So excited to get to experience Tel Aviv with Marianne. We started our journey to New York with great seats in Business Class. Nice way to have some peace before our bizarre flight to Tel Aviv.

I tried to prepare Marianne for this mind blowing flight to Tel Aviv. No words could prepare her for the craziness that she would witness on this flight. It was just what we expected…chaotic. It’s not the flight that makes this trip, it’s having a fun layover right on the beach. What we will do to make work seem like a vacation!

We tried to make it to see the sunset outside our hotel in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, we were stuck in traffic and missed the sunset by minutes. We decided to walk the boardwalk to see the night action. There was a lot going on; Zumba, yoga, volleyball on the beach and of course lots of eateries with delicious food. Next time Marianne and I are going to try the Zumba class. We loved the music.

It was getting late, so we decided to try the restaurant on the beach in front of our hotel. Beside hearing the roaring waves and the magic of sitting on the beach at night, we found that the food was delicious.

We were not ready to call it a night, so we just turned our seats around to listen to the sweet lullaby of the sea. More adventure was about to happen in front of us on the beach.

As we were sitting on the beach a group of young men came to sit in front of us on the beach with their boom box playing fun music. The funny thing was our waiter kept checking in on us and I said to him, ” Isn’t it nice that off duty policemen come to the beach to relax.” The waiter laughingly said, ” I’m glad you call them policemen, here we call them Israeli thugs.”

As we were listening to their music, we noticed a couple from the table behind us going swimming. The waiter told us the wedding party had been partying at the restaurant all day. The woman could hardly stand. After a few moments, it looked like she was going to drown. Her date was not in good shape either. Marianne came to the rescue and told the “Policemen” about the couple drowning. They jumped up and went to the couple’s rescue. All ended well. Marianne saved the day!

We had a good night sleep. We couldn’t decide if we should take an all day tour to Jerusalem the next day. It left the hotel at 720am and returned at 6pm. Unfortunately, it would not give us much time to rest before we had to go to work that night. We decided to postpone that tour for another time. We found a free walking tour that would show us Jaffa City. Regretfully , I did not read the fine print. We showed up to meet our tour guide and found out this tour was going to be in Spanish only. The nice guy told us an English speaking tour was going to start in 30 minutes at the clock tower. Now we had to find the clock tower.

We found it and the tour guide was excellent. We learned so much about Old Jaffa.

It was time to head back. We had a sunny 3 mile walk ahead of us to our hotel. We couldn’t wait to swim in the Mediterranean Sea.

We stopped along the way and picked up delicious meat filled pitas for lunch.

Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea was refreshing. The water was warm, clean and very clear. Nothing like frolicking in the sea.

Time to say good bye to Tel Aviv. We needed to put our game faces on to be firm, but nice to our passengers on our return flight to New York.

Cheers for us for another great adventure. “Life is a journey, enjoy the trip. Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way.”