I love Tel Aviv. Foolishly and blindly, like a school girl with a crush on the high school stud. I drive its streets at night, roll my windows down and smile stupidly to myself. I breathe its smoggy air as if it was spring blossom. In an age when most of my friends have graduated to quieter suburbs or moved to the country – I still look at it with admiring eyes and fantasize about living here. For a few weeks. Maybe a year. I could live in one of those old white apartment buildings by the sea that were eaten by salt and sea breeze; in a spacious apartment, maybe the kind that has painted tile floors and high ceilings, or maybe in a Bauhaus style building with rounded balconies and view to the water.
I’m pretty sure Tel Aviv one of coolest cities in the world. I’m yet to visit other allegedly cool cities to determine – cities such as Barcelona or Mexico City for example, but I have been around some pretty cool cities and Tel Aviv rules my list, which includes Montreal, New York, London and Amsterdam. I can’t include Vancouver in this list, even though in my opinion it’s cool in its own tame and sedated way, and it has Commercial Drive (definitely up there in the list of cool neighbourhoods!) which is why I live there, but it’s just belongs to a different bracket altogether. I also love Bombay, Bangkok, Phnom Penn and Jerusalem – all very cool cities – but they exist in a different sphere and in my opinion are incomparable.
When I was 22 I moved to Manhattan, seeking coolness that I didn’t think exist in my tiny, confused and holy land. I remember driving the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the famous skyline and thinking: I have made it! I’ve made it to the coolest city in the world, where everybody speaks as if they’re characters in a sitcom and every street corner seems familiar from a movie or a Seinfeld episode. Where Sigourney Weaver passes by with bags of grocery and cops break dance in the middle of a busy intersection while they direct traffic. Where you open your MTV and find that if you left the house now, you’d make it to a Metallica concert in the park, just a few blocks away. I dreamt about New York since I was a teenager. Since I first read Madonna’s story about arriving in New York, how she asked the taxi driver to drop her at the centre of everything and ended up in Times Square with $15 and went on to take over the world. When things got rough at home I could close my eyes and imagine I lived there, in one of those high rises with a cute American boy named Michael or Steve. I’m pretty sure everyone has a place like that in their teens. A better place. A place that symbolizes everything their hometown isn’t. A place where nobody knows them, where they can start new. New York was mine. I loved it so much that I drew its skyline, in shades of gray, on my bedroom wall.
I got there on a flight from New Delhi after traveling through India’s north, and rented a tiny bachelor suite with my best friend on Lexington and 36th , up four flights of stairs. It was mid summer, New York was hot and humid and our air conditioner broke down on the first week. It was ridiculously expensive and I made no friends. I got a little job writing articles for a Hebrew paper intended for the Israeli immigrant community but it didn’t pay much (In fact, I think they still owe me money!) I missed India terribly, followed smells of turmeric and cilantro down the streets and women in saris on the subway. Sometimes, after wandering the streets for hours, I’d even get lonely and bored. Bored! In New York!!! It was nothing like they said it would be. It wasn’t open all night long like they promised. It wasn’t easy to find good 24 hour restaurants, and there wasn’t a 24 hour convenience store at every street corner. It had some great clubs, but nothing I haven't seen at home. One night, after having drinks at a bar with a friend, I was gonna walk home from the bar, when my New Yorker friend told me I was crazy. I was stunned. “But it’s only 4 blocks, and Giuliani cleaned New York!” I said. But apparently it wasn’t safe to walk in New York in the middle of the night, not even a few blocks. “And never take the subway after midnight!” My friend added. What kind of night life is that?
Imagine my shock, realizing that when it comes to night life, my little Middle Eastern Tel Aviv puts the big apple to shame.
I love, love, love Tel Aviv. Sometimes, when it treats me like shit, I briefly hate it. But then, like the sucker I am, I forgive her. (Note: In Hebrew city is female and I find it hard to not think of it in that way…) I forgive her for the traffic, the crazy drivers, the dirt. I forgive her for the impossible parking situation and my pile of unpaid parking tickets (I mean, if there’s no parking anywhere and I mean - ANYWHERE, where do you expect people to park if not on the sidewalk?). I forgive her for the crowded beaches. I even forgive her Friday afternoons, when it’s overrun by visitors from other cities and you can’t even walk Shenkin Street or get a seat in a café because it’s so damn busy.
