Tel Aviv (be forewarned, this is a bit convoluted, but wanted to get it posted, so, there ya go. :-))

Friday we left Haifa pretty early and slept on the lovely air-conditioned bus down to Tel Aviv (about an hour and a half). Our guide boarded the bus in Tel Aviv and directed our driver where he wanted to start the tour. Clearly an experienced guide, he chose as his first stop: coffee and bathroom. He got to it before anyone could even ask. Very wise. ;-)

Then we had a two-hour walking tour from shade to shade around a historic part of Tel Aviv. He told us that records were being broken by how hot it was that day, so we did our best to keep cool. (And my friend pointed out that every week they tell us it is the hottest day of the year…it just keeps getting hotter. Woot.)

In archeology, a Tel is a hill that was created by one civilization on top of another. So it represents the concept of "old". And Aviv is the Hebrew word for the season of spring, indicating “new”. So Tel Aviv is like calling a city “Old New”, although in a more poetic, pretty way.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on land bought from a Bedouin tribe.

The new settlers got right to work cultivating the land, and now it is a thriving metropolis. (You can see below the same two plots of land where the above two pictures were taken a century ago, and how everything has changed. Wow.)

As they set up their tents, and later built their houses, they left an open line through the middle because there was a dry riverbed. Later, they filled this up to make a boulevard, but for many years it was only functional. The city in this area was not attractive, and not much appreciated.

Ten years ago, as the mayor renovated the city to beautify it, he added walkways, bikeways, trees, benches, and flowers. Now it is a wonderful little meandering-way. It reminds me a lot of towns in central California and Oregon, with all the bikers, dog walkers, friends promenading, and little restaurant kiosks all along the way.

Our guide took us to the first kiosk built in Tel Aviv, where I got a cappuccino (and saw what I think was my first sighting of “Splenda” in Israel—the coffee here doesn’t need sugar, so whatever, but it was fun to see it, anyway),

and he showed us where the Herzliah once stood. The Herzliah secondary school was the only one at the time to employ Hebrew as the main language of instruction. It was a great landmark of history until it was torn down in 1962 to make room for the Shalom Meir Tower, which has a tunnel through it to make traffic flow easily under it.

The Shalom tower was the first skyscraper in Tel Aviv, but now is surrounded by many skyscraping friends on all sides, as well as parks, industrial buildings, and the Israeli stock exchange.

We got to see Independence Hall where the mayor now lives, and where the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948 when the British forces left and the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, declared its existance based on the 1947 UN Partition Plan. For a little over a year it was the capitol of Israel, while the status of Jerusalem was still in dispute. Still now, a lot of the international “stuff” is done in Tel Aviv.

Our tour was mostly an architecture tour, noting the different styles erected during different time periods. In the 1920s, there was a great influx of Polish Jews due to a not-so-friendly leader, and they brought with them the “eclectic” style, with a lot of symmetry and beauty.

After the wars, when thousands of people were arriving all the time, it was most important to create enough affordable living spaces, furniture, etc. to house them all, rather than the most pretty. Thus the switch to the Bau Haus movement. This movement stressed accessibility for people living in poverty, so there was a lot of mass-produced items, and big windows for lots of air and light for the new houses, following the decree that “Form Follows Function”. Very functional, not so much caring about looks. (And, btw, apparently the Bau Haus movement is quite anti-symmetry.) UNESCO declared these buildings landmarked, so now they are not allowed to be torn down, saving them as windows into history.

And finally rose the Brutalism technique in the 50s to the 70s which you can see all over Israel (and beyond, I’d say). It is very familiar to me, so I think probably it is probably all over California, too. It is the style on stilts with the stacco texture and beige color:

One cool thing we learned was that when an entrepreneur, or architect or whoever wants to build in Tel Aviv where there is a protected building, they have to first renovate the old building (which costs a bundle, but since Tel Aviv real estate is super awesome people do it), and then add their desired skyscraper to it. So all over the place there are these really nice looking old-fashioned buildings that are, like, the base for the big shiny window-filled skyscrapers.

Let’s see, what else? We saw a mobile advertisement for an exterminator, and then our tour ended with a couple hours of free time at the market. We found some lunch (Falafel, what else? ;-)) and had a good relaxing time walking around and "window" shopping. I also ordered an orange juice all in Hebrew, which I was pretty excited about (forget that it was only three words, but hey *shrug*, have to be excited with each little accomplishment. :-))

The market had the three sections I’ve seen in many other countries. The food section, the mass-produced, brand-named flea market-type place, and the hand-crafted arts and craft section. I was very impressed in the art section because it seemed to me that almost every artist had his or her own craft! Other markets I’ve been to have the same things over and over. You know, get your prints of tourist pictures here, there, and there, get your hanging whatnots over there, there, or there, and get your glassblown vases there and there, etc. But I saw so many crafts I’ve never seen before, and not very many repeats. I held off on getting souvenirs for now, since I’ve got quite some time before heading back stateside, but I did get a little potted mint plant. I named her Nana (which is Hebrew for mint—I know, unique right?) and she is sitting happily in my room now, a reddish pot on a green scarf that covers the table. Beautiful.