Archive for September, 2010

Picture of the Week LXXII

Time to head back to the beach…for a September beach scene (actually taken this week by Shlomi Kremer), the type I love most! Lots of clouds, lots of sun, great sunsets, it’s all there in September.

Click to big – did I mention I love those clouds!

September 24, 2010 | Ashley | Comments 0

Sundown today sees the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for Jews around the world. In Israel that means a 25-hour fast, no TV or radio, and no vehicles on the roads. It’s actually quite amazing to see some of Tel Aviv’s usually packed highways deserted, except for a few kids on bikes and roller-blades. Living on the moshav I’m sure it’s going to be a different experience this year, but at least my bike is ready…

The picture was taken by Hamevugar, a guy from New York with seemingly some connection to Israel.

September 17, 2010 | Ashley | Comments 0

It was 20 years ago today…

…that I stepped off the boat at Haifa port and started my long and painful Israel experience. Only kidding! But time ain’t half flown – it seems like yesterday that I was just getting to grips with the language (all the important words) and just how hot the luscious ladies of Israel were (and still are).

Israel has changed along the way, and I’ve changed too. I’m not sure if all those changes we’ve both gone through are for the better, but that’s life, innit.

Anyway, to celebrate, I’ve written up another episode (part 13) of my story of just how and why I ended up in Israel (see the post below this one). And perhaps more interestingly, why I stayed. Enjoy it!

And I’m off to have a beer to celebrate! Here’s to the next 20!

September 16, 2010 | Ashley | Comments 0

How I ended up in the Holy Land. And stayed…Part 13

Continuing on with my tale of woe and joy of how I ended up in Israel…tales of a non-Jewish potential Kibbutz volunteer who falls in love with Tel Aviv, dodges Scud missiles, lives and works illegally for years on end, gets besotted by one Israeli girl despite the best attempts of a legendary Jewish mother, but ends up marrying and divorcing another… and then marrying yet another to join suburbia and the hi-tech revolution, while becoming the seemingly respectable owner of an English school.

In case you missed them; Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.

Part 13: Getting my own apartment in Tel Aviv

So, after the non-stop action with young Lilach and her mafia-infested family throughout the summer of ’94, it was time for me to get my feet back into tourist-land central. Oh yes, back to the world of dorm beds in Gordon Hostel, a world of smelly feet poking out from blankets, bottles of cheap vodka littered around the room, and hangovers eased by malawach (a cheap and cheerful Yemenite dish, served by a couple of restaurants near the hostel) the following morning.

But you know what, it was getting a bit depressing. I was no longer fresh off the boat, this was my fourth year in Israel, and it just felt like I was kinda wasting time. Don’t get me wrong, I was enjoying myself, having a few beers, meeting up with the lovely Lilach now and again (far from her home of course), and not working too hard. But it wasn’t quite enough. And I found it harder and harder explaining myself to those tourists who had just arrived as to why I had stayed so long.

I also found myself connecting up with Peter and his missus quite often, who were trying hard to make a go of things and were renting an apartment in Ramat Gan, just outside Tel Aviv. I’d often come round with cookies, much to his missus’ delight. That be the Englishman in me, innit. She’d often try and line me up with one of her friends, but the only one I was vaguely interested in (and anyway, I was still seeing Lilach) was Gila, but she was way mixed up. Beautiful, sexy, but very mixed up…and you just know she’s going to feature in this story some more!

But then one day, my shining knight walked in to the hostel. Lewis, a Scottish guy I had previously befriended at the hostel had long moved out of the hostel scene. He had turned up this fine, sunny morning to check if anyone fancied becoming his flat-mate in the apartment he was renting in Florentin, one of Tel Aviv’s southerly neighborhoods. Did he have to ask me twice? Of course he bloody didn’t!

