Further case studies of my behavior in museums

Today we went over to Jaffa, which is the old part of Tel Aviv. Jaffa has been a port area for about 4000 years, whereas Tel Aviv was founded in 1909. I’ll post a few pictures of Jaffa below but first you need to see this recycle bin. It’s nice and full, but not as colorful as the one I saw yesterday. While I was admiring the bin, a man came up, reached his arm in, and removed a bottle, showing a commitment to recycling that I’ve never contemplated. And as I took my pictures, another tour member came over to photograph the bin. She was as equally mesmerized as I was and it’s clear that she will be my best friend on the tour.

Anyways, this is Jaffa. We didn’t do much there and it was one of those times that highlighted the weakness of the group tour structure – a lot of standing around listening when I wanted to wander off.

We did tour a museum there – the Ilana Goor museum. The building is from 1742 and first served as a safe place to sleep for Jews en route to Jerusalem. We had a guided art tour that I promptly opted out of and so I can’t relay any information. But the museum is wonderful. It’s exactly the kind of house I’d be in charge of decorating if I had no budget limitations. In the first picture, notice the spider corner. It serves as a bar area. In the second picture below, notice the stairs that one of our tour members fell down, necessitating a pit stop at the museum while we waited for an ambulance.

The roof of the house was decked out also – with sculptures and water features, all happily not for sale so Ron couldn’t bring that creepy guy home to sit outside his front door.

We left Jaffa and headed back into Tel Aviv to see another museum – the Yitzhak Rabin Center, commemorating his work as Prime Minister and detailing his political struggles, successes and his assassination in 1995. Our guide, Adina, says we won’t be talking politics, which is good because I can’t quite gauge the leanings of our 22 travel mates. But Adina made an exception for Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, condemning his actions and hoping that he perishes in prison during the hunger strike he is apparently maintaining right now.

At the museum, my headset was malfunctioning and so it only blurted out information about the exhibits randomly. I think about 80% of the intended information was omitted. I don’t really feel my understanding was limited by this as much as it was limited by my intellect. The land dispute situation in the Middle East is so complicated that there’s no helping me sort it out.

Tel Aviv is another city that I was not expecting to like so much. But it’s quite vibrant and youthful feeling. It’s also far more secular-looking than I was expecting. I imagine Jerusalem will be significantly different. Tomorrow we head north, up to Haifa. I think we’re seeing something archaeological up there.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pics I liked, showing the range of architectural styles here and my morning babka haul. There’s a Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George break into a house to recover a babka they feel is going to waste and now that I’m downing babka with every meal, I understand their motivation in not letting it go to waste. Good pastry I can appreciate even if politics eludes me.