Arrival and first night--May 7th, 2006
Arrival and first night
We arrived in Ben Gurion airport on Sunday afternoon, May 7th, after an 11 hour flight on El Al and immediately drove the half dozen miles to Tel Aviv, where we planned on spending a couple of nights and one full day. The Hertz map was detailed enough, but it is very, very easy to get lost in Tel Aviv as there seems not to be any easy-to-follow layout to the city. (Perhaps spending the $12/day for the GPS would have been a good idea!) I have an excellent sense of direction, and am not afraid to ask for directions (after a bit), but still managed to drive for an hour until I could get to our hotel, the newly remodeled Prima Astor, located one block from the beach and the Mediterranean. We unloaded the car in front of the hotel, checked in, and took the smallest "lift" to our room that I believe I have ever been in. It was a good thing we had eaten lightly on the flight!. We were lucky and got a room facing the sea and the promenade that runs alongside the beach. I've learned through the years that it is always best to try and stay up as late as possible when arriving in a foreign country; it seems to making the jet-lag easier to deal with and you get your body on local time much faster. (I also don't drink carbonated drinks, liquor, or wine on the plane, get up regularly during the flight, remove my shoes when the wheels go up, and usually order vegetarian meals. I can't say these tricks will work for you, but they do for me. PS--I also never change my watch from US time, no matter how long I'm away.)
So, what's the first thing you do when you land in a foreign country? I usually head for a restaurant to start really getting into the local scene, and this day was no different. We walked around for a couple of blocks and wound up at the Yemenite Kitchen on Frishman St (up from HaYarkon). My nieces later said this was a real tourist spot, but we weren't up for more walking, especially after having wasted an hour getting to the hotel. We sat outside and ordered a wonderful Sephardic hummus (rich, thick with the right amount of garlic, and a drizzle of pale green olive oil with its own distinctive flavor), an order of Salouf bread (hot, right out of the oven, "puffy" and absolutely essential for eating hummus if you don't get fresh pita) and an aubergine salad that also mixed very well with hummus or alone on the bread. Aubergines, for those of you not familiar with word, are eggplants and very common in Israel. These eggplants were grilled, allowed to chill, and then mixed with a tangy tomato sauce, garlic, and onion. YUM! We also ordered a spring chicken served with chips or french fries as the Israelis call them, and a salad. There was a lot of food and we could have done without the chicken, but we split it, as we did with everything else, so it worked out fine. The total bill worked out to less than $20 with tip included.
We arrived in Ben Gurion airport on Sunday afternoon, May 7th, after an 11 hour flight on El Al and immediately drove the half dozen miles to Tel Aviv, where we planned on spending a couple of nights and one full day. The Hertz map was detailed enough, but it is very, very easy to get lost in Tel Aviv as there seems not to be any easy-to-follow layout to the city. (Perhaps spending the $12/day for the GPS would have been a good idea!) I have an excellent sense of direction, and am not afraid to ask for directions (after a bit), but still managed to drive for an hour until I could get to our hotel, the newly remodeled Prima Astor, located one block from the beach and the Mediterranean. We unloaded the car in front of the hotel, checked in, and took the smallest "lift" to our room that I believe I have ever been in. It was a good thing we had eaten lightly on the flight!. We were lucky and got a room facing the sea and the promenade that runs alongside the beach. I've learned through the years that it is always best to try and stay up as late as possible when arriving in a foreign country; it seems to making the jet-lag easier to deal with and you get your body on local time much faster. (I also don't drink carbonated drinks, liquor, or wine on the plane, get up regularly during the flight, remove my shoes when the wheels go up, and usually order vegetarian meals. I can't say these tricks will work for you, but they do for me. PS--I also never change my watch from US time, no matter how long I'm away.)
So, what's the first thing you do when you land in a foreign country? I usually head for a restaurant to start really getting into the local scene, and this day was no different. We walked around for a couple of blocks and wound up at the Yemenite Kitchen on Frishman St (up from HaYarkon). My nieces later said this was a real tourist spot, but we weren't up for more walking, especially after having wasted an hour getting to the hotel. We sat outside and ordered a wonderful Sephardic hummus (rich, thick with the right amount of garlic, and a drizzle of pale green olive oil with its own distinctive flavor), an order of Salouf bread (hot, right out of the oven, "puffy" and absolutely essential for eating hummus if you don't get fresh pita) and an aubergine salad that also mixed very well with hummus or alone on the bread. Aubergines, for those of you not familiar with word, are eggplants and very common in Israel. These eggplants were grilled, allowed to chill, and then mixed with a tangy tomato sauce, garlic, and onion. YUM! We also ordered a spring chicken served with chips or french fries as the Israelis call them, and a salad. There was a lot of food and we could have done without the chicken, but we split it, as we did with everything else, so it worked out fine. The total bill worked out to less than $20 with tip included.
posted by Scottland at 5:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home