Month: February 2018

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Seven Layers of Curiosities: The Bus Station only Escher Could Love

Of all the things I expected to do in Tel Aviv, touring the central bus station was surely at the bottom of the list…actually, it was nowhere near the list. But in my research on Brutalist architecture, it popped up as a building everyone loves to hate, and I also saw the following advertisement:

Come with us as we go into the belly of the New Central Bus Station of Tel Aviv. Two and half hours of mysterious oddities, located in one of the most notorious buildings in Israel. Join us to find out why it’s one of the craziest places in the country. Architecture, breakdancing, Yiddish and Tagalog. What’s with all the graffiti on the 7th floor? and WHAT?! There’s a bat cave?!!! Curious? Meeting point: Levinsky 118, Tel Aviv, gate #42-43.

Curious? You bet.  And when it turned out that my friend Steve knew a tour guide who did this tour…well, my fate was sealed.

In the “What Were They Thinking Category!!!”, surely this structure must take pride of place. Designed in the sixties, covering 5 city blocks and containing 2.5 million square feet of space over six floors, it had a novel, and dubious premise.

The active part of the building is now on the left, except for the GIGANTIC and very on-trend nightclub in the right wing, “The Block”.  Don’t even think of getting there before midnight. Discounts if you get there before 1:00. The party winds up around 8:00. (A.M.)

Two competing bus lines were to share the space, but as arch-rivals, the only way they would agree to do so was if they each got their own depot. So the Dan buses were assigned to the lowest of six levels (which was 3 below street level), while the Egged buses were to come and go on the sixth level, then the top floor.  Dan did not want to be somewhere called lower level “-3”, so the lowest level was called “1”,  which is why, when you now enter off  the street, you are on level  #4.

To transfer from one set of buses to the other, (or just to get in and out of the place), required passengers to navigate from three to six levels on foot, through winding circular hallways. These were meant to evoke streets running off a main boulevard, and just like in Tel Aviv proper, those streets curved all over the place!  Travellers would pass as they went, 4 floors of stores, (2300 of them at full capacity)  SIX movie theatres, a food market,  restaurants, sitting areas, and so on.

The ticket wicket for the 6 theatres, now abandoned.

The labyrinth-like design ensured that this would take as long as long as possible with maximum opportunity to lose one’s way….oh… and to shop. This was intentional…and to this day, even the employees in the place can, and do, lose their way. Those of you who have been to the Dizengoff centre have only to imagine that particular mall “on steroids” to get the idea of the baffling layout that was employed.

A sitting area to rest and ponder your next move when lost in transit. It was meant to be cosy.

The idea was that you would have plenty of things to do while waiting for your bus, like say: take in a film, have dinner, and do a little shopping. The mall owners wanted a captive audience, and the layout ensured they would have one!

This is what happens when you put a mall developer, a high profile  Brutalist architect and an ambitious city administration together and shake well. Had any of them ever actually taken a bus?

Of course it never quite worked out as “planned” (if you can use such a word for the whole debacle). For one thing, shortly after construction started the country was at war and ran out of concrete. Once back on track, multiple redesigns delayed construction.  Several bankruptcies, and almost 30 years later, the “New” terminal finally opened for use in 1993.

To give Tel Avivis credit, they knew pretty early on that this was a disaster in the making, and it was soon nicknamed the “white elephant”. At the official opening ceremony, a giant helium balloon in the shape of  …yes… a white elephant… was released.  This is the kind of thing I love about this place.

Within three years, the lower Dan bus level was abandoned because the exhaust from the buses made the floors around  it unfit for human use. ( I am no expert, but it strikes me that this is the sort of thing that might have been considered before putting buses in the basement.)  Anyway, some of the buses were moved to the 6th floor,  and the rest to yet another NEW floor #7! (Why not double down!). Today the bottom level is used only on Sundays for soldiers returning to base. What a way to start the week!

All the stores that were on the levels 1-3, below grade, were abandoned due to lack of traffic, and air pollution…as were the movie theatres which were conveniently located next to the  basement  bus ramps.  More lawsuits ensued, as all those store owners lost their investments.  Today, only about 40% of the structure is occupied.

