8:00 pm: Turned on the TV and they were playing The Al Jolson Story. For those who don’t know him, Jolson was an incredibly popular Jewish singer of the 20’s and 30’s, (He made the first taking movie The Jazz Singer.) I’m sure my mother listened to him while I was in utero, it was probably the first 78 record I ever had and I have all his songs on my MP3 player. I haven’t seen this movie in years and it brought tears to my eyes.
9:00 pm: Got a call from my NBF (new best friend) that she was having friends over for coffee and invited me. I put on my headphones, cranked up my Al Jolson songs and ran out the door singing and whistling all my favorites. When I got to the apartment I eagerly tell my experience of the movie and of course everyone had heard of Jolson and we all shared our memories. I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened in Aurora, Illinois or even Berkeley, CA, so that was a nice Israel experience, an instantly shared memory.
10:00 pm: Got into my first real Israeli/Palestinian discussion which then turned into an argument with an American born, now Israeli attorney. He was from Morton Grove, IL and kept saying, “in YOUR America.” He didn’t want to make a defense of settlers and my sense is that the Tel Avivians and the settlers live in different world. But the symbolism of a Tel Aviv café/bus being blown up by a suicide bomber was a recurring theme. The real argument centered on the fate of Jerusalem and even though he said, “Jerusalem was a nice city to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there,” it was the kind of place/symbol whose control by the Israelis was not negotiable.
12:00 am: Returned home, just in time to watch Blood Diamonds on TV, movies on Israeli cable are wall to wall American Blockbusters and Classics.
8:00 am: I spend my first hours in the morning checking email (while I’m sleeping, America is emailing) as well as getting up to speed on the campaign news, South Dakota was still counting votes. Thank god for the BBC and Sky News otherwise I would have to listen to Fox all day.
9:00 am: Write my blog, plan my day, and think thoughts great and small, mostly small.
10:00 am: Take a nap, planning one’s day is hard work.
11:00 am: I am awaken by the sounds of the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. I think I’m dreaming, but go to the window and sure enough someone in my building is playing the music full blast. Cool! I go up the stairs and put my ear to each door until I find the source. A woman answers my knock and I compliment her on her good taste. She admits she has never seen Rocky Horror at a movie theater. That makes me feel old. Then I tell her stories about dressing up in black lipstick and taking my kids to RH at the Berkeley UC Theater when they were 5 years old, lighting candles, throwing toilet paper rolls and yelling out the lines. She admits that would have been fun to do.
12:00 pm: Go to the bank to change some money. Have insight that “banks suck”, but realize that I didn’t have to come all the way to Israel to discover that. Although it must be said that my customer service person is really, really nice. Here is the secret, when they ask how you like Israel, say you are thinking about moving here. That drives people wild; doing “Aliya”, or moving permanently to Israel is considered the greatest “mitzvah” of all time. Israeli’s consider it a validation of their vision. This contrasts to how Americans think of Guatemalans who walk a thousand miles to sneak into America so their kids can have a better life.
1:00 pm: Hop on the bus to find a Jewish restaurant that serves matzo ball soup. I just bought my first monthly bus pass, unlimited travel for 200 shekels, or $60, it was a big step from touristing to residencing. When I get to the address listed in the Fodor’s Travel Guide, I find the restaurant which is identified as a Tel Aviv landmark has become a Thai Restaurant, so much for tradition.
2:00 pm: Jump on another bus (I love this unlimited ticket) and end up at Tal Bagels where I order a huge egg salad sandwich on a fresh onion bagel. I set up at an outside table, reading my Portnoy’s Complaint (the greatest novel ever written about a dysfunctional Jewish boy), people [girl]-watching and generally chilling. Across the street is the huge Cinematique and it is filling up with young people for what I discover is the International Student Film Festival, the largest in the world. 
At the film festival there were many tables of film books in Hebrew/English and lots of classic film DVDs converted for the Hebrew market. A film lovers dream.3:00 pm: Buy a ticket for a series of student films and watch for several hours. They were really great! A selection from China/Cuba/Germany/Peru/Spain. I decide to get an all-day ticket tomorrow and just spend the entire day watching student movies. Lots of really interesting kids hanging out talking about their crafts.
I can not tell you how cool these buildings are. There is a circle/triangle/rectangle, they are packed with workers/shoppers and lit up at night.5:00 pm: Walked over to the Azrieli Center which are those interesting buildings I have previously photograph. On the first floor is the largest Mall I have ever seen except of course The Great Mall of America in Minneapolis. I’ll spare you yet another Mall photo, but this one was 3 levels, lots of food courts and it was absolutely packed with what else, YOUNG PEOPLE. So much shopping so little time.
Right in the middle of the roof is a kids amusement park with spiderman (very appropriate image for the tall buildings and dinosaurs (?)6:00 pm: Went up to a roof top plateau, but not to the top of the buildings (that’s 40 stories and 30 shekels). On this level which was about 2 city blocks square there were lots of sculptures.
The ubiquitous old Jew guy hanging out as a bronze statute.Not many people and of course breath-taking views of Tel Aviv PLUS a great sunset. I’ll let my photos do the talking.
I know this is hard to see, but this is the first time I saw two soldiers (boy/girl) necking and I couldn't resist, I'd love to read an article on how the Army controls the interaction of the sexes.
7:00 pm: Finally a security guard comes up to me (Ethiopian) and asks me what I am doing, (jump or bombing??) I give him the dumb, old American Jew who’s come to Israel to die look and as always that melts his heart. By this time the sun has almost gone done and there isn’t much reason to stay, so the guard and I share a moment, I look at the setting sun, tap my heart like Sammy Sosa does when he hits a homerun and we smile at each other.
Here's a 360 degree look at Tel Aviv from the roof top with another great sunset.8:00 pm: Stop at the grocery store, get one apple, one peach, one can of pineapples, one banana, bunch of grapes, a bag of raisins and almond, container of yogurt and go home.
9:00 pm: Turn on TV and there is Lawrence of Arabia, so sit back with my home-made fruit salad and enjoy the movie. All and all a good day’s work!
As I write this an ice cream truck playing Hatikva drives buy, go figure.
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