I started to skip school and spend my days to Tel Aviv in junior high. Sometimes I’d head to school and half way there see the bus to Tel Aviv approaching and change plans. Tel Aviv was everything my suburb wasn’t. It exuded life, while my suburb was all death. Tel Aviv was vibrant and exciting and never at rest, unlike my hometown, which closed shop every day between two and four (for siesta) and where there was only one store open on Saturdays. People were out, celebrating life in fashionable clothing and great hair, sun tanning on beaches in midday, laughing with friends on patios, flagging taxi cabs as they balanced their funky-boutiques shopping bags, sipping cappuccinos at trendy coffee shops. Tourists looked at maps on street corners, and couples kissed on park benches. I walked on the white sand beaches, browsed in record stores. I would sit at cafés and pretend I was a part of it all, trying to breathe in the city, letting its energy rub onto me.
In high school I started working at a teen magazine. I started taking the bus to the magazine’s office, an offshoot of a large daily newspaper, which was located in Tel Aviv. The minute I walked in I knew that this was where I wanted to spend my days. It was so much more exciting than being in school! Clearly I belonged here, at the pulsating heart of a busy magazine, where the phones rang non-stop and the thrill of meeting deadlines and chasing stories was better than any sugar rush or alcohol induced high I had ever experienced. I began conducting interviews in cafes around town, travel around it to cover events and began feeling at home in the city. Around the same time I got accepted to the national theatre’s exclusive youth group in the centre of Tel Aviv. ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was hitting the charts, playing on the radio every ten minutes, and ‘Dirty dancing’ was showing at theatres. I started spending more time in Tel Aviv than I did at home.
In the army I was posted to an army base in Tel Aviv, which meant that on my lunch breaks, instead of eating free meals at the army base, I’d sit on a restaurant patio and spend too much money, getting myself into debt so I can feel cool. Sometimes, my friend and I would drive to the beach for our lunch break, roll up our uniform sleeves and take off our army shoes and sit in the sand for a half hour before we had to go back to our dull army office.
Then came the Banana Beach days (see February 14h post – On Beaches and Homes). After that I moved into an apartment on Dizzengof Street, right in the heart of Tel Aviv. Even four years ago, already living in Vancouver, I found myself in Tel Aviv with no money after travelling in Thailand, and ended up staying for 6 months, trying to gather money for a flight to Vancouver. Once again I worked at cafe on the beach. I moved into a friend’s apartment in Florentine – Tel Aviv’s lower east side, where Tel Aviv’s young hip residents co-exist with small industry shops, garages, trendy bars and little boutiques. I started thinking I should move back. Why stay in Vancouver? So far away from my family? From Tel Aviv? I planned on going back to Vancouver for a little bit, sort out my life and come back. For good. But when I got back to Vancouver I moved into the Big Yellow House, met Sean, and made many new and wonderful friends. Life had a different plan - a better plan - for me. I stayed in Vancouver. I'm so happy I stayed.
I love Tel Aviv because I can walk by myself late at night and feel safe, because there would always be people on the street. I love it because you can get great coffee (cappuccinos or turkish) anywhere, at any time, and not just at selected coffee shops. I love it for its falafel stands and yummy hummus. I love it because the weather is beautiful, because the beaches are always a great place to hang out for half an hour or an entire day. I love it for its old buildings. I love it because you can drink beer anywhere at any time. I love it because you can get a haircut at midnight, shop at 2 am, eat a fine meal at 4 am, and dance until morning. I love being able to go for a morning swim after partying… then have great coffee and an Israeli breakfast at Banana Beach with my feet buried in the sand…I love it for its crazy markets, for its great fashion, the eclectic selection of restaurants, the love parade, the seawall. I love it for its narrow streets and green gardens, for the beautiful boulevards. I love it for the amazing sunsets on the beach, and how the city’s white buildings blush at this hour, and everything looks a little less blinding, a little more beautiful. I love the mix of east and west. I love that just like me, Tel Aviv is trapped in an eternal identity crisis, trapped between the Middle East and Europe. And most of all, I love it because it allows me to be whoever I want, do whatever I please, at whatever hour I want. It allows me to be me.