So what is left? Well, lots of abandoned stores, some 1300 of them.  Many long, scary, dark, empty corridors.

Sadly, there is a lot of this…if you venture off the beaten path, which I don’t recommend without a guide.

But in a tribute to the human spirit, and the enterprising nature of the hardscrabble neighbourhood surrounding the station, you can also find about 1,000 little businesses, most of them crowded into a bazaar like atmosphere at ground level (#4,) and up to the second floor (#5.) The overall effect is one of mass confusion.

You can start your trip with the purchase of a bird, or giant goldfish
or maybe pick up a guitar

And there are  countless shoe stores, hallways and hallways of them, clustered together into a kind of crazy “shoe neighbourhood”…hmmm…maybe this place does have some redeeming features.

Shoe, shoes, shoes…as far as the eye can see

“Little Manila”, which might have been the busiest part of the place; grocery stores, restaurants, and money-wiring services for the Philipina community which is as integral to elder care here as anywhere else.

Little Manila…check out the sign.

What else?  Let’s see.  A dance studio, a church, a synagogue, endless space for skateboard fanatics and breakdancers,  and Israel’s biggest, (of course), and most notorious nightclub, The Block.   Also a few artist’s studios. Like this one.

The rent is cheap…but you have to put up with the buses rumbling overhead…and they are pretty loud.

This fellow is a ceramic artist and sells his goods in the Nahalat Binyamin market.  He also has the keys to to the Yiddish Museum which is across the way, and which he opened up to show us around. Yes, of all things, there is a Yiddish Museum, in what looks like a tiny storefront, but which is much bigger when you get inside. It houses thousands of old books, old newspapers, other memorabilia, and a stage for klezmer concerts.  And as we all know, where there is music… there must be a bar…and indeed there was one, which our ceramic artist put to immediate use.  The whole museum is a labour of love staffed entirely by volunteers.

A modest storefront for the Yiddish Museum. How anyone could find it is a mystery to me. There are no obvious opening hours.
The Klezmer stage, and a small fraction of the books that are stored there. They make a nice backdrop.
Old Yiddish newspapers

 

On the lowest level, there is also a bomb shelter that can hold 16,000 people. It has actually been used once.

It would take a bomb threat to get me back down there

And  right by the bomb shelter, possibly the most peculiar feature of the whole crazy structure, a giant bat colony. Yes, nature abhors a vacuum, and when the buses left, the bats moved in. Thousands and thousands of them. So naturally, a decision was made to protect them, by walling off their own 200 metre long concrete bat cave. Then it was declared a nature preserve, under the supervision of Israel’s Nature and Garden Department (!)…(I have no words). You cannot actually see into it, but you can hear the little critters when standing by the wall.  They are there…trust me.

And what about the buses, the “raison d’etre” of the whole place?  Well they got a brand new floor on the top of the structure  (# 7 !), which is actually quite nice, especially compared to the rest of the building.  It has a great view of Tel Aviv.

After six floors of gloom, getting up here was like arriving in heaven

The 7th floor also has a vast and exuberant collection of street art. The city invited some of the better known street artists to decorate the walls to celebrate the new floor, and this was such a success that it has been left there permanently. It was certainly worth seeing and I would go back for that alone.  It casts Florentine into the shade. A couple of examples:

Not your average graffiti… and certainly fits its location
the floor is huge and full of wonderful pieces like this

There is little certainty about the future of this bizarre structure. It is much too big for its purpose, and it  squats right in the middle of a run-down neighbourhood that is in dire need of revival and refurbishment.  All that empty dark space attracts all kinds of illicit activity, which drags the area down even further.  City planners are desperate to get rid of it, but it is privately owned and nothing is simple in Israel, even in the rare case when all parties agree.  Demolishing it would cause all kinds of pollution…and  most importantly…let us not forget the bats.  This is their home.

Not your everyday bus station

 

 

 

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On the Quirky Side…

Just the other day I read an article from the CTV news feed about an Ontario woman who was issued a $110.00 traffic ticket for driving with a green parrot on her shoulder.  (You can’t make this stuff up.)

She should move to Tel Aviv.

