By the end of our first half day in Israel, we made a group pact not to mention Covid again... it was worth a try....
A good friend had highly recommended a guide his group had used a couple of years back, and through a lot of due diligence and even a zoom call, we were pretty confident that Eric would work out.
Why a guide? We've never had a long-term country guide on a trip like this (other than our safari guides of course), but Israel almost demands that you get in to the history, people, culture and religion more deeply than perhaps any country in the world.
Arrival at the mostly empty Ben Gurion International Airport (the country had just reopened to tourists weeks prior) was sped up by the VIP service Eric had arranged. Two young guys met us at the plane, guided us through VAT ticket printing, customs, bags and yes, the obligatory PCR test before leaving the airport.
The idea was "supposed to be" to get the test, and be whisked to your hotel to quarantine until you got the result. We quickly learned people were not taking it too seriously so some in our group relaxed quite a bit (lol). Besides, 3 vaccines each and a PCR test a day ago... we're good.
We emerged from the airport to a smiling Eric in his NY Yankees hat. Right away, we were completely at ease with him. On the drive towards the city, he related what he had learned from us on our zoom call (that Alex and I were in construction) and pointed out certain parts of the city and practices in local construction that he thought we'd be interested in... that's just next level.
Eric took the "long way" to the hotel while giving the lay of the land of the city. It was a first inclination into a cultural aspect that we would come to learn and love...the Jewish people love their loopholes. With more lawyers per capita than any country in the world, part of the culture and religion (more on that later) was to obey rules, yes, but take advantage of anything they could to work around the rules.
Eric said "You see, the rule is, we must pick you up at the airport and drive you to the hotel to await your test results... but they don't specify the route or amount of time we must take...". He had a great smile.
The city was vibrant. I knew it was a young, rapidly growing city on the coast of the Mediterranean, but to see hundreds of people seemingly under the age of 30 on every street we passed... it was incredible. It was the opposite of a lockdown, and we were raring to explore.
Eric started with the jokes early... and they didn't stop throughout the trip. "That reminds me of a story.....".
We "eventually" go to our hotel, a small 3 story boutique hotel on Allenby Street that we'd found on Booking.com. It was unfamiliar to Eric (I think a lot of his guests have stuck with large tourist hotels in the past) but he commented that he had checked it out a few days ago and he gave it his stamp of approval. Also next level guiding.
Eric left us for the afternoon. We asked him if we should be waiting in the hotel and he said not at all... so we didn't question it. We headed off to the nearby Carmel market and were quickly in heaven. Food, spices, fruit, knock off clothing, cheap trinkets... people!!!
The first non-baclava looking thing I saw was roasted cauliflowers topped with all kinds of toppings. We devoured it - so good.
Back to the hotel through some side streets and winding ways. The goal was to stay up as late as we could today. Eric had recommended some hotels for us, so in the late afternoon, we headed west out of the hotel, 5 minutes to the beach.
Tel-Aviv's waterfront is spectacular. I can't recall being in a city this size where the beach is such a prominent piece of the city (I've never been to Miami). The series of connected beaches all the way down to the Old City of Jaffa at the south end were filled with people - exercising, sun bathing, eating, zooming along the bike path on scooters... such a fun atmosphere. It felt like we had been dropped into a vat of normalcy and it felt fantastic.
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