Fun in the sun in Tel Aviv

This past weekend I visited the city of Tel Aviv. It was a lot of fun but a little more on the expensive side. So here's what I was up to: Thursday, March 19- Went to Tel Aviv as part of a sponsored event by the organization who gave me a scholarship here, called MASA. We got to go on a tour of part of Tel Aviv, and I went on a tour of Old Jaffa. This is the big port area and there are lots of art-sy areas around here. Actually, it was funny because as we were walking around, our tour guide brought us to this hanging tree in the middle of the city...the same place that I was with my family 10 years ago. So of course I took a picture with it. Then around 10:30 we got back to the bar where the band GAYA was going to be playing for us to have "dinner", or at least that's what they advertised. By the time we got there, mostly everything they were offering had been eaten, except for some terrible falafel and a couple of pitas. Anyways, we GAYA performed for awhile and then after it turned into a dance party which was fun. We left at 1:30 to go find our hostel. Friday, March 20- After a fairly early morning wake up to check out of the hostel and into our next hostel (which was cheaper), we decided to go walk around a street called Nachlat Binyamin. Every Tuesday and Friday, this street is turned into an art fair, with tons of jewelry stands and paintings and lots of little craftmakers making things you never would have thought of. I found a pretty ring that I purchased for only 15 shekels! After that we wandered down to the Dizengoff mall, not to go in it but because we knew that area had lots of fun shops around it. After walking around for several hours, we stopped for lunch at a little cafe near the mall, where I met up with my friend Ofir from camp! She is studying media at Tel Aviv U, so it was nice to meet up with her before she headed home to Haifa for the weekend. After a late lunch, we were in the mood for some dessert, so Ofir took us to a frozen yogurt shop very similar to a place in NYC called Pinkberry. So the frozen yogurt here in Israel is different than in the states, it's more sour here. It literally is their plain yogurt in it's frozen form. Anyways, so at this frozen yogurt place you can put almost as many toppings as you can fit on your froyo. Fruit is the main topping to put on, with kiwi and pineapple and strawberries galore, plus several flavors of syrup, and many kinds of nuts. It was just absolutely delicious and exactly what we all wanted. Then Ofir left to go home and we continued walking around, through the Shuk to see if we could get anything really cheaply. We were able to get a lot of Challah and other croissant type treats for basically free since it was right before Shabbat. Afterwards, we returned to our hostel for a brief refresher nap/shower and then went to have dinner at a nearby Ethiopian restaurant. As I was starting to feel sick (my stomach bug hasn't quite left me yet) I called it a pretty early evening as almost everyone else stayed out at the pubs. Saturday, March 21- My stomach bug chose not leave me alone on Saturday, so I took it pretty easy. I walked around on the boardwalk with my friends for awhile, enjoying the sunshine and the sea. Then we came across something really interesting. About 100 people were participating in Israeli folk dancing to music that was playing. We sat and watched them for awhile before I realized I knew one of the women dancing...she was the dance teacher at camp when I was there! We talked for a bit and she invited me dancing with her there, but as I still wasn't feeling well, I just observed. My friends then decided they wanted to walk down to Jaffa and explore the area down there, but again, I passed since I was feeling nauseous. Instead, I spent my afternoon lounging on the beach, under the beautiful sunshine. We caught a sherut (big taxi for a lot of people) back to Jerusalem that evening, and I just stayed in from exhaustion. Sunday, March 22- This part of my weekend wasn't in Tel Aviv, but it was quite an experience. So there was this food festival at the Shuk in the evening, a mixture of Grandmother chefs and actual restaurant chefs. The food was pretty cheap and you could go up and down the shuk trying all the different dishes out there. I went to check it out with a couple new Israeli friends I made here, and when we got there...absolutely CHAOS!! I can't even begin to describe to you how crowded and pushy it was (although to my family who was in DC for July 4th with me, it was that crowd x10 with the Israeli aggressive pushy attitude!). The funniest and saddest story that came out of that experience was that after we realized we weren't getting anywhere to get food because of the crowds, we decided to leave, and as I was leaving, there was a father with his 3 young small children in front of me. The children were crying and screaming because they were so afraid of the crazy crowds. We left and got some food elsewhere because it just wasn't worth getting trampled to death. Craziness! I enjoy your comments and they let me know you're actually reading these blogs, so leave me lots of comments!