Here, the parrot would be made welcome in a Tel Aviv bar, as you can see below.  Ben met one when he was out recently, perched on a fellow patron’s shoulder, but happy to be sociable with others. No big deal at all.

Ben and friend. Parrots welcome here, and who knows what else.

Throughout the city there are lots of formal art installations, in parks, on street corners and so on, like this mosaic egg.

Mike and the Egg in the Noga Neighbourhood

 

But there are also what I would call informal, and often eccentric, personal expressions of creativity that pop up when you least expect them.

For example, walking down Frishman, a nearby residential street, there is an apartment building with a rare lower level apartment which has a nice stone patio a few steps down.  Populating this little terrace is a whole collection of almost life-size  ceramic figures; there is also a small table where regular people can sit. They won’t be lonely.

A bit of the Shire right in the heart of Tel Aviv

…and above them to the left, cats, also ceramic. And why not?

In fact there is something about this whole set-up that says “cat lover” to me.

On a nearby street, a downed tree limb, repurposed, with exposed ends modestly covered.

 

And in the Yemeni quarter, a lovely wall full of inset ceramic odds and ends, plates, painted tiles, and whatnot, which just popped up out of nowhere.

Ceramic graffiti

 

On King George, on top of a pink store, a full size yellow car, driven by a mouse…or at least I think that is what it is.

And you’ll notice part of a menorah on the right. It comes down to street level for Hanukkah. The store below is selling Purim costumes.

As you can see, there is plenty of colour in the White City!

 

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Old and New at the Glass Museum

A while ago I signed up for a full day tour of Tel Aviv’s archeological museum, The Eretz Israel Museum. This was a bit  (very) over-ambitious as I have about 2 hours of “museum stamina” in me.  It was a special offer tied to the archeology lectures I have been attending, and featured tours given by the curators of three different collections, Glass, Pottery, and Man and his Work, so I went for it!  It was exhausting, but worth it, to listen to the curators, all of whom are practising archeologists, and who were passionate about these collections which they had been instrumental in building.

The storage area of the Pottery Museum. What visitors don’t get to see.
A life-size glass crusader!
A millstone from the Roman-Byzantine period. Note the menorah etched on the side.

The museum itself is built on the site of an archeological dig, Tel Quasile, (over 3,000 years old), on beautiful grounds overlooking Tel Aviv. As the dynamic curator of the “Man and his Work” pavilion said, it seemed a brilliant idea at the time to put an archeology museum right at a dig site.  However, every time they sunk a shovel, the builders would find some new antiquity, everything stopped dead, and so it took quite a while to finish.  The site is now home to several individual pavilions, each operating as a separate museum focused on a particular theme, including oddly, a museum of postal history, covering mail-service in the area from the 15 century to 1948!  (I may have to go back for that one. I have never really thought about mail service that way.) Interspersed with all of these, are the original dig sites, and subsequent finds such as Byzantine olive presses etc.

The curator of the ethnography museum (Man and his Work), showing us re-created workshops of antiquity.

Of the three museums we toured, the loveliest from a visual standpoint was the Glass Museum, featuring glass from the 15th century BC to the present.  It was amazing to see how well preserved these ancient glass items were, especially compared to the pottery museum, where many pots were found in fragments and reassembled.  As the curator pointed out, this is because glass items were precious in their day, and were often buried with their owners.

The most striking piece was a remarkable glass mosaic from Caesarea circa late 6th century (Byzantine period) unique in the world for its condition.

The glass mosaic. Gorgeous. Amazing that it survived.

It was a pleasure to finish with some contemporary pieces. I especially like the splashing water.

splashing water in glass from the side
and from the front
and an  apple
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Tel Aviv Architecture: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

When it comes to architecture, Tel Aviv is full of surprises.

On the plus side, you can lose yourself in the exoticism of the middle east (the Shuk, Jaffa, or the Yemenite quarter), wander in what looks like a charming European village (Neve Tzedek,), or stroll on a beautiful European style boulevard (Rothschild).

Entry to the Shuk. Classic eclectic style.
The Yemenite quarter has the feel of a Greek Island.

