Tel Aviv - City of

First of all thanks to the company where I work for giving us an opportunity to go to Tel Aviv in Israel for training purpose.
When we first broke the news about that we will be going to Tel Aviv initial response or knee jerk questions from colleagues and friends were:
- Make sure you get yourself a bullet-proof jacket.
- Get some bullets from there.
- Take care don't go out much you might never know where a rocket would come from.
and few more which I don't remember.

So we take an El Al Airlines an Israeli National Airlines (it is not run by the government) where we have to reach the airport 4 hours before our flight which was at 11:35 PM. As we all know about the famous Israeli defense system and their security checks, we reach there by 7 PM.
Four of us together from same company were told to go in together and were separately asked questions by the El Al Airline Security Team.
Question set were as follows:
- So tell me what do you do?
- Why are you going to Tel Aviv?
- How many days you are going to work there?
- What is your role in the company?
Now things start to get weirder
- What is the role of the person standing right of you (pointing at my colleague)
- Which development tool he will work on ? (what do you know about development tools)
- How long do you know each other?
- Who are you in contact with in Tel Aviv?
Now some eyebrow raising stuff
- Can you show me the mail of your training itenery?
- Can you open the doc from this mail?
- What is a QA Process? (wow he looked at a word in a document and ask me that?)

Note: A lady next to me going back to Israel had gone to a trip to Goa (yes everyone goes there) and she had bought a pack of sausages and wrapped them very well the security made them open all the wrapped stuff....at times they can be ruthless and also they checked out her photos from the camera.


So let us get back to my trip, after the questioning the security people go over to each other and cross check if the things match and I did a small screw up saying that the laptop was mine which was not and then after few more questions they were satisfied they let me in for the boarding pass.
Then the regular stuff till we enter the plane, immigration, late Dinner at the airport, a bit of shopping from the duty free shopping.
And we enter the aircraft at 11 PM and got the back row seats, we settled down and after half an hour delay the flight takes off. We were served drinks which included alcohol/juices/wine etc and then the dinner which boiled chickpeas, chicken gravy, steam rice, bread and sweet to know more check out my other blog.

Landed half an hour late and we got off the airport pretty smooth, except for one small mishap where I thought I kept my camera in the Red Channel of the customs and it was in the bag so all in all a stupid first mistake there. Company where we were going for training had got us a car which dropped us at our apartment.

The backstory of the apartment: In Tel Aviv lot of places you can rent an apartment for a week or 2 by giving certain amount per day which depends on where you stay and how big is the apartment. You can get a studio apartment from $90 a night to $300. a night with swimming pool and other things included. The apartment we stayed in was a 3BHK near the center of the city and it was in the basement. Place was clean, self sufficient with basic things such as fridge, microwave, stove, washing machine, water heater etc etc. 

Back to the story, we were taken in a Mercedes at around 5 am in the morning, first things noted big roads, no potholes, beautiful view and empty yep it was 5 am. We reached our apartment by around 6 and as not everyone could sleep properly 2 went off to sleep while the other 2 were updating the Indian Team that we have reached safely.
Note: Everyone will convert your dollars to shekels I mean everyone from a Taxi driver to a small store just know how much is the current conversion rate and take it around that.

So 2 of us decided to get some breakfast and hoped to find some stores open and we did one which we bought milk packs, kellogs, cheese, breads for our breakfast and as went further down we noted that the beach is just a 5 minute walk. As we did not wanted to be late for our first day we rushed back had our breakfast and had a cold shower with temperature outside hovering around 16 degrees as we did not know where the switch was, later discovered it was near the door.

Went out called out the taxi which was VW Passat and took our first trip to the Oberon Media office in Raoul Wallenberg or Raul Vallenberg (there are places with same pronunciation but different spellings) we reached there in 20 mins through a sea of big moving traffic and as it is written in lots of website about the erratic driving, I must say they are really cool lane crossing was not that much just a few and drive was smooth.

Reached the office and did the initial greetings and it was all meetings and presentations.We were taken to an American Eating place which was just in the parallel street, place had a well stocked bar, sandwiches, pastas, salads, burgers were on the menu and each of us tried a different thing (well few got the same stuff).
Few interesting things you will notice in a restaurant in Israel:
- They will give you something to eat before you order anything like Garlic breads, pita breads, salads just to keep you going
- In the business time they give you special deals like Business lunch, mini lunch etc etc
- Food portions are huge
- Waitresses are hot (they may be college going kids but hot)
- Very efficient if the food is ready anyone will come and serve you
- There is different Menu Card for English and Israeli speaking people.

The road has all kind of restaurants Fish, Beef special, Thai, Italian, Turkish, McDonald and most of them are full during the lunch hour which is from 1 PM to 2 PM.  Well the cost and quantity go hand in hand huge quantity of food for around 60 shekels is a good deal make sure you tip the waiter as well 10% of the bill.

We asked about why the big quantity of food served in the hotel and our training head answered "In Israel we are generous with food to our guest so in a restaurant if you get a small portion of food that place would be called as cheap and no one would go there. So that is why the quantity of food is so much"

On our way back we took a bus run by the government and it is so similar to the AC busses which BEST have launched here super suspension, button doors but one thing is missing the conductor here pay the driver and they will give you the change back. The journey is so awesome where you see different kind of people going back home and we see the other part of the city which is like our suburbs but much cleaner. The cost of traveling by bus is also not that much way cheaper than the Taxi does take lot of time but makes you see new roads.

Important roads in Tel Aviv:
After I went there, I came to know English ruled Israel for around 30 years from 1918 to 1948 and that was the reason we found lot of English Road names such as King George, Allenby road, Gordon road, Tempeldor Street etc.
We stayed in Hevron/Hebron street which is connecting the famous Tempeldor street where there is graveyard of famous personalities of Israel.
Dizengoff Street: This is a shopping street where you will find super cool stores and good eating places. Also there is a big bridge kind of thing where people can relax and just gaze around. There is a flea market every Thursday and Friday
Allenby Street: This is called the Party Street, lots of clubs and disco added with strip bars and lots of pizza place.

Beach: It is a stretch of around 4.5 KMS approximately where you can just walk down or take a cycle and go till Jaffa aka Yafo. There are big footpaths where you can cycle your way and see the amazing views. On Fridays and Saturdays the beach is almost full and you can just chill where no one will come and tell you buy something.
Port: It was a real port once upon a time and then they shifted to a new place leaving this place barren but some wise people used the empty warehouse for restaurants, shops and clubs. The view is super awesome always windy and never empty. 


Note: There is a shop called AM PM which is open 24x7 and they have practically everything. You can buy a beer and can give them back the bottles where you can get 1.20 Shekels per empty bottle which is super cool.

People: As it is said People make the city and I found some of the coolest people around, you be from anywhere, wear anything, do anything (it does not mean running naked and hitting people) people do not care. They just go about their business and enjoy their life. The people like to eat and drink and also exercise so you will rarely find a fat man. Met a taxi driver who is 80 year old and still goes for morning walk without fail (which actually put all us young guys in shame).

For more photos check out:
Link 1
Link 2

Will update on Jerusalem and Jaffa aka Yafo