So exciting! My first trip to outside of Europe! Well, I've been outside of Europe before, in Egypt with my family but now I'm going to travel all by myself. My flight from Helsinki is with Malev via Budapest. It's cold and snowy January 4th in Helsinki so I'm really waiting for the warm and not snowy climate of Israel. Weather is also snowy in Budapest when I land there. I have almost 6 hours to wait for the next flight. Budapest airport seems to be going through some major renovations. My expression of this airport is that it's quiet and the staff is little rude. Maybe not rude but they don't seem to care about customers. The flight to Tel Aviv leaves little before midnight and I have night in the plane ahead of me. Good thing about Malev is that they still serve full-meals on European flights.
I wake up when plane starts to land. It's cloudy outside. But then plane breaks through the clouds and one of the most amazing sights opens before my eyes! Tel Aviv in it's night lights is truly an amazing sight. I can recognize some landmarks like Azrieli Center towers which look amazing. It's also thundering so I can see also lightnings striking above the city. Just amazing. The plane continues it's landning to Ben Gurion International Airport and when I see the first palm trees I truly realise that I'm travelling again :)
And after landing the Israeli experience starts immediately. I was sitting in the first non-business class row in the plane so I'm one of the first people to leave the plane. And I'm honoured to be the first one from the plane who gets to be interviewed by the security control! Yey, I look dangerous. The securitywoman first wanted to see my passport and then asked me why I'm there, where I'm going to visit and where I'm going to stay. As I'm going to use mostly couchsurfing on this trip I was little afraid of the questions about my accommodation but thankfully she let me through. I'm really surprised about the airport's appearance. It has lots of big halls and it feels very spacey. Next step was the passport control. He asked me the same questions as the securitywoman before. The passport control hall was quite strange experience. Next to me in the line was a Finnish woman who was screaming and crying to her phone how she hates this country and wants to go home immediately and somebody else was crying in the corner of the hall. Strange. After I was allowed to enter the country I got my backpack from the huge luggage hall and then I tried to find the airport's train station. Train station was right outside of the doors behind some taxi drivers who of course offered to take me to Tel Aviv or anywhere in the country. I got help from the staff to buy my ticket to HaHagana train station from ticket machine. Good thing that the machine accepted big notes as I didn't have coins yet. First train arrived after an hour of waiting. I was surprised how modern the trains were.
I arrived to HaHagana station at about 5.30am. I had organised my accommodation through couchsurfing website. My host would be Harel. We agreed before that I will come to his place at 7am when he wakes up. I took a taxi from the station to Jaffa where Harel lives. As I was super hungry I looked for some place to get something to eat. I had a problem of too many choices but I decided to get some chips from supermarket. Clouds were moving away and and sun started to rise. I decided to climb on top of the HaPisgah Gardens in the middle of Jaffa to see the sunrise better. And what an amazing view was again in front of my eyes. Sun was rising from the east, rain clouds where still over the city in the north and lightnings were still striking over the sea in west. And it was so quiet. No sounds from cars or people. Really peaceful moment. After that I went to Harel's place. We talked little while he made a bed for me and I went to sleep when he left for work.
I woke up at noon when Harel's flatmate came to make "breakfast". I was again hungry so I went out to find breakfast too. Near the house was a bakery which is mentioned in many tourist brochures and is said to be the best in Israel. I bought kind of warm sandwhich which had tuna, eggs, cheese and different vegetables inside of it. Bakery had lots of customers and my pale Nordic skin caught the attention of some school girls who were very interested of my origins. After lunch I walked around old Jaffa. Weather was little rainy so it was quiet everywhere. Old Jaffa looks little fake, which it actually is because it's heavily renovated in past years and renovations are still going on. The small side streets were nice to walk around and I found interesting art shop. I also walked again in HaPisgah Gardens. The Wishing Bridge there was closed because it was about to collapse! After that I walked around nearby flea market. There's this one shop selling crazy statues, definitely worth of checking out! Because it was raining and I was still tired I decided to go back to Harel's place. I later went to get food again from the bakery for my dinner. Harel came back home late but we had nice chat before we both went to sleep.
Next day weather was looking nice and that was good because I had a lot of walking ahead of me. I decided to walk first to Dizengoff Square along the beach. Sea had some nice waves so it was full surfers. Yesterday I didn't saw any other tourists but today they had came out of their hiding places and were walking by the beach too. Between Jaffa and city centre there is this abandoned beach disco. I later learned it was a site of terrorist attack and was now kind of a memorial. But I really like the look of Tel Aviv seaside. Lots of tall buildings and some interesting colour choices. I walked to somewhere near Frishman Beach and from there I started to explore city centre. Tel Aviv was designed as a garden city and it really is very green. Streets are lined with trees and houses have small gardens (which are mostly not taken care of). Tel Aviv is also a Unesco World Heritage Site because of it's modern architecture. One of the best places to see it should be the Dizengoff Square. When I arrived to the square I was surprised - in a bad way. The buildings around it were in quite horrible condition. The fountain in the middle of the square was also in bad shape. Homeless people and pidgeons were sleeping on the benches. I decided to continue to my walk to my next destination: Azrieli Center towers.
As I got closer to the towers more and more military suited people were walking around me. Israeli Defense Forces own a strange looking building next to the center and that's why the area is full of military people. Also taking pictures of the building is strictly forbidded so I was careful not to point my camera in the wrong direction. Then I went inside to the Azrieli Center. The center hosts shopping mall, offices, train station and observation floor. My reason to come there was to go to the observation floor but it was closed because of private gathering. So I just ate at the shopping centre which had lots of eating places to choose from. I didn't only get good beef but I also had nice service at the place - something that's not so common in Israel. From Azrieli I walked back to the centre of the city. I ended up at Kikar Magen David and the Carmel Market next to it. I really recommend buying food from the market - it's much cheaper than in shops. I bought some fruits and decided to come back here next week to buy souvenirs. From the market I walked through Yemenite quarter back to the beach. I passed a park full of African immigrants sleeping. Strange.
Back in Jaffa I went again to my favourite bakery and bought very good tomato sauce and feta breads. Yummy! Harel came soon after me back home. His parents also visited on that evening. As it was Thursday evening (in Israel it's same thing as Friday evening for us) I was thinking if Harel wanted to go out with me. But he said that he was too tired and actually so were I. I entertained myself by watching British version of The Weakest Link when suddenly Harel and his roommate came to me and said that they leave out to meet one friend and come back soon. Well, they got back soon but only to get their bicycles so they can ride to the centre. I was left alone in the house and I just decided to go sleep while thinking that it was quite rude to left me here and not even ask if I want to go out too. Harel came back earlier than his roommate. When the roommate came back she put lights on even though she knew I was sleeping there. Rude, I would say.
In the morning while I was packing Harel came and said he has a horrible hangover. And just yesterday he said he never drinks alcohol, yep... I said goodbye to him and the roommate (who also had hangover), and I walked to nearby bus stop and I took bus to Central Bus Station. The bus station is located next to the HaHagana train station which was my destination. From the train station I took a train to Haifa where I will experience my first shabbat!
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