 

Equally, you can find yourself in a modern downtown, in an impressive cultural complex (Habima), or in a charming Bauhaus neighbourhood for which the town is famous. There is even a small neighbourhood of American colonial wood buildings (as far as I know, the only ones in Israel) which were built in 1866 by a group of settlers from Maine. They went so far as to bring their own wood with them, and thought they were coming to the Garden of Eden. (They lasted two years.) For some of this, you need to go looking, and it is worth the effort.

One of the rare wooden houses built by settlers from Maine!
Modern Tel Aviv

 

But this is no architectural paradise, by any stretch of the imagination. Most streets, even in expensive neighbourhoods, are lined with boxy, utilitarian, low-rise flats, covered in stucco that has weathered to a tired tan colour.  (Fortunately there are lots of trees that soften the effect.)

There are also plenty of gritty commercial stretches, sometimes right next to, or interspersed with, nicer buildings. (One of the worst of them is right behind the seaside stretch of hotels, which can immediately give tourists the wrong idea about this city). This sort of thing serves to weaken the overall aesthetic considerably.  For example, I post two pictures below of once identical buildings across the street from another in the centre of town; one restored, the other not. This is Tel Aviv in a nutshell…be prepared for both.

There are also some very prominent buildings that fall into the “What were they thinking category?” For example, the city hall. When I first saw it, I took it  for a shabby office building, or even an apartment building.)

When I say the city hall is brutal, it is not my personal opinion.  It is the formal term for pretty much the ugliest building style to afflict the planet, the aptly named “Brutalist” movement; and sadly Tel Aviv has an unfortunate amount of it. (Okay, so it also happens to be my personal opinion…)

Yes, this is the city hall

I had trouble understanding how this happened. Perhaps it was built in a period when money was short? (Surely it wasn’t meant to look like that!)  A little research proved me wrong. Brutalist buildings were expensive to build, prominent architects designed them, and the city is full of them. Clearly the planning department in the mid-twentieth century was infatuated with the movement. Most of beachfront hotels are (sadly) also in this style, and many other prominent buildings: the EL Al building, the Dizengoff Tower, the Shalom Tower and so forth. I pass a few of them every day…and they do not add to the pleasure of the walk. (Of course, who has time to look up when dodging bicycles and scooters.)

The El Al building
The Dizengoff Tower. The great man would not be amused.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toronto has its fair share of brutalist architecture as well, (the Robarts Library, being a prime example) , but the look seems less jarring in the concrete jungle of downtown north American cities, than in what was fundamentally a low-rise Mediterranean city. Here they pop up like a bunch of sore thumbs.

 

View from our apartment. The squat grey building in the middle is the city hall, seen from the side.

And while the City Hall is bad, apparently it pales in comparison with the Central Bus Terminal, a 2.2 million s.f. behemoth, spread over 5 city blocks and originally meant to house 2,300 stores! It is apparently the largest bus terminal in the world and reputedly the most hated structure in Israel.  Every so often, planners talk about tearing it down, but apparently that is almost impossible, so thick is the concrete, and the fear is that the resultant dust would choke Tel Aviv for weeks.  Needless to say, the architect was a Brutalist, and likely someone who never took a bus anywhere.

I have never been there, and most Tel Avivis avoid it like the plague, but the structure is now so full of so many bizarre things, that at least one enterprising company offers monthly tours…and since it is not in the nicest part of town, that might be the safest way to go. I am trying to persuade Mike to come along, but I may have to lean on Ben for this one.  Either way, I think it will deserve its own post! Stay tuned.

 

 

 

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The weather: Lots of sun!  Also water and sand…not always where you expect them.

I hate to bring this up, but the weather here has been amazing, mostly mild and sunny since we have arrived.

Just down the street from us…yes, this is winter

The weather does have some quirks however.

First, it is the rainy season, and although it has been drier than normal for this time of year, it does occasionally rain.  And when it rains, well…pardon the expression… but it can be biblical.  The winds sweep in off the Mediterranean, and the rain comes down in torrents, and with little warning…it feels as though there is someone throwing buckets of water from the sky.  Since there are few or no storm sewers, the water rises quickly and before you know it you can be ankle deep in water as you step off a curb, tempting you to leap over giant puddles…which is a risky strategy, since the streets can be very slippery. So waterproof boots are a must; oddly so are sunglasses since it clears up in a hurry.

