Tales from the Coffee Shop

So, I am sitting on the patio of a trendy coffee shop in Tel Aviv right now trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm sitting on the patio of a trendy coffee shop in Tel Aviv. I just had this amazing watermelon juice drink and am waiting on my feta and eggplant sandwich on brown ciabatta bread. Then I'm going to continue working on my writing. Not to shabby.

Anywhere you sit outside in Tel Aviv you will see cats. There are a ridiculous number of wild cats here and I have no idea why. We were at a burger place the other day and a cat jumped onto one of the chairs at our table and begged for food. When we put him down he just jumped right up again. There was another time when my friend Miriam and I were heading out of the campus gate to go downtown when she had to run up to her apartment to get something she forgot. As I was waiting downstairs for her, six cats (that's not an exaggeration; there really were six cats) surrounded me because they wanted food. As I write this, a cat is walking along the ledge right beside me.

I'm allergic to cats.

It's also interesting because dogs are allowed in many restaurants here. In fact, there is a dog sitting with his owner at the table across from me. The waitress even brought him a bowl with water in it. Are there places in the U.S. like this? I can't think of any.

You know what else they do here? They bring toothpicks to the table when you are done with your meal. This has been the case at every restaurant I've been to here, which I think is interesting. In the U.S. they might have toothpicks by the door that you can grab before you leave, but there they assume that you will leave in a timely manner. Here, people take their time to eat and drink. They stay for hours. I guess the servers just assume that you might as will pick your teeth while you sit.

~~~~~~~

So yesterday was Tu B'Av here, which is the Israeli Valentines Day. The only reason I even knew about it was because a couple of us were at Max Brenner the other day (Max Brenner is an Israeli company that specializes in making cholcolate, but their restaurants also serve food) and it was clear from all the red hearts that something was up. Our waitress told us that Tu B'Av was on Monday. But on Monday no one even talked about it. It isn't nearly as big of a holiday here as Valentines Day is in the U.S. But it's interesting because the U.S. made Tu B'Av a big deal there. A friend of mine in the States was telling me about an article he read (I think it was in the New York Times) that talked about how there was a speed dating event in some cave in Jerusalem. Supposedly, one of the guys who went to this event felt sure that he was going to find true love in that cave. I hope he did.

How did I celebrate Tu B'Av? Me and three of my girlfriends went and ate sushi together. Then I watched Couple's Retreat on TV with Hebrew subtitles and finished my homework.

Hmmm, what else? My shower is still leaking and I still have to bag my own groceries, but I am having the time of my life.