The smell of fresh pastries wafted from the cafes as I ran by the promenade. Sitting beside the Mediterranean drinking coffee and eating croissant sounds like a cliche, but it also sounds like a damn good idea. Israeli breakfasts are notoriously huge, so a run before eating was called for. The whole of Tel Aviv seemed to have come out for a run, which may have something to do with the fact that Friday is like Saturday in Israel, meaning it is the first day of the weekend. A number of the runners I saw were wearing hydration belts of one type or another and may well have been on longs marathon training runs.
The more distressing part of the run was that I did not seem to be passing even those people who were going slow. The legs lacked a certain amount of spring, probably owing to sitting on a plane for 12 hours. Running in the sun is, however, a good way to get over jet lag. Also too, it’s a great justification for eating jelly donuts. In America, we eat lattkes for Hanukkah, but in Israel they eat jelly donuts. I am considering moving here permanently, or at least coming back every year for Hanukkah.
We had breakfast this morning in the same coffee shop where we had dinner last night. Except for the Mediterranean at our backs and the fact that it is December, we could as well have been in New York in April. Tel Aviv very much feels like a slightly less hectic version of the Big Apple. It’s by design that we are here first to rest and recover from travel in a place that doesn’t give too much culture shock.
After the big breakfast, we set off for the Ben Yehuda market, named for it’s location on Ben Yehuda street. The market was shoulder to shoulder with people, and there is little cultural inhibition for crowding and bumping. Not that we were in some sort of Hassidic mosh pit, but it was too close for comfort. We bailed and caught a taxi for the old port city of Jaffa, of which Tel Aviv was once a suburb.
Jaffa is everything you would expect a medieval Mediterranean city to be. Tiny, narrow streets led to hidden courtyards and down to the port. It was a great first taste of antiquity which was cut somewhat short by jet lag and general fatigue. It is hot here, and not that I’m complaining but that sun can get heavy in the sky. We found a retreat with views out over the sea and sat down to falafel as a muezzin called the faithful to prayer. Allahu Akbar!