Neve Tsedek

Today, for our siyur, we visited the first neighborhood outside of Jaffo and of Tel-Aviv, Neve Tsedek. Our tour guide told us it was one of the first places in Israel where people spoke Hebrew in school.  We were led by a particularly eccentric guy wearing a fez.  He was one of those people who I think initially wanted to be an actor or stand-up comedian, but ended up leading (very funny) tours.  Near the beginning, he asked Simon what happened to his head:

Monday night, Scott and I headed up to Eli Cohen 24 (previously known as Simon's/Nathan's/Scott's/BenJirik's/Aaron's/Ohad's apartment), and I buzzed in as Scott opened it to warn Simon we were coming.  He picked up the phone, I told him, and then we ran up there to find him bleeding from his eyebrow.  Apparently, after I called him he turned around to go put clothes on and ran straight into a doorpost.  It was pretty funny at the time.  The rest of that night we drank gin and tonic while hanging out near the park, where we played a drinking game with cards--it was pretty fun.

Anywho, the tour guide asked Simon about it and incessantly made fun of him for it.  It was a good tour all in all, but a little boring--despite some of his silliness:



There was also this interesting thing that the guide explained to us about Turkish culture: there used to be little knobs underneath the windows of girls' rooms that would turn up and down to indicate to boys whether or not their fathers were home.  Not only do I find this a little slutty, but I have to wonder whether girls flipped the knob back up once a guy came over, and what they did if they only had a little bit of time (the guide claimed they flipped it halfway, but I somehow doubt it), and why the buildings would have these on them in the first place--suffice it to say, I had a couple of problems with the idea:



Afterwards, Scott, Adi, Judith and I went to Dizengoff center and did...nothing.  Scott bought a shirt from Fox Men, and we did see a CROC STORE:



Then we returned and took naps.  When I awoke, I had a brief chat with my mother and then went with Ephy and Roie to buy groceries (finally).  Then I went to the krav maga class with Simon, Scott, BenJirik, Aaron, and others.  It was intense, and a fairly good work out.  At the end, we started to wrestle, and Aaron kicked my ass--although I did manage to get out from under him one time and pin him for a bit.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go over to Emilie's now and try to talk to her and Cera about the potential hiking trip this weekend near the Kinneret, it's supposed to be pretty sweet.

G'mar chatima tova l'culam, take it easy!