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Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Tel Aviv

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A lot gets packed into our eighth grade trip to Israel. After four nights in Jerusalem, two nights in the Negev, and three nights on the Kinneret, the trip staff were exhausted. Built into the trip was a weekend with host families, usually students’ relatives or family friends. For staff, this meant two nights to choose anywhere in Israel to stay and just relax. One of my carpool friends was also a trip chaperone and we chose to spend the weekend in Tel Aviv; it was nothing less than glorious.

With the kids, we stopped in Tel Aviv twice over the course of the trip: Once to eat falafel and hang out in a park before visiting the Olympic Museum, which was entertaining for the kids and a lovely display of Zionism, and once to go to the beach. Suffice it to say that Tel Aviv (and perhaps anything) with kids is completely different than with adults.

After traveling by bus with a group of students also staying in and around Tel Aviv, we were free! We dropped our bags at the hotel and headed straight to Nachlat Binyamin, the artists’ market where, back in 2007, my parents bought a fruit plate that still sits on their kitchen counter and I bought a pair of purple earrings that I wore every single day until they turned green. (Those earrings are the reason that I chose purple studs when I pierced the second hole in my right ear.) I didn’t buy anything this time, but it was still fun to look around.

From there, hungry, in the mood for shakshuka, and still in need of gifts, we wandered Shuk HaCarmel, the most famous of Tel Aviv’s markets. As readers of this blog know, I adore markets. I love food and smells and flavors. I love the dedication of the vendors, the passionate bargaining of customers, and the speed of each transaction. I love the crowds and how markets are universally loud, frenetic, and a true delight for all the senses.

This particular market area of Tel Aviv is also a great spot for really neat street art. Shout out to my weekend partner-in-crime for her patience every time I said, “Wait, need a picture.”

Truth be told, however, we spent most of our weekend just sitting on the beach. I’m generally really bad at sitting but that’s all my body wanted to do. Sometimes we sat with food or drinks and sometimes we just sat and watched the water. We met up with a friend and some friends of friends and had ourselves a lovely time.

In addition to a great beach atmosphere, Tel Aviv also has a great restaurant and bar scene. On recommendation from one of our trip guides who lives in Tel Aviv, we went to Four One Six, a vegan restaurant that exceeded all expectations. After a few minutes of talking to the owner, we made a New York connection – he and his twin brother, the head chef, are from Brooklyn and opened the restaurant together a few months ago. He had previously worked at Candle 79, a phenomenal vegan restaurant that was blocks away from my Upper East Side apartment for the month that I lived there. The owner was really friendly and told us that he and his brother are working to challenge the food scene in Tel Aviv by introducing delicious vegan food that highlights what vegan can eat rather than what they can’t. Sounds a little like Candle 79! (And Vedge in Philadelphia, which I also highly recommend.) The owner dropped off a plate of chocolates and stopped back to ask if we’d figured out the flavors. Delicious isn’t a flavor but that’s what they were.

Other food highlights from the weekend include shakshuka, which we didn’t find at Shuk HaCarmel but ate outside at a sidewalk bakery/café, and burekas, which we also enjoyed while sitting outside. I could eat nothing but Israeli food every day for the rest of my life and never get bored. Every meal, including breakfast, is full of various types of fresh salads and I just love it.

After dinner, we met up with our guide, his girlfriend, and a few other friends at Dizzy Frishdon, a great bar with outdoor seating, several indoor bar areas, a table with swings instead of chairs, and a few rooms of normal tables and chairs. It was a really lovely evening to sit outside (are you noticing a theme?) and enjoy just being in Tel Aviv and watching the nightlife all around us. Our guide’s friend is a part owner of the bar and that came with food and drinks perks, which was a lot of fun.

Overall, it was an incredibly relaxing weekend and exactly what we needed to prepare for the final two nights of the trip back in Jerusalem. It actually ended up being two and a half nights after a seven-hour flight delay, so it’s a good thing that we were relaxed and rejuvenated. Beautiful beaches, beautiful food, and beautiful people have a way of doing that.

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View from our hotel room
Travel Guide

Travel Guide: The Kinneret

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After four nights in Jerusalem and two nights in the Negev on our eighth grade Israel trip, we headed north to the Kinneret, the region of Israel around the Sea of Galilee (Yam Kinneret in Hebrew). We stayed at a kibbutz where I’ve been before and had the best food of the entire trip. Unfortunately, we also had an insect infestation to go along with the stomach bug, fever, and colds freely passing from student to student. This meant changing the kids’ rooms every night to quarantine the sick and avoid the rooms with unliveable colonies of insects. No exaggeration. I slept in a different room each night and spent one night on the couch of a room two colleagues were sharing. Our sleepover was honestly a lot of fun!

As much as I love the desert, I do agree that the Kinneret is beautiful.

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Sunrise

The Kinneret is home to the Banias, which our trip guides consider Israel’s most beautiful hike. The site centers on a waterfall and a cave with shrines dedicated to the Greek god Pan. It was a gorgeous day, warm with spring flowers blooming. After our time in the Negev, it was nice to see the world returning to life after the winter.

 

After our hike, we drove to Har (Mountain) Bental in the Golan Heights, Israel’s most strategic defense point and one that it has so far refused to give up. From Har Bental, you can see the border between Israel and Lebanon, as well as the remains of an army bunker.