I’m pretty sure Tel Aviv one of coolest cities in the world. I’m yet to visit other allegedly cool cities to determine – cities such as Barcelona or Mexico City for example, but I have been around some pretty cool cities and Tel Aviv rules my list, which includes Montreal, New York, London and Amsterdam. I can’t include Vancouver in this list, even though in my opinion it’s cool in its own tame and sedated way, and it has Commercial Drive (definitely up there in the list of cool neighbourhoods!) which is why I live there, but it’s just belongs to a different bracket altogether. I also love Bombay, Bangkok, Phnom Penn and Jerusalem – all very cool cities – but they exist in a different sphere and in my opinion are incomparable.
When I was 22 I moved to Manhattan, seeking coolness that I didn’t think exist in my tiny, confused and holy land. I remember driving the Brooklyn Bridge, watching the famous skyline and thinking: I have made it! I’ve made it to the coolest city in the world, where everybody speaks as if they’re characters in a sitcom and every street corner seems familiar from a movie or a Seinfeld episode. Where Sigourney Weaver passes by with bags of grocery and cops break dance in the middle of a busy intersection while they direct traffic. Where you open your MTV and find that if you left the house now, you’d make it to a Metallica concert in the park, just a few blocks away. I dreamt about New York since I was a teenager. Since I first read Madonna’s story about arriving in New York, how she asked the taxi driver to drop her at the centre of everything and ended up in Times Square with $15 and went on to take over the world. When things got rough at home I could close my eyes and imagine I lived there, in one of those high rises with a cute American boy named Michael or Steve. I’m pretty sure everyone has a place like that in their teens. A better place. A place that symbolizes everything their hometown isn’t. A place where nobody knows them, where they can start new. New York was mine. I loved it so much that I drew its skyline, in shades of gray, on my bedroom wall.
I got there on a flight from New Delhi after traveling through India’s north, and rented a tiny bachelor suite with my best friend on Lexington and 36th , up four flights of stairs. It was mid summer, New York was hot and humid and our air conditioner broke down on the first week. It was ridiculously expensive and I made no friends. I got a little job writing articles for a Hebrew paper intended for the Israeli immigrant community but it didn’t pay much (In fact, I think they still owe me money!) I missed India terribly, followed smells of turmeric and cilantro down the streets and women in saris on the subway. Sometimes, after wandering the streets for hours, I’d even get lonely and bored. Bored! In New York!!! It was nothing like they said it would be. It wasn’t open all night long like they promised. It wasn’t easy to find good 24 hour restaurants, and there wasn’t a 24 hour convenience store at every street corner. It had some great clubs, but nothing I haven't seen at home. One night, after having drinks at a bar with a friend, I was gonna walk home from the bar, when my New Yorker friend told me I was crazy. I was stunned. “But it’s only 4 blocks, and Giuliani cleaned New York!” I said. But apparently it wasn’t safe to walk in New York in the middle of the night, not even a few blocks. “And never take the subway after midnight!” My friend added. What kind of night life is that?
Imagine my shock, realizing that when it comes to night life, my little Middle Eastern Tel Aviv puts the big apple to shame.
I love, love, love Tel Aviv. Sometimes, when it treats me like shit, I briefly hate it. But then, like the sucker I am, I forgive her. (Note: In Hebrew city is female and I find it hard to not think of it in that way…) I forgive her for the traffic, the crazy drivers, the dirt. I forgive her for the impossible parking situation and my pile of unpaid parking tickets (I mean, if there’s no parking anywhere and I mean - ANYWHERE, where do you expect people to park if not on the sidewalk?). I forgive her for the crowded beaches. I even forgive her Friday afternoons, when it’s overrun by visitors from other cities and you can’t even walk Shenkin Street or get a seat in a café because it’s so damn busy.
