Our first full day in Tel Aviv is almost over. It's been a great day. We went to the beach - I swam in the Mediterranean Sea! The water was beautiful and refreshing.
The beach was busy, lots of people and families enjoying the sunshine, passover lasts one more day and I'm making some assumptions about it - like no school: there were lots of kids at the beach. Time off work: there's some building under construction all around us, but no one working.
At the Am/Pm -yup they have those here, there were a number of shelves covered over in sheets with signs on them. The signs are all in Hebrew of course, but we made the assumption that they are they cover the foods not to be eaten during passover.
At the beach we heard lots of different languages, there is people from all over the world speaking in languages I don't even recognize. But there's somethings that don't need a common language to understand.
Near to where we were sitting was a group of men, I think speaking Hebrew or Arabic. They had a dog with them and this dog was having a great time digging in the sand.
A family walked by with a little puppy, the men's dog wanted to play and the puppy wasn't super into it, but one of the men scooped up the puppy and cuddled it like a little baby. He brought it over to his friends and they spent the next few minutes all cuddling the puppy.
So picture it a group of pretty buff (easy on the eyes, for sure) men cooing and cuddling an adorable puppy- they were completely in love with it and did not mind showing it. The family laughed and smiled warmly while chatting with them.
Then they went on there way down the beach. Didn't matter what language anyone spoke, everyone understood- puppies are awesome.
Later I went swimming, while I was venturing into the water - which was brisk, but not as cold as the Pacific - some other young women and friends were also going out for a swim.
It didn't matter that we didn't speak each other's language everyone understands the words and gestures for 'it's cold, but amazing.'
Didn't matter that I didn't know the language the guys were speaking - there's no mistaking a group of guys shouting at each other that their balls are crawling up to their hearts to get warm. It's a universal kind of thing.
The beach here is beautiful and everyone was there to relax and enjoy themselves. I couldn't help but think there are parts of Israel that are and will be very different from this experience and I wonder if I will feel guilty later on.
I'm very aware of my place of privilege right now - a couple of days at the beach, a very nice hotel costing us double what our bnb was, but we can afford it, we can pay for the convenience of not having to hunt around for the best deal while exhausted and in a very foreign place. Not ideal, to be sure, but not horrible either.
I think that what I'm experiencing here in Tel Aviv is one side of Israel. I love it, I really really do. What will I think when I see other sides?
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