This can take only minutes

I was out on a walking tour the other day as part of my Hebrew course (trying desperately to put a coherent sentence together…not succeeding), and the skies opened. We had to duck into a construction site for shelter, which unfortunately was only marginally drier due to its sieve-like roof… As we dodged the interior rain drops, my instructor took a selfie of the two of us…you’ll note our friendly photo-bomber!  After about 10 minutes huddling there, we made a dash for a local café…very crowded with like-minded rain refugees and spent a pleasant half an hour waiting for a break in the weather. (I am happy to report that I can now order coffee in Hebrew. Also wine and beer on other occasions…you will note I do have my language learning priorities straight).

Notice our new friend

Fortunately for us, but not for the country, it has rained rarely during our stay, and the rest of the time it has been bone dry here.  I was surprised by this because I am used to humid weather in Tel Aviv, but in the winter, the winds often blow in from the east, i.e. from the desert, and they bring in very dry air.  I am not the sort that takes a water bottle everywhere, but there are many times I wish I had. I even had to go out and buy a super intense moisturizer from AHAVA to battle my parchment-like skin. I figured if anyone understood how to combat desert air it would be them…and I was right.

Sometimes during those very dry periods, we see a brownish haze over the city.  A little like Toronto on a very humid day. But there is no humidity and It is not pollution as we know it either. So our good friend, Eran, filled us in…Carried along by the dry winds from the desert, this haze is actually a very fine sand!  It does not really feel like sand as we think of it, more like a very fine dust so you don’t see the particles, but it is pervasive, and sneaks into all kinds of nooks and crannies, including your throat.  Tel Aviv can also have stronger and more obvious sandstorms, but so far we have only experienced the sneaky kind.

Our view with dust
And without

But mostly we have had days like this.

Tel Aviv University Dec 25, 2018

 

 

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Parking or “Oy…What a Balagan” (mess)

Tel Aviv is a young city, established only in 1909, (younger than my daughter’s Toronto house!), on sand dunes north of Jaffa.  It was meant from the beginning to be a modern city, with sewage and running water, and with plans to create an orderly grid structure.  A city for the future!

Well the grid did not really happen, as Mike and I have often discovered as we set out in one direction, say west, and find the street has sneakily wound around and we are facing north, or south.

The grid plan

And for all the planning, the notion that people might acquire cars, did not appear to cross anyone’s mind.

As a consequence, the majority of apartment buildings, which line every street in Tel Aviv, have no parking at all, and the residents are obliged to park on the street. Since these buildings are generally four-five stories, with anywhere from 8-12 units within, and space in front (if any) for maybe 3 cars…you can see where the supply/demand equation for parking can quickly get out of hand. Most streets are one way, so as to allow parking on both sides.

And even so they are on the sidewalk

And it is not unusual to see cars parked in creative ways, at right angles between two parallel parked cars, for example.

Smart cars…very handy
Who is this handsome guy?

 

Sometimes they are on the sidewalk  Actually…often they are on the sidewalk. Sidewalk parking is something I encounter every day as I walk along King George.  This creates short bottlenecks where hapless pedestrians (like me) have even less room to compete with the ever aggressive bicycles and scooters that dominate the sidewalks. I can’t imagine that parking this way is legal, but clearly whatever penalty might be attached to such an action, it pales in comparison with what a bus driver might do if a driver dared to pull over and block his lane.

Typical day on King George

 

There is little point driving within the city, but not so much because of traffic.  It is because having actually secured a street parking spot within walking distance of home, it is very risky to get in the car and drive anywhere in town; i) because there will be no parking at the destination, and ii) because when you come back your spot will undoubtedly be gone.  And good luck finding a new one!

