dip and a side of purple coleslaw.
I haven't been diligent about my blog lately because the internet isn't working very well, or really at all. I am actually posting this from work at the Wildlife Society since I can't do it at home (frustrating!). Tomorrow Jiries and I are getting up really early and driving the the Sea of Galilee, staying at Ein Gev (the resort) for a night and then going to the Golan the next day to visit Dr. Tassier! I am going to post this then write another entry about yesterday, hopefully it will work.
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