Weekend in Tel Aviv

This first picture is actually the international arts and crafts festival in Jerusalem that featured artists from Indonesia to Madagascar and Korea (Fighting!) to Argentina. At the Korean booth, I found out that there's a Korean cultural center here in Jerusalem-visit their site at www.kccil.org. I also found this other blog, which is super interesting: http://www.filination.com/blog/2007/01/18/the-korean-center-in-jerusalem/. I'll have to contact the blogger soon.














Here we are at dinner at Benny the Fisherman's restaurant in Tel Aviv.

This was a really bizarre experience because this is the first time I ate like a true Israeli. We walked a good 45 minutes to the port from our hostel-in heels-to find this restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet as the best fish and seafood restaurant in Tel Aviv. (After having eaten there, I have great faith in Lonely Planet's recommendations and tips.) We arrived at 9:30 pm, which is normal for Israelis to eat dinner and were seated outside on the pier. When the waitress came and asked us what we wanted to eat, we had barely sat down and asked if there were menus. Her answer was a confused no as if she'd never been asked that before. Basically, if you want fish that night, you get whatever fish they caught that day, and so forth. I would definitely recommend the calamari, but everything they served that night was so fresh and minimal, though it felt like a feast.

Meanwhile, the many delightful servers came swooping around and dropping off huge baskets of rolls, 18 mini dishes of dips like three different kinds of baba ghanoush, tzatziki, and various pickled veggies, huge plates of salad, and these giant grilled eggplant doused in warm tahini. One server even came around dropping off random pieces of candy and sprinkling flower petals over our heads every time he came around. It also turned out that last night was the Israeli valentine's day, and goodness knows what five women out to dinner without boyfriends looked like.














We ordered one bottle of wine to celebrate a birthday, but after three hours, we somehow ended up with three empty bottles of wine on the table, two waiters joining us at our table trying to talk us into some hashish on the beach instead of salsa dancing, heart shaped balloons festooned on our chairs, two tastefully devoured desserts we never ordered, around seven unnecessarily large candles, and a red rose for each lady who was all of a sudden fluent in Hebrew (and/or Arabic).

We spent the rest of our weekend in Tel Aviv on the bustling beaches, lounging in the luscious sand and frolicking in the Mediterranean. But now I'm back in Jerusalem and am about to start my Hebrew homework because tomorrow another week of Ulpan awaits.