Day 28 - Don't Mess

When I woke up today, there were no plans yet for the day. I hung out in the kitchen for a bit, ate some leftovers for brunch, and watched Dan's Israel videos with him on YouTube. As people passed through the kitchen, I tried to rally them for a trip to the beach in Tel Aviv. Joel, Jonathan and Iris were interested, but after waiting for Jonathan for a while, we decided to leave and he'd meet us there later.

We left Clore and saw a shuttle waiting up the street. Joel took off running to see if he'd wait for us, but it turned out there wasn't room for all three of us, so we waited and within 2 minutes another one had pulled up. We got off at the main bus terminal in Tel Aviv and walked from there to the beach, which took some doing because it wasn't a straight shot and various people we asked on the street gave us slightly different directions. Some of the streets looked slightly sketchy, but only because they were deserted for shabbat.

Eventually we made it! We were slightly south of the main part of the beach, so we bought some popsicles and set off walking north. In a few minutes we were there ("there" being the location of which I have posted multiple pictures previously), and sat down at the second restaurant we found for some cold drinks/shakes. We relaxed as we finished them, then dropped our stuff under an umbrella and went swimming! The water was cooler than I expected, which was nice. We took turns watching our stuff and waiting for Jonathan to call and let us know where he was, and eventually he found us. He had brought goggles and noseplugs to see the jellyfish, but after much searching merely found one grey (but tropical fish-shaped) fish.

After he had searched and we had all dried off a bit, we continued walking north in search of the Disengoff Center, where there was apparently a movie theater. Our goal was to see "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," and we stopped a few times for baked goods and cold sodas before reaching the theater. Luckily we arrived 5 minutes before the 7:30 showing, and got in!

Now this movie begins on the Tel Aviv beach, where we WERE TODAY, so the crowd was really loving every Tel Aviv reference, line spoken in Hebrew, and hummus joke. I won't ruin the film, because there are some great lines, but it's not the stupidest or worst comedy I've ever seen, and if you happen to see it, just think about how much more of a hit it would be with an Israeli audience IN Tel Aviv.

Afterwards we wandered a bit, including through the nearby mall (in which Iris and I did our best to refrain from shopping), before catching a cab to the Hahagana train station to get back to Rehovot. It turns out Ari, Stephen, and Oren were on the same train, which we discovered as we all disembarked. We walked back to campus together and everyone showered/unpacked/hung about. I chatted with Stephen, Iris, Oren and Ari before finally going to bed.

The walk north along the beach

Iris' "strawberry" milkshake

The three of us at the restaurant

Iris and me! Iris took this one.

Jonathan in the Tel Aviv train station.

There's a whole series of these, for those interested...