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We spent the afternoon in the Golan and visited De Karina Chocolate Factory to learn how chocolates are made and try out making our own. My favorite part of De Karina was the hot chocolate I bought at the café after the tour. It was simply melted chocolate, whole milk (which I never drink), and real whipped cream (which I never have) topped with chocolate shavings and served with a house-made praline. It brought a huge smile to my face.

 

The next day, we participated in the first of two service projects for the trip (the second was Latet in Jerusalem, which happened three days after this one even though I wrote about it first). This was my favorite activity so far and, I think, my favorite activity from the entire two weeks. We volunteered with Leket, an organization that collects surplus food products from a variety of venues to distribute to people in need, harvests farm produce that will otherwise go unharvested, and also runs its own farm with all products going to the hungry. Our task was to harvest a field of kohlrabi. If we could accomplish that quickly, the Leket staff told us, there was a field of beets that also needed harvesting.

Our eighth graders didn’t need telling twice. It was a bright, sunny day and energy was high. Excited about playing in the dirt, the kids filled buckets and buckets of kohlrabi and emptied them into packing crates. I heard more than a few races and competitions and tried to point out that the goal was the same, no matter who filled the most buckets. However, I ultimately found myself in a flow state much like what Levin describes in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina when he mows hay with his peasants.

 

Time slipped away and I didn’t notice the dirt under my nails, the stiffness in my knees, or the sunburn on the back of my neck until we were done with both fields about an hour later. All I knew was that you use both hands to pull up the kohlrabi, break off the leaves, and throw it in the bucket. The beets were easier to pull out of the ground but the technique was the same. If I could make a living just doing service work with students, I think I would.

That night, two drummers came to the kibbutz to lead us in a drum circle. I was pleasantly surprised at how many Jewish and Israeli folk songs the kids knew – and how many I knew! Songs I hadn’t heard in years and some of the dances that came with them just soared. It was such a great experience to have as a community, especially following an afternoon working together to help others directly from the land that we were singing about.

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One of the drummers playing a shofar as an instrument!

Energy was obviously running high and it took us a while to get the kids calmed down with suitcases packed and into bed. We needed to leave the next morning for host family destinations for the weekend. For my colleagues and me, that meant a free weekend to relax and refresh. More on that soon!

Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Southern California

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For about three years, I’ve been saying that someday I’m going to fly to San Diego, rent a car, and drive up the California coast to San Francisco. For whatever reason, I always envisioned spending two or three weeks alone and contemplating life’s purpose along the way. Somewhat of an On the Road dream, I suppose.

This year, for the first time, I didn’t spend the holidays with my family. Instead, I flew to LAX, rented a car, drove to San Diego to visit a friend who I haven’t seen since June, and then drove up the California coast to Costa Mesa to visit another friend who I haven’t seen since September, venturing further north to Malibu from there. Over the course of the week I met a number of people who had me laughing more than I have laughed in months. I felt light, carefree, happy, and optimistic about what is possible. The second half of 2016 was really tough for me and I could not have been happier to feel like my old self again.

San Diego and Around
With the aid of a cute little red rental car and a San Diego native (with whom I traveled to Laos in June) as my tour guide, I saw quite a bit of San Diego County and ate the most delicious Mexican food item I have ever had – a chile relleno burrito! Some of our stops included:

Del Mar, my first California beach experience:

Mount Soledad, with beautiful views of San Diego:

PB (Pacific Beach), where I got a real kick out of  winter Christmas decoration with palm trees and the beach in the background:

Coronado, which was just stunning:

Julian, an absolute gem of a town that looks like time forgot about it:

The interior of that used bookstore looked like this:

And you know how I feel about books!

We took a beautiful drive back from Julian along Route 78 and I took a break from driving to gaze out the window at the stunning valley:

Sunshine, blue skies, mountains, oceans. It’s no wonder everyone was so friendly and welcoming and actually seemed to care about the answer to the generic, “Hi, how are you?” that I heard everywhere I went.

Costa Mesa and Around
After three nights in San Diego, it was time to drive north to Costa Mesa. I’d originally driven south from LAX in the dark so it was nice to see the same roads in daylight. The blue skies, beaches, and mountains adventure continued with a best friend from high school (also a travel partner in Hong Kong and Thailand) who moved to California three years ago. Our exploring included:

Top of the World hike at Laguna Beach, which was the warmest day of the week:

A drive to Long Beach to meet some more people, eat dinner, and have a night out:

Driving to Long Beach

Santa Monica, which we visited on a damp, chilly day that was still iconic and beautiful:

Los Angeles, where we took a quick nighttime walk around Staples Center before seeing a concert at the LA Convention Center:

Newport Beach, which was adorable and thoroughly enjoyable even though we got caught in the rain:

County Line Beach in Malibu to watch a stunning sunset on New Year’s Day:

This week was the perfect way to put a positive spin on the end of a strange year, as well as the perfect way to begin a new year – time with friends, full of laughter, exploring beautiful places.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this week and time with these people until I was fully immersed in it. As soon as I got in a taxi on the way to the airport in New York I felt a weight lift that I didn’t realize I was carrying. There was a physical lightness in my body for the week that I spent in California. The tension I normally carry in my back went away after a few days. Being around such good friends in such a beautiful place was physically and emotionally rejuvenating, which is all I can ask for.

Newport Beach

Hopefully in a summer or three I’ll fly again to LAX, rent a car, and drive up the California coast to San Francisco. I’m already excited for everything there is to see and experience. And something tells me I won’t be doing it alone.