my fun afternoon

Since I haven't started working yet (I am getting trained today and start for real on Mon), I decided yesterday to hang out with a cousin in Tel Aviv. I took the bus over there after ulpan, and we had a lovely afternoon.

I know I called Tel Aviv dirty, smelly, polluted and all-around terrible, but I'm not sure I still feel that way. Every time I go there, it seems less awful. Yesterday was amazingly beautiful weather, to start: sunny, warm, and not humid at all. My cousin just moved there, so we explored some neighborhoods near her that were wonderful. Good shopping, good people-watching, close to the beach, etc. A few of the main streets have these avenues running through the middle, with grass and trees and bike as well as pedestrian paths, and sprinkled with coffee and juice shacks. Plus it was fun just to hang out with fam, and to get out of Jerusalem - it felt like a mini-vacation, hah.

The bus ride back, however, was somewhat less than pleasant. I swear the bus was not crowded at all, and yet of all the places to sit, this man chose to sit next to me. He was weird about it, kind of just standing in the aisle looking around, then staring at me for a bit, before asking if he could sit there. Eventually he fell asleep, and kept "falling" my direction. Ew, pervy. I accidentally albowed him at one point because it was getting rediculous. That worked.

On another note, I just wanted to say that in the previous post (about the racism/discrimination issue), I wasn't trying to simplify anything. My whole point was that it is supercomplicated, and I don't know if there is anyone who can fully understand it. As with everything out here in Israel, there are layers and layers of truths and history and every shade of gray imaginable - and as someone new to the day-to-day life here, I have noticed just that it exists. I also appreciate that as a "white girl," I probably am not exposed to/don't recognize how deeply these attitudes run. So I apologize if I offended anyone or oversimplified; that wasn't my intention at all. But I'm glad that people are reading and thinking about and responding to these things!