First Day in the White City

The White City moniker comes from its impressive collection of Bauhaus and International style architecture, specimens of which are interspersed among drearily forgettable concrete apartment blocks. The hostel in Florentine is on the edge of the neighborhood, and the Sunday night I arrived, I thought the neighborhood would take some daylight to really appreciate. In the late morning when I finally emerged from the hostel. it was indeed bustling with delivery trucks, carts, commerce, and plenty of building materials and furniture being shuffled down the sidewalk. The neighborhood is as eclectic as they come, from manufacturing to retail to gastronomy, from transient foreigners (me) to Israeli hipsters to refugees, there's something to quell the fear of boredom around every corner.

I spent the better part of the day walking around the city, obtaining minutes for my phone, and looking at potential apartments. Not knowing the bus routes, walking is much preferable to ending up lost and far away. The first apartment I looked at was in a good neighborhood just of a very busy street. I did not yet have phone minutes, and the guy showing me the place (Ilan) was late. I brought my computer along for this very dilemma (someday I'll have an iphone). I sat on the stoop and was glad to see an unlocked internet connection. I called Ilan to make sure we were still on, and we were.

As I waited on the stop, a guy zipped down the sidewalk on a scooter and screeched to a halt in front of me. Nope, not Ilan, but a very attractive one called Itamar. He knocked on the door, then sat down and waited. We got to talking, his friend lived there an was not answering the door, so I let him use my google voice to call. Friend not home, but we exchanged numbers and maybe I'll call him sometime. Eventually Ilan showed up and took me for a tour of the apartment. He, a young, half Finnish, half Israeli property manager. One roommate here a Polish woman working for a NGO, another a law student. Seemed nice enough, but at the end, the price was significantly higher than quoted on Craigslist. Ilan: "Must have been another of my apartments that is taken already." Me: "grrr" with a furrowed brow and pursed lips. A little fishy but I suppose I did not make reference to the particular ad when I spoke with him on the phone before. Oh well, it's all an exploration of the city.

By 6:30 or so I was back on the pleasant rooftop of the hostel. "Who wants to go the beach?" another guest announced. Michael, a Scottish twenty-something who had been working on a farm up north for the last few months and was heading to Jerusalem tonight for a few days before leaving the country and wanted one last swim. I first declined as I was more interested in my computer (lame-o). When he had no takers, he made the proposition again twenty minutes later. This time myself and a hostel volunteer both rallied. Noam, a half-Israeli, half New Yorker gets to live here for free because he puts in five hours a day of overseeing the common area. Not a bad deal.

We walked down to Jaffa beach and I changed into my swimsuit in a very sketchy and stinky cave-like underbelly of the high sea-wall structure. Unmentionable things certainly happen here with unsavory characters and I felt vulnerable. And it's not that good of a changing room because if I wanted to stay out of the pitch black, others could peek in by those very light wells. I emerged as fast as I could and dove into the sea. First time in the Mediterranean and it was glorious. We told swimming tales. Michael and I shared a passion for swimming. He told about his stint in the Scots Navy, and the poorly matched swimming competitions with Olympians. I told about dolphins off the Southern California Coast, and the sunrises over the Sierras giving Long Beach City an unforgettably brilliant pink glow. This our own sky darkened into heavier shades of pink, then purple, and our skin wrinkled to prunes.

Refreshed, we meandered up the hill to watch bats in a cave; the cave some sort of a castle-like ruin built into the hillside. Here we were greeted by gangs of feral cats, probably sharing space with the bats, much to the bats' annoyance. Cats on the ground floor, bats above.

Wandering through the Old Jaffa evening was curiously enchanting. I don't know much about this place but I got the sense that the Arab city has something magic in it, something intangible, rich with dramatic tales and big personalities and colorful history. Noam bought an amazing-looking grilled sandwich from a sidewalk shop. I bought a niblet of herbed bread from the same shop for 3 shekels. The vendor ventured guesses at our heritage: Michael, English; Noam, Ashkanazi (Eastern European Jew), me hmm... German?