Tel Aviv

We had planned to work Monday and Tuesday.  With Randi going into the PTC office there in Herzliya and me workin from Israel ("WFI").

Our hotel room office was nothing too special but it did have one big amenity ...a great view of the Mediterranean.

For my lunch break I decided to walk the beach north, to the Apollonia National Park. What a wonderful work break it was to walk the shoreline and explore, Crusader-style.






Apollonia was nicely located from the hotel, with roughly a 40 minute beach hike there. It was completed deserted when I got there. Just another day of it's ancient existence, quietly eroding, isolated on the coast of the Mediterranean.  It made the experience of seeing it a little more personal, it seemed.






We had dinner with Ziv and Mickey at Claro in Tel Aviv. We parked next to Israeli defense IDF (CIA-like). Apparently they owned a lot of land there

downtown in Tel Aviv and recently returned some of this prime real estate back to the city, so they could put it to better use...and it looks like they really did. There were bars, restaurants, playgrounds and green space there, with no cars allowed to drive through it.  The Claro restaurant was originally a distillery from the 1860s that had been renovated into a really large interesting dining room. The food there was terrific, with noted chef Ran Shmueli and we had a couple bottles of really nice Upper Galilee wine from Shvo Vineyards.
Just a couple days prior to our arrival in Israel they celebrated their Purim holiday.  Ziv and Mickey showed us a couple pictures and told us about their celebrating it with their families, with everyone getting dressed up.
We talked briefly about the mandatory Israeli Army service at the age of 18.  The boys are in for 4 yrs and the girls for around 2 1/2 years.  It sounds like it's life training and the Israeli children grow up a lot there. We also talked about the Iron Dome.  PTC's Creo software is used by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to assist in providing this military solution. It's believed it has roughly a 90% success rate. It's really impressive that it's in place and functional like it is.  It definitely provides everyone there some sense of security and no matter what the cost, seems worth it.

After dinner we went downstairs to see the original distillery rooms with connecting tunnels.

After dinner Mickey offered to take us on a late night tour ride to Jaffa.  The 4 of us were pretty exhausted from the jetlag still but we all agreed that we should go for sight-seeing ride over to Jaffa while we had the chance.   And it was nice of Mickey to want to continue his long day and show us around more.


It was an interesting ride through Tel Aviv.   It seemed we hit around 20 red lights, which was actually kinda cool.  It allowed us to get a feel for the people and the nightlife there.

Then Mickey said something I had never heard before. Something very deep and very moving.  He was looking off into the distance when he said... "When the sea is in the west, love is on your right".  I sat there and let that sink in for a few moments. Wow, that was deep!  But then I realized I was in the passenger seat, sitting on Mickey's right.  So I said to Kevin in the back seat "this is good for you but not so good for me right now".   Everyone looked at me strangely.  So I repeated what I thought Mickey said.  As it turns out, what I thought was probably some wise ancient Israeli proverb, was actually just a hearing issue I have.  He didn't say "love" is on your right.  He said "the north" is on your right.
Oh, yea...the north is on your right. :)   Man, we had some laughs with that throughout the week.

After a quick walk to see the water, we got back in the car to go back to Herzliya.  I think Mickey sensed we were all tired at that point.  The tour ended peacefully. :)