TEL AVIV – WEEKEND GETAWAY

• Through the streets of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv is a city with long beaches, the sea, a modern part with huge buildings and interesting architecture, and the old part of Jaffa. It offers many bars, restaurants, markets, and a vibrant nightlife. If you are in Tel Aviv for a short time, start the day with a walk through the old part of Jaffa and get lost in the narrow streets. For lunch, try hummus or falafel in one of the local restaurants.

 

 

In the old part of Jaffa there is the bridge of wishes with all the signs of the zodiac. Continue with a walk by the sea to the new part of Tel Aviv and enjoy while you see the surfers catching the waves before sunset. If you are interested in architecture, visit the Azrieli Center, and there is also the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Museum.

In the same neighborhood there is a fancy place Sarona market where you can taste different food from different cuisine. Rothschild Boulevard is another place where you can go for a walk, coffee or biking. The middle line of the boulevard is full of trees, bicycle and pedestrian zone and many bars. People say that you should visit the local market in every city where you travel, so we went to visit Carmel Market, we have a really similar place also in Skopje, so for me was nothing special. 

 

• Security

Before traveling to Israel, we were a little bit afraid of the situation there, especially in Jerusalem. Well, guys, I’ll tell you that what we were seeing on the news wasn’t similar at all to the real situation in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. First of all, you have these guys with rifles behind every corner, and everywhere there are controls and scanners, even at the bus station itself. Israel has developed a very good security system, and at the same time, tourists are seen as something sacred.

In Jerusalem, the situation was really calm, and people were just going about their normal life. The only creepy situation we saw was on the last evening in Tel Aviv, in the old part of Jaffa. Very close to us, we heard the police talking on the announcement in their language that we didn’t understand, and one minute later, we heard a strong explosion. Later, the locals told us that it was a small bomb, which is almost normal in the city. Not even ten minutes passed, and everyone except us returned to normal life. 🙂

• Visa and border

We don’t need a visa for Israel. I honestly thought that there would be a lot of waiting and security control upon arrival at passport control at the entrance to Israel, but we managed to pass without any problems. If you are scared about the Israeli stamp in your passport, don’t worry. Without any insult, they give everyone entrance/exit cards instead of a stamp, so there will be nothing in your passport. If you leave Israel by land at the border, you will be charged an exit fee of $30.

Now, let me tell you what can happen to you at the airport when you leave Israel. As I was traveling to Jordan and some time ago to Morocco (read Arab countries), the young security lady decided to put a yellow sticker on my passport with some numbers on it. Later, I discovered that the number 5 was written on it, which meant that I was considered a little bit more suspicious. So they decided to put us in a special line where there are also scanners, but they check every single thing that you have in your bag. One important thing to note is that they are very slow, very slow, so we were waiting for almost 2 hours and a half to pass.

 

• People and language

You can hear only the Hebrew language and sometimes Russian. Russian because there is a big community of Russian Jews who arrived here in the past, and therefore, in many places under Hebrew, there were things written in Russian as well. How irritating is the feeling when you do not know how to read and understand what is written, even the stops of the bus, so you don’t know where to get off, it’s really an unpleasant feeling. But it wasn’t only the language that we didn’t understand; people were a little bit weird too. We had a few unpleasant experiences in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I do not want to generalize, but that was our experience. People here are somehow special in everything, a bit arrogant, and they get angry for no reason.

• Shabbat

Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest. It starts at sunset on Friday and ends on Saturday evening. During Shabbat, nobody and nothing work; that day is for family and delicious food. If you find yourself somewhere stuck, you will have to stay there, as only in the Muslim parts you can find something open for food or transportation. These people are very serious about Shabbat, and I have read that in some buildings, even the elevator automatically stops on each floor so people don’t need to touch the button. In conclusion, if you have something important on Friday during the Sabbath, make sure to organize every detail on time! We were really lucky that our flight to Sofia was on Friday but early in the morning.