The search for parking can provide plenty of opportunity for drama, as cars jockey for position and prepare to pounce on an empty spot (think Yorkdale on the weekend).  A driver with a passenger is at an advantage in this game. Once a spot is identified, the passenger is dispatched to stand in the spot and fight off the competition, while the driver takes the necessary circuitous route through the one-way side streets to get there.  The passenger then provides an extra pair of eyes to ensure that there is at least one centimetre left between the newly parked car and both its neighbours. How drivers manage to squeeze into some of these spots, and then get out again, is a mystery to me.

How do they do this?
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Eating Out in Tel Aviv

I did not come to Tel Aviv to cook, and so far, I am succeeding admirably on that score.  It is possible that this is the most densely “restauranted” city I have ever visited. Even more so than Paris. You may recall I marvelled at the number of hair salons…well, restaurants and cafes outnumber them exponentially. And they are all full, pretty much all the time, and this is the “off season”! There are days when I wonder if anyone eats at home. Or goes to work for that matter.

There are some establishments that are really clear (to say the least) as to what is on offer, and I have been collecting photos of these commonly themed restaurant signs which I will share throughout the post. I find them to be a fine example of the direct approach for which Israelis are famous.

Like I said…is there any doubt what is happening here?
Or here

Over all, we notice less take-out than at home; it seems that Israelis prefer to eat freshly made food, right away. I am not sure if it is the “fresh” part or the “right away” part that is the deciding factor; I suspect the latter.  With such a temperate climate you can eat outside most of the time, and people do.  In fact, many restaurants have more outdoor space than indoor…and there are more than a few casual eateries that look a lot like someone’s main floor kitchen with a bunch of tables on the sidewalk. The joy of eating al fresco can be somewhat dimmed by the fact that this also tends to be the smoking section, and also by the proximity of some of the outer tables to the bicycles and other motorized vehicles that whizz by ON THE SIDEWALK, narrowly avoiding your table.

Classier…but still to the point

In all but the really “upscale” places, portions are huge; it is not unusual for us to take half home.  Pastries and baked goods are delicious and abundant, and the gelato is excellent and widely (too widely) available… but people are mostly thin. This is an irritating trait that Tel Aviv shares with Paris, where we used to observe pencil-slim young women ask for extra whipped cream on their third course desserts (requisite dog at their feet), with a complete and utter lack of concern for weight and/or diet. The other day, the same thing happened as I ate my salad at Aroma.  The thin young woman next to me had to sit down and savour a giant, and I mean giant, piece of cake. It happens all the time and it is really not fair.

Getting the picture?

In our immediate neighbourhood, just around Rabin Square, we have a 24 hour French-style brasserie, (although the French themselves would NEVER eat around the clock), a Vietnamese restaurant from France (kosher), a Hawaiian Poke place (built around marinated raw fish, and also kosher), 5-6 Italian places, a fine dining international style restaurant, several meat places, and at least 20-30 casual cafes with a wide range of menu items.

The Hebrew letters are the transliteration of the word “red”…

And that is all within a 10 minute walk…within 20 minutes we are numbering well over 100 places, maybe more, and so it goes.  So much choice…so little time. And don’t get me started on the bakeries.

This is quite a classy place in Neve Tzedek

Our current favourite for a late breakfast or lunch is actually a book store on Rabin Square; it has a small, eclectic selection of English and Hebrew books, with maybe 12-15 tables wedged inside, another 6-7 or so outside, and a dairy/vegetarian menu as long as your arm. The first time we went there, I had 2 slices of challah french toast, with fruit, crème fraiche and date honey to die for.  It was in the “small breakfast” section of the menu. (BTW, date honey is amazing…move over, maple syrup.)

Nice

I cannot really account for the prevalence of unambiguously “meat-based” restaurant signs but I sure enjoy seeing them.

 

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Florentine…Trendiest Neighbourhood in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv is consistently ranked as one of the coolest (or hottest) cities on the planet, and even though Mike and I are not in a position to judge the nightlife here (which I gather is a key component in this evaluation), I am going to agree that this is the case.

