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photo page 47 |
A trip to the big city: Tel Aviv. Highly recommended by Raymond, we book a room in hotel Cinema, smack-bang in the heart of town,
on Kikar Dizengoff. The balcony of the room faces the fountain at the square. |
The hotel has a wonderful sun roof with a sweeping view of the Tel Aviv skyline. Every evening, a buffet is prepared with free
coffee, cakes and cookies, fruits, juices and snacks. Raymond, we concur: we can truly recommended this place!
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We meet with Hadas at a coffee&bagel shop. She is the colorful oriental dance teacher of Sonja's. She is accelerating her career
after the last festival at the Dead Sea, switching over to the "tribal" version of belly dance, and performs in the shows of Sigal Ziv.
She quickly arranges tickets for us for a show that same evening in the Susan Dellal theatre.
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The show is a mix & match of two Israeli dancers Amoura and Morna, who combine oriental dance and Spanish flamenco in a marvelous show.
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Hadas also mentions a belly dance shop, but doesn't know the address at Allenby, only that it is very hard to find, hidden behind an
unobtrusive door. We try anyway, find the door, climb up 2 marble stairs and through a cast iron door, and find this multi-colored
venue adjacent a splendid dance studio.
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There is even a horse laying on the ground, a cheetah, and a jungle throne. The clothing and accessories are the best quality we ever found.
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The square in front of the Cinematheque is full of flowers. We order tickets for the Israeli movie "Nuzhat Al-Fuad". The cinematheque
is well known for subtitling all movies, otherwise we would have had to guess the story. We are looking forward to the reactions of
the audience, since the film mixes Israeli and Arabic themes.
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Well, those reactions are a bit of a disappointment: when the movie begins, there is only one other person in the theater,
and he keeps totally quiet. A handful more enter shortly after the beginning, but the total never exceeds 12.
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Walking through the neighborhood of Neveh Tzedek we find a hotchpotch of dilapidation and renovation. Debris, plaster boards,
concrete, and the smell and sounds of grinding discs: building and restoring all around. We immediately feel at home ;-).
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Walking through the area, we see the sea nearby and an old familiar place: restaurant Manta Ray, where we ate huge crabs lasts year.
It is a delicious spot on the sea side.
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This time we order Mezze, and select several dishes from a huge tray. Exquisite snacks: raw tuna, a salad of cauliflower and Jerusalem
artichoke, salmon salad, sardine with avocado.
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We continue our stroll to Yaffo, to buy some food for the evening at the world famous Abulafia.
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On our way home, we pick up Nicole and Joshua from Ben Gurion airport and drive through Mitzpe Ramon back to Eilat. De desert looks
very different from previous visit, as we drive very early in the morning. Also in the evening, the light in Eilat is very quaint,
as a thick layer of clouds is pierced by the setting sun and shows the mountains in eerie white against a dark background.
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Time to pick up our usual affairs, like e.g. our weekly and highly experimental dinners with Raymond
and Etti. We already had Druze and Moroccan food, kosher steaks, French pizza, hotel school food at the university, and this time
we eat Thai.
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