First Night in Israel - Tel Aviv

July Fourth landed in Tel Aviv after a long flight from Atlanta. I spent the last half hour talking to an Israeli seat mate who is working on a phd at UCLA. He happens to love Ireland and is fluent in Gaelic. He invited me to see his traditional Irish band play at a pub in Tel Aviv on Friday nights. Cool - but very odd.

It was the Sabath so no buses or trains were available. I paid a Palestinian taxi 150 shekels to get to Tel Aviv. We were stopped at a checkpoint by an Israeli police woman who was blond in her early twenties and looked russian.

I arrived at the hostel and proceeded to drop my luggage off on the fifth floor roof. It was a great spot we were given a single sheet with the mattress - but it was so pleasant it wasn't needed. An interesting character spending his off duty days living on the roof was an Israeli soldier who just came over from Brooklyn, NY last year. He has a dual citizinship and joined the army for adventure. Apparently the US doesn't know about his alternate job over here. Anyone can join the army and it is apparent all across Israel that the army and police are made up of recent immigrants -mostly from Eastern europe - but all over the world that may or may not have a jewish background.