And while Tel Aviv has any number of trendy, hip, cool neighbourhoods, the most achingly Uber-cool of them all is currently Florentine.  It is home to the Levinsky market (spices, dried fruit and nuts, olives etc), countless artist studios and old workshops, (often in disrepair), wonderful mid-century modern furniture stores, extensive graffiti, and a nightly party that starts soon after Mike and I go to bed. The neighbourhood is a blend of long-time residents (who are somewhat bemused by all this) and the newly arrived young, creative, partying class. I am not sure that new residents are allowed to move there if they are over 40. Think “La Boheme” or “Rent” in Hebrew (minus the fatal illness).

Needless to say, this has attracted all kinds of gentrification projects, so the neighbourhood is now an odd amalgam of ramshackle workshops, old gritty walk-up flats, brand new mid-rises, and future brand new mid/high-rises, aka construction sites. It could not be more different from the quaint neighbourhood of Neve Tzedek which is right next door. After the almost Disney-like charm of Neve Tzedek, it is at first jarring, and then refreshingly real, to step across Eilat Road into Florentine. How long this will last is anyone’s guess, since prices are rising here as new buildings go up. On the one hand, not everything old is worth saving. On the other hand, too much new could ruin the atmosphere.

On a recent walk-through I took some photos of the graffiti, (pardon me…street art), for the which the neighbourhood is justly famous.

The next one looks like nothing much but if you look closely you will see that it is in Braille!

Graffiti in Braille

I also went to THE ABSOLUTELY MOST ON TREND place to get coffee, and more importantly vintage “GAZOZ”, sparking cold seltzers, blended on the spot with fresh herbs, fruit preserves, and other delicious ingredients. This was once a tradition in Tel Aviv, and is now single-handedly being revived by one Benny Briga, a former chef (of some renown).  A tiny and humble looking kiosk, with seating in a truck parked out front, see pics below, it attracts people from all over town. (I was introduced by Ben who has a friend that works there, and given its size, only one person at a time CAN work there.) Café Levinsky 41…the only one of its kind.

Back of the truck: The seating area.
Front of the truck. Every so often the parking police take exception to this arrangement and the owner has to drive the truck around the block, to the amusement of the neighbours.

 

The kiosk at 41 Levinsky

Finally, I went by the original workshop of the family that makes the wooden rackets, for the game of Matkot (beach paddle ball), that is ubiquitous on Israel’s beaches.  You can often hear it before you see it, and the distinctively loud sound is due to the fact the paddles are hollow!  (Thankfully I was with my Hebrew teacher, otherwise I would not have known that this was the original family that started making these, nor would I have been able to understand anything the young man tried to explain). Needless to say there are several grades of these rackets from the everyday plain wood, to the carbon fused, often custom decorated, “Mercedes” versions for the serious player.  I am always a sucker for buying things from the original source, so I bought a pair of the “starter” paddles…which I hope to see in action when my nephew and niece come to visit.

 

 

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Tel Aviv: Hair Salon (and Barber Shop) Capital of the World.

In every extended absence from your home town, there comes a time when you have to take on the really tough assignments; and finding a hairdresser falls squarely into that category.  (Men, I know this does not really apply to you, but among my women friends, most of us are convinced that there is only ONE person who can really understand our hair, and that is the person in the salon we currently go to…even if we just started going there in the last year.)

In Tel Aviv, the anxiety around seeking out a new stylist is amplified by the sheer number of hair salons that are sprinkled liberally throughout the city. Mike and I sometimes amuse ourselves as we walk about, by doing a running count of the number of hair salons that we pass by.  Recently we walked around Medina Square, and I think we got to 10. (Okay…it was a quiet day). But really, you cannot walk more than a block or two anywhere without seeing one and often you will see three or four in quick succession.  There is even one in the Shuk, and at the beach!  Note the scissors.

There is no excuse for messy hair anywhere in Tel Aviv.

You would think, from this example, that the streets here would be full of “beautiful people”, or at least people with beautiful hair, but I can’t say as this has particularly struck me.

After much research, (complete with the requisite horror stories), I finally obtained a recommendation that struck me as safe, and I phoned for an appointment.  Being flexible with my time, I asked for something mid-week… on a Wednesday…any time during the day. What could be easier to fit in?   In Toronto that would be a piece of cake…but here…Nope…fully booked.  But they did have time to fit me in… at 4:30… on December 31!!! Nothing on Wednesday, but on New Year’s Eve, no problem.  (Well, Toto, I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.) This, if nothing else, will prove the point that New Year’s in Israel is totally a non-event.

