Oddly Empowered, Just Sitting

Tel Aviv is beginning to feel a bit more familiar by now, my sixth day here.  The great distances I’d considered my first day all seem webbed and connected, logically now.  Much of what I need to do is walkable from where I am based near Rothchild Street.  This morning I’m running a bit late but there is no question that I won’t walk the projected twenty-minutes over to Sarona where I was last night.  It’s much the same walk I made yesterday morning to my first early meeting, as well.

This first encounter was an unexpected view into Rio Di Jennerian exceptionalism and a smart, Latin take on Tel Aviv.  With that I had an open slot that I never really bothered to fill properly.  Someone was playing West African grooves interspersed with James Brown classics and though it was really cold, and I was craving a heated environment, I throw on my coat and my hood and catch up on things with all this free internet.  I felt oddly empowered, just sitting still for a while. 

I’m pretty facile with Gett, the local Lyft, for getting around by now.  My first Gett driver I hail this morning speeds off in the wrong direction.  He cancels on me.  The bastard.  I’m even more late now.  Then another guy takes my fare and somehow begins the ride without me!  Woo.  How do you stop this?  I search and play around with the app, unsuccessfully.  Eventually we speak.  Sort of.  He has no English.  Me no Hebrew.  I repeat the names of the streets I’m standing on and compare all to what I see on the GPS.  This nightmare continues for about twelve-minutes till I finally see his flashing lights. 

The guy drops me off in the wrong place.  Thanks.  I’m now honor-bound to give him one-star.  This Bnei Brak section of town has lots of hills and I take one street and then another to meet my friends for lunch in yet another Gett.  Jabotinsky Street.  I can remember my friend from Moscow telling me about Jabotinsky when he’d visit our parties in Beijing.  Later I’m back to Champion Tower and there are astounding views of the city that remind me suddenly of the way Tokyo looks from above.  Our next meeting and the one after that, back down towards where I was staying look out over the Mediterranean.  Finally then a walk to a bar where our 6:00PM meeting has suggested we rendezvous.  And it is . . . precisely the same bar, which my friend and I enjoyed randomly the first night we were here, named Port Said.   I fly home tonight, late, at 11:00PM and I’ve enjoyed this first visit to Israel which unlike many places one visits, seems to feel like a place I will be returning to.  I trust my Israeli friends wont mind when I say Tel Aviv felt like the sixth borough. 

Monday, 02/10/20