Yesterday, I planned for a day for shopping at the Ha' Carmel shuk and the bargain piles off HaMelech George, and perhaps stop at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art if I had time before it closed. First, I went to Ha'Carmel and dropped like 50 shekels for food, including burekas for today's lunch, baklava for dessert, and labeneh in pita sprinkled with zatar for lunch. I was bad as usual... I also made a conscious decision to buy a plate and some silverware since they're cheap as well (20 shekels total for a plate, 6 spoons packaged together, and 1 knife). These household stalls were crazy about silicon, like it's the best invention ever. I also got around to buying 2 packages of 50 tea candles for Shabbat for 15 shekels (whereas in the US each bag is like 8 dollars or 32 shekels). One woman saw my CI and asked about it because her brother wanted to get one. She asked how much it costed and I said, "if it's for the first implant and your brother is qualfied, the insurance takes care of it." I mean the whole process, while it's not much of a sticker shock as a cardio surgery, it's still surprising.
Then I browsed through Ha'Carmel crafts fair. I saw some gorgeous pieces of art and I thought how great some of these would make for wedding gifts. I'm still thinking about this one particular artist for my friends even though their wedding isn't for another year. They're Jewish so I kind of would like to get them something from Israel. She said that she's there every Friday when she can. I just hope that she'll take a credit card....
I eventually made my way to the "bargain street" which is a small street off HaMelech George, two blocks away from HaCarmel that's filled with cheap-as-hell clothes. My favorite green skirt, I'm sad to say, was getting bleach spots (probably from walking around Old City and shuks in it during closing time when some venders throw bleach on the walk to clean up their messes). So I needed to get a pretty new skirt. I found two that I liked but I picked out a patterned purple skirt- it's so long that it touches the top of my feet! It'll probably get a little short after a wash. For 20 shekels ($5).
Okay, I'm going to sound a bit like one of the graduate students in my program who's addicted to crafts. I've learned to look for patterns when I'm shopping in Israel because so many pieces clothes are unique that you can't really order for more if there isn't one in your size. Like I've said way before, Israel isn't into "trends" so if you're looking for trendy Israeli stuff, it's not really easy. However, I've come to admire Or's dresses that she wears on her Facebook profile for their patterns. There are so many pretty and interesting patterns here that the style of the clothing doesn't really matter just so as long the pattern is eye-catching. Also, a lot of clothes with beautiful patterns are actually simple. In the US, I almost never look for patterns because American designers are much more into fabric and sewing detail (like v-neck, crotching, ruffles) that basic plain colors will usually do for me.
So back to reality. When I reached into my bag to find my money to pay for the skirt, it was gone. My wallet was gone! I flipped out and raced back to Ha Carmel to find it where I had stopped for a minute to adjust my purchases in my bag to keep some stuff from getting squeezed. Not there. I backtracked to a couple of stores that I stopped at on Allenby, nobody saw anything. Some people didn't understand the word for "wallet" so I called up Meredith to ask her. After getting the word, arenok, Israelis began to understand. Well, unless you're a security guard. I asked five different security guards and two cops and they were all helpless, lazy, and slightly idiotic. They couldn't be bothered to radio each other... sheesh. Then I ran into Mike, an old high school classmate and a fellow birthright participant, in the center of HaCarmel. I knew he was just in Tel Aviv but that was just totally random to see him on a Friday afternoon.... He tried to help out a little and offered to give me 200 shekels that I had lost (I supposed that he overheard me telling the guard that I had just under 200 shekels in my wallet when the guard asked what was in it). I was very, very relieved because it meant I could actually get out of Tel Aviv without walking like 5 miles back to TAU. We exchanged numbers and wished each other Shabbat Shalom. I can't say how happy I was to see a familiar face from America there.
I finally got home around 4 with all the purchases, plus stops at the supermarket and minimarket to get some food for dinner and water for the weekend (I've been such an idiot not to buy a case of 6 1.5 liter bottles for 14 shekels before when they're sold for 7-9 shekels). The market was all out of chicken so I settled for some herring and cottage cheese.
I waited around for almost an hour before someone could come to let me in my room (as I lost the key as well... which was attached to my wallet...). Finally, around 5:45, I went out for my weekly long run. The roads would get quieter and the weather would, hopefully, get a little cooler. I ran 2 miles to the HaYakron river and another 2.5 miles along the river. It was like running along the Erie Canal at home- the water was so serene. The whole run was calming, maybe it would be much more so if there weren't little kids riding their bikes and a bunch of rollerbladers around (there are people rollerblading in Israel???). I saw a camp-out by a camp as well. The run was so hot, according to the calculations, I ran in 91 degees heat index. I took it all very slowly, just putting one foot in front of the other.
I came home, showered, ate dinner.... I was really tired so I went to bed at 11:30 PM.