While the abundant supply of hair salons is indeed striking, the real story is the evolution of the humble barber shop. In Israel it is “de rigueur” for young men to sport a handsome beard…and a beard must of course be groomed on a regular basis (or it quickly gets biblical).  So there are a number of specialty places that have sprung up to attend to this very need.  Our son Ben, has done the research, frequents one of the coolest of these establishments “Barberia”…and now, not to be outdone, so does Mike.  Fear not, even though he is again a student, Mike has NOT grown a beard. This place will also trim regular hair, boring as that may be.  But I call your attention to the ancillary services!

And these shops have a fifties beer fridge, a ruggedly masculine interior, and a logo to go along with it…the perfect companion to the one at the beach. Needless to say, this has proven to be a winning concept and the chain is popping up all over Israel.

Ladies
Gentlemen

 

I went  along with Mike to his appointment to see it all this was really as advertised, and the proof is below. Mike, beer in hand…and then coming out the doors.  And check out the door handles… this barber shop would fit nicely into Northern Ontario “Lumberjack” territory!

 

 

So in the hair department, I think the men have the better deal…herbal tea simply does not cut it next to free beer. However, for anyone who might be interested, Highlights, on Yehuda Maccabi is an excellent salon.  Really, I can’t imagine going anywhere else.

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Or You Can Take the Bus

When I feel like a break from dodging the various motorized contraptions that rule Tel Aviv’s sidewalks (see earlier post), or if it rains, the bus can be a life-saver. We are lucky to be living in the centre of town, so there are lots of bus lines at our disposal. You can pay cash…(5.9 shekels…about C$2.30) or you can get a “RAVCAV” card and load it with money, which saves you from carrying change, getting transfers etc. It is very useful of course…but the important thing is that it makes me feel like I actually belong in this town. This is a charming fiction that lasts as long as no one asks me anything in Hebrew, (at which point I freeze like a deer caught in the headlights. This happens with alarming frequency.) The card even has my picture and my name transliterated into Hebrew.לילי שיין , in case you ever wanted to know. (You can probably spot the Lili part!)

By the way…to my surprise…a lot of people in Israel are called “Lili”. I found this out when I went to Aroma where they call out your name when your order is ready. In the 15 minutes I sat there, I heard “my name” called at least three times. I barely stopped myself from getting up.

Back to the bus, getting the RAVCAV card, like most things in Israel, in a “process”. You can buy an “anonymous” card right on the bus for 5 shekels, but if you think you might be eligible for a discount, you must go to an official office, where your ability to wait…patiently… for attention, will get you one for free, and where you will also get a fare discount if you are eligible. Since I am the proud holder of an A4 visa (issued to spouses of students or clergymen…hmmm), I thought I would try for the personalized card and so set off to the office for an interview, with all my official documents in hand.

Before going, I practiced what I would say in Hebrew. As some of you might know I have a reasonable grasp of Hebrew grammar; unfortunately this does not mean I can actually SAY anything, much less understand the average Israeli. So usually one of two things happen when I am in a store: either I do manage to say what I have carefully rehearsed at home, at which point a torrent of Hebrew greets me; or I don’t even get to what I have to say, and a torrent of Hebrew greets me. After some time, the person who is talking to me takes note of my panicked expression, at which point it dawns on them that I don’t have a clue what they are saying. From there, we determine if English or French is a possibility, and if not, some combination of fractured Hebrew on my part, and goodwill on theirs, usually leads to the desired outcome.

So I now have a RavCav with a 25% discount, which works more like a bonus. When I load my card with shekels, by paying the bus driver, (a rare example of the “grumpy Israeli” stereotype), I am credited with 25% more; so 100 shekels gives me 125. I am not really sure why I get a discount, but I suspect it may be due to my advanced years.

Since buses do not make for good photos, I also attach a picture of the tallest Lego tower in the world, erected just yesterday in Rabin Square. After all…why not?

 

The tallest lego tower in the world, erected by volunteers in honour of a young boy who died of cancer