Our Arrival In Tel Aviv

We arrived at our apartment in Ramat Gan on Friday morning, August 6, thoroughly exhausted after two consecutive overnight flights.  The apartment is great - clean, spacious (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms), modern (with electric black-out window shades), and very quiet (on a small cul-de-sac).  Ramat Gan is right next to Tel Aviv (with many convenient bus connections), and has many parks and attractive tree-lined boulevards, as well as Israel's tallest building, largest sports stadium and biggest zoo.

Almost immediately on our arrival, we had a very interesting discussion with our landlord about Jewish observance.  He said that sometimes he is very observant, but other times much less so.  He said that he feels "in the middle" and doesn't know what to do, since some of his family members are quite orthodox, while others are completely non-observant.  We witnessed this phenomenon on our very first bus ride, where the juxtaposition of traditional and modern, devout and secular, solemn and carefree - and the range of fashion - was striking.

Our first errand was to go to the supermarket (the "mega") to load up on provisions.  We bought about seven different kinds of yogurt (some sweet, some salty) - all of them delicious.  Shopping was a bit of a challenge, since our Hebrew is quite rudimentary at this point.  But Eden's Russian saved the day!  Most of the workers in the store, and a number of customers, were obviously native Russian speakers.  It was also interesting to see the wide variety of Russian and Eastern European products on the shelves - anyone up for some smoked fish?  It felt like a touch of home, reminding us of our days near Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District in San Francisco!

After we get settled and get some rest, what is going to be our first adventure in Tel Aviv?  It's unanimous - the beach!