Just so you know, Florentin had just started getting a trendy reputation, thanks to a gentrification program by Tel Aviv city hall. It hadn’t reached its peak, which was mainly inspired by the hit TV series of the late 90s, imaginatively titled, yes you guessed it, Florentin. But it was just starting out on the road to cool. A bit like me really.

Within a couple of days I had signed a contract with the landlord, packed up my few belongings and headed over to Florentin. My room quickly became a shrine to simple living, with one Reservoir Dogs poster, my mountain bike, a few clothes and a CD player, that was it. The apartment overall was actually pretty huge, with balconies galore, and big, spacious rooms. In fact, the place was so huge there was an additional spare room, which me and Lewis decided to rent out.

I think we both hoped a beautiful, sexy, Scandinavian goddess would take up residence in the spare room, but that just wasn’t going to happen. After interviewing a couple of potential flat-mates we finally settled on the amazing Kiwi, Jane, who was probably the nicest tourist girl I ever met in Israel. OK, she wasn’t the least bit Scandinavian, but she was a chef at a local Italian restaurant (lots of yummy pasta for us boys), and boy did she know how to drink!

So there we were, through most of ’95, the Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys of Florentin. We’d shop together in Carmel market, drink beer on the kitchen balcony, tell stories about what we’d gone through as foreigners in a strange land, and most certainly bitch about the opposite sex. Good times. One night in particular I remember me and Jane polishing off a crate of beer, getting on our bikes and pelting full speed down the bus lanes in Allenby Street. We were singing and shouting all the way, God knows how me made it home!

As for the women in my life, well, it was basically down to Lilach and Maya. Yep, the same Maya that had eased my broken heart in Eilat a couple of summers earlier. Lilach and me were never going to be serious, what with her having to escape the clutches of her raving looney father every time she wanted to see me and I think she realised that. She was still supremely sweet, and I remember her buying me a Nirvana unplugged CD, which she hated, but desperately tried to like for my benefit! But taking her home, and making sure no-one saw us together in the car got too much for both of us.

So I was kind of footloose and fancy free, hence Maya. Maya had been in touch through a couple of letters after our night together in Eilat, and she came round a few times to boogie naked in the house (I think there’s proof somewhere in my collection of pics, but don’t tell anyone) when nobody else was about. I never really understood her, because if I tried to turn things up a notch she’d back away. And then she’d get hurt if I pulled back. Typical Israeli woman then…

Work-wise I had the VW Beetle which I used to deliver newspapers and magazines with. The gardening had long come to an end, and I had since found some well-paid delivery jobs. Of course, when I realised how much money on petrol I was spending, the Beetle was soon traded in for a scooter.

So all was kind of hunky dory. But deep down, real deep down, I hungered for more.

Why? Well, I saw my mate Peter, with full rights to do whatever he pleased in Israel and it pissed me off. I had no visa, no rights, no medical insurance, nada. Looking back now it seems like three lifetimes ago, but then I was hardly worried about what “might happen”. What was really getting to me was the itty-bitty jobs that I was pulling in, the 5-10 shekels an hour gigs that were no longer fulfilling even the inner tourist in me. And this was a feeling that stretched back months, even before renting out my own place in Tel Aviv…

So one evening, I sat with Peter at a bar across the road from my flat. It was actually a bar/launderette and Peter had come round to give his socks a rinsing. I spilled my guts to Peter as he sat and supped on his beer. When I was done, he smiled and told me there was only one way I was going to fix it.

And with that we conjured up an evil, cunning plan. A plan so cunning you’re going to have to wait til the next episode…

Next up: Who to choose?

September 16, 2010 | Ashley | Comments 9

Picture of the Week LXX

This week Rosh HaShana (the Jewish New Year) hits hard. And by hitting hard, I mean watch out the mountains of food…I’m bleedin stuffed already! I love this shot, an alternative take on the typical apple and honey pic for the New Year.

The picture was taken by Yossi Yarom, a guy with some great shots in his Flickr collection.

Happy New Year!