Mel's Trip, Day 5

Today I ventured out into the streets of Tel Aviv on my own, since Nick had to work. After a leisurely buffet breakfast downstairs in the hotel restaurant, I got dressed and headed out. My first stop was the Carmel Market, where vendors sell everything like fresh produce, meat, cheese, spices, olives, candy, pastries, home goods, and even cheap shoes and clothes. It's a noisy and busy place. Vendors shout out what they are selling and you will even see the occasional argument between vendor and customer. I think people come here to buy their groceries, so there aren't very many grocery stores around here. I walked through the market and down the street a little ways until I got to the mall, called the Dizengoff Center. The mall was pretty big and pretty standard as far as malls go. I was really excited about coming here because I knew it had one of the stores I used to like to go to in San Francisco, called Zara. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Zara, it's a pretty trendy men's and women's clothing store based out of Spain. You can find Zara in several countries, but unfortunately not in Oregon. Since I hadn't been to Zara in a few years I of course had to buy something! So I made my purchase and moved on to the other stores. I must admit I was a little nervous about going in to some of the stores because they started speaking to me in Hebrew. Most of the people here know at least some English, but I feel bad about not being able to communicate with them at all in Hebrew. So I kept the conversation to a minimum. I walked around the mall a bit more and made my way back.

I went back through the Carmel market because Nick asked me to buy some fruit for him for breakfast. I picked out some apples and bananas and bought a falafel sandwich for myself for lunch (a good-sized pita bread stuffed with falafel and veggies for only 12 shekels = $3 - what a deal!) and went back to the hotel because my feet hurt from all the walking. I took a break, ate my sandwich and ventured out again to sit at a cafe, have some coffee, write about my day and do some people-watching. One funny thing to note about Israel is that there are stray cats roaming around everywhere. As I'm sitting here writing there are a few cats wandering close to me, hoping I'll drop some food on the ground for them.

Tomorrow is election day, and most people will have the day off. It will be interesting to see what happens here.