Arrival

Most of our family and friends seemed quite concerned about our safety in Israel.  Certainly Mom and Dad seemed deeply concerned.  I was also just a bit concerned.  I joked a few times that my plan was to see if Hertz would rent me one of those popular, modified, Toyota trucks, with an optional missile launcher mount in the back.  Wasn't really funny I know. And in an attempt to blend in there, I decided to go with the unshaven, nomadic, lost shepherd look, for the week.

I arrived in Tel Aviv around 5pm on 3/8/15.  Randi had already arrived from India around midnight the night before.  I had to find my prearranged driver and find Stephanie, girlfriend of Randi's co-worker Kevin, who was arriving from Boston around the same time I was.  I had never met Stephanie or our driver, so it turned out to be a little difficult. 

One of the many drivers awaiting their customers was holding a sign with "Moses" on it. I found this to be pretty incredible.  I wanted to imitate Charlton Heston and tell him [in a low hushed voice]... "I'm Moses. And I'm here to bring the people out of bondage and into the promised land"
What a way to kick off the trip this would be!  But I thought it would be best if I could find Stephanie and find our ride to the Daniel Herzliya Hotel first, which we did.

After checking in and waiting for Randi to come back from her office there, Kevin suggested that we walk the boardwalk down the beach, to choose a place for dinner, from a few different options by the marina there.  My first reaction was that maybe walking the beach at night is not the safest thing to do, but Kevin had been there before and he felt pretty confident that it's not a problem.  And he was right. We immediately felt comfortable there and that never changed the whole time we were there.  We would find that all week the boardwalk would be filled with families playing, people out jogging and biking, day and night.  The beach area there was huge and had multiple bars, with padded lounge chairs left out on the beach through the night.

We decided to go to the Derbi Bar, which turned out to be an excellent fish and seafood restaurant, located right across from the marina.  Amazingly, when we sat down the waiters came to us in force.  They brought water and bread...and then 14 small dishes, showcasing many different Mediterranean treats. We were speechless and had a good laugh about that when they left us. 

They were even replacing them as we finished them.  We found out that it was complimentary, if an entree was purchased.  Otherwise it would have been 40 sheckels a person (around $13 a person). It would still be well worth it.  The rest of the trip we looked for the '14 dish' treatment ...and almost found it one other time in Nazareth (around 10 dishes there). My only complaint about the whole experience was that the only tool they could provide to open our shellfish was a shell cracker, with strange and completely useless tiny tongs out in front of it that didn't line up.  It seemed the mysteries of the Middle East were upon us!