I started to skip school and spend my days to Tel Aviv in junior high. Sometimes I’d head to school and half way there see the bus to Tel Aviv approaching and change plans. Tel Aviv was everything my suburb wasn’t. It exuded life, while my suburb was all death. Tel Aviv was vibrant and exciting and never at rest, unlike my hometown, which closed shop every day between two and four (for siesta) and where there was only one store open on Saturdays. People were out, celebrating life in fashionable clothing and great hair, sun tanning on beaches in midday, laughing with friends on patios, flagging taxi cabs as they balanced their funky-boutiques shopping bags, sipping cappuccinos at trendy coffee shops. Tourists looked at maps on street corners, and couples kissed on park benches. I walked on the white sand beaches, browsed in record stores. I would sit at cafés and pretend I was a part of it all, trying to breathe in the city, letting its energy rub onto me.
In high school I started working at a teen magazine. I started taking the bus to the magazine’s office, an offshoot of a large daily newspaper, which was located in Tel Aviv. The minute I walked in I knew that this was where I wanted to spend my days. It was so much more exciting than being in school! Clearly I belonged here, at the pulsating heart of a busy magazine, where the phones rang non-stop and the thrill of meeting deadlines and chasing stories was better than any sugar rush or alcohol induced high I had ever experienced. I began conducting interviews in cafes around town, travel around it to cover events and began feeling at home in the city. Around the same time I got accepted to the national theatre’s exclusive youth group in the centre of Tel Aviv. ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ was hitting the charts, playing on the radio every ten minutes, and ‘Dirty dancing’ was showing at theatres. I started spending more time in Tel Aviv than I did at home.
In the army I was posted to an army base in Tel Aviv, which meant that on my lunch breaks, instead of eating free meals at the army base, I’d sit on a restaurant patio and spend too much money, getting myself into debt so I can feel cool. Sometimes, my friend and I would drive to the beach for our lunch break, roll up our uniform sleeves and take off our army shoes and sit in the sand for a half hour before we had to go back to our dull army office.
Then came the Banana Beach days (see February 14h post – On Beaches and Homes). After that I moved into an apartment on Dizzengof Street, right in the heart of Tel Aviv. Even four years ago, already living in Vancouver, I found myself in Tel Aviv with no money after travelling in Thailand, and ended up staying for 6 months, trying to gather money for a flight to Vancouver. Once again I worked at cafe on the beach. I moved into a friend’s apartment in Florentine – Tel Aviv’s lower east side, where Tel Aviv’s young hip residents co-exist with small industry shops, garages, trendy bars and little boutiques. I started thinking I should move back. Why stay in Vancouver? So far away from my family? From Tel Aviv? I planned on going back to Vancouver for a little bit, sort out my life and come back. For good. But when I got back to Vancouver I moved into the Big Yellow House, met Sean, and made many new and wonderful friends. Life had a different plan - a better plan - for me. I stayed in Vancouver. I'm so happy I stayed.
I love Tel Aviv because I can walk by myself late at night and feel safe, because there would always be people on the street. I love it because you can get great coffee (cappuccinos or turkish) anywhere, at any time, and not just at selected coffee shops. I love it for its falafel stands and yummy hummus. I love it because the weather is beautiful, because the beaches are always a great place to hang out for half an hour or an entire day. I love it for its old buildings. I love it because you can drink beer anywhere at any time. I love it because you can get a haircut at midnight, shop at 2 am, eat a fine meal at 4 am, and dance until morning. I love being able to go for a morning swim after partying… then have great coffee and an Israeli breakfast at Banana Beach with my feet buried in the sand…I love it for its crazy markets, for its great fashion, the eclectic selection of restaurants, the love parade, the seawall. I love it for its narrow streets and green gardens, for the beautiful boulevards. I love it for the amazing sunsets on the beach, and how the city’s white buildings blush at this hour, and everything looks a little less blinding, a little more beautiful. I love the mix of east and west. I love that just like me, Tel Aviv is trapped in an eternal identity crisis, trapped between the Middle East and Europe. And most of all, I love it because it allows me to be whoever I want, do whatever I please, at whatever hour I want. It allows me to be me.
1 comment:
I am so looking forward to you being my tour guide.
miss you tons, so happy I'll see you soon
Post a Comment