Being as how there were no windows in this canaverious suite of ours, we slept in until almost 9 am. So after several strong coffees, catching up on news and emails and just feeling important in the beautiful Zidan Sarai suite, it was a very late morning before we finally got underway to explore the city. Zidan's suite is actually managed by the Arabesque Hotel just down the street. Check-in, breakfasts, coffee, etc, is provided by the Arabesque. While getting a juice to go there, we happened to meet the owner of the Arabesque, Evan Fallenberg, a jewish man from Cleveland, Ohio of all places and professor at one of the prestigious universities in Tel Aviv.
He told us that a year ago, a mob of young Arab thugs had swept through the old town, targeting the minority jewish businesses. They broke down the doors to his hotel and completely destroyed the place. Afterwards, prepared to cut his losses and just leave, the Arab community came together, raised money and helped Evan and other jewish-destroyed businesses come back bigger and stronger that before. Very moving story. Click on the link to read about the story. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/ancient-acre-hotel-ripped-apart-in-hateful-riots-668361
We toured several points of interest including the underground citadel, a vast city literally underground during the times before Jesus was born.
We enjoyed a late lunch of hummus and then had a few beers and smoked a hookah at a cafe overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Later that night we ate dinner at a fantastic seafood place.
Once again, we ventured up to the rooftop bar for a nightcap
and enjoyed talking to two Israeli ladies in town for a culinary class. One from Tel Aviv...the other from the Gaza Strip. We were invited to take a day trip to Gaza while in Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv native was almost indignant that we would even consider going to such a place.
We promised to consider it while both silently thinking that there's no way in hell we would go near that place!









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