This morning, I got up around 9 and ate my cereal. Then I went out to Namir, the main road, to catch a sherut. Sheruts do run on Shabbat and usually they're traveling between main cities like between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and Tel Aviv and Netanya. So I caught one that was coming from Netanya. It's so much cheaper than taking a cab- only 6.5 shekels as opposed to probably 30-40 shekels for a cab. I stopped off at HaMelech Shamuel to see the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
The museum was beautiful and very open. I really liked the architecture- how the exhibits flow from one to another that you're almost constantly in something instead of wandering down some halls. They had two special exhibits. One was "Valley on the Road to Kfar Yehoshua" by Elie Shamir. I was very impressed with his style- a bit dramatic with the colors and shadows, yet the paintings had calming demeanor about them. This one has to be one of my favorites:
You can see some more of his works here. They almost feel real but yet really. They're great contemporary pieces of art. He also had about 30-40 portraits of his family members and himself. He had a few that were reflecting- meaning that he did a few portraits of him painting his subject.The second exhibit that they had was called "The Fragmented Mirror Exhibition of Jewish Artists, Berlin 1907." I found this very interesting, especially that I took a methodology seminar last fall exploring the subject of "who" and "what" is a Jew and we're always exploring the topic of what consists "Jewish" and what makes the person or object "Jewish." In other words, just another perspective on Jewish identity. This exhibit was interesting because it's in Berlin and the folks asked 5 or 7 Jewish artists around Germany to see if it was possible to create works that wouldn't seem Jewish, or perhaps there was a Jewish style in the art? The exhibition was "reflecting the Berlin Jewish community which sponsored it, it was replete with contradictions and paradoxes: Jewish, but not religious; nationalist, but not Zionist; assimilated and German, but also with works by Eastern European Jews." Several artists chose to focus on Jewish images like rabbis and scholars studying in yeshivot and shuls or placed tiflin around men's shoulders. One artist did a portrait of several couples with young children and titled it "After the Pogrom." What struck me about that one was that you wouldn't know they had endured a pogrom except for a bandage around a man's head. I looked at the children and the wives, they looked a bit nervous and sad. The backdrop was just plain beige in color. Some other artists used urban landscape to demonstrate where they belonged as Jews. Certainly since science at the time was concerned with the concept of race, the artists wanted to see if their pieces had a distinct marker of their race. I had to say, yes, there was. Many of the people painted had similar coloring- I didn't remember seeing anyone with fair complexion. Also, from an anthropological sense, the people had certain facial features that were distinctively Jewish. So I think if I didn't know, for most part, that the artists were Jewish, I would say that they were paintings of Jews.
The rest of the museum had two or three major collections of impressionism and post-impressionism with a fair amount of modern art, with their paintings arranged in chronological order. I was surprised to see that they had at least 10 Picassos! They also had 4 Jackson Pollacks (but not those huge ones). Many of the painters were from Germany, Italy, and France, as well as few Americans. So I would say that for Israel, their modern art collection was impressive.
I tried to find posters or postcards from the temporary exhibits but the store didn't have any and weren't planning on publishing them. I was sad as I like to collect posters of works I've seen from museums that I visit. Maybe next time.
For the rest of the day from 1 to 6:30ish, I hung out on the beach. It was great and very calming. There were lots of families there so I felt pretty safe with my things. The water had very few jellyfish as there were a lot of people in there and I got stung lightly just once. The sun was indeed shining but not as intense as it could be with the temperatures around 85 to 90 with some light wind. So you could say it was a good weather at the beach. And it was a great opportunity to exfoilate my skin so now it's nice and soft!
Afterwards, I just walked around Tel Aviv a little bit. It's always really nice to walk around when the sun is going down. Especially when it's Shabbat and things were little quiet.
I do love being in Israel. I enjoy all the shopping, food, people (when they're not being schizophrenic anyway), and weather. It's a wonderful place for me to vacation and relax because I've got friends here and as a a poor graduate student, I get the bang for my buck. So I don't have to travel around South America or Thailand or something all alone. It's also a very safe place for me to travel around alone- way more so than in the US (confirmed by Israelis and Americans alike about traveling in different countries but we do all agree that Japan and China have to be the most hairy places sometimes because of the language barrier!). Why so dangerous/tricky in the US? Because it's a BIG country with lots of logistics to figure out. It's also expensive because we have no hostels here so to really get a bang for your buck, it's best to travel with a friend or two to cut down the costs. Sometimes I'm amazed at myself for being able to travel around America and that I have to be able to study public transportation maps, research different airlines and trains, and figure out where I'm going to stay that's most reasonable in terms of costs and locations.
Tomorrow- to the beach. Another full day- no classes as people are on a three-day trip in the North. I chose not to go because I've done at least 3 hikes up there. While I had good times, I really needed people to help me with hiking and doing these take up a lot of concentration energy. I'd really like for people to enjoy the hike and not worry about me because the Galilee is so pretty.
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