The past few months haven’t been easy. Not because of any real problem mind; I’ve gotten used to being constantly shekel-less and boyfriend-less and cleaning the bathroom is as automatic as waking up. Nope, the real tragedy lies in the knowledge that my time here, alas, is coming to an end. Since my December home-visit I’ve come to realise that unless I seriously get my head down and use all the tools at hand, I will wind up a shekel-less waitress forever. And as much as I enjoy meeting, greeting and serving the customers that walk through those doors, I am always the one left behind to clean up at the end of it, alone but for my mop and suds.

I know when the time comes, I’ll want to scream, wail and cling to the runway and they’ll probably have to drag me up the aircraft stairs. But I’ve got to face reality. I’m turning 24 and after a two-year stint in the fields of media and advertising, still have no real career to call my own. This place is dangerous for me; not because of any Palestinian/Syrian threat, but because I can happily la-la the day away in the sunshine, doing odd jobs here and there, going out all night and pottering about the flat or sitting in cafes all day. So suited am I to the lifestyle here, that I can feel perfectly contented, not getting anything of any real ‘substance’ done at all. My parents started to worry. I started to worry. Before I know it I could end up a 28 year old sun-wrinkled housewife with four havoc-wreaking Israeli children and a husband that was starting to resemble the shwarma-a-day he insisted on guzzling, living in residential Ramat-Gan. My stress-free life was becoming a serious hazard.

I decided that in order to actually ‘make something’ of my writing and myself, I’d have to go back to where the sun don’t shine, the people don’t flirt and nothing would distract me from actually er, writing. Although I did try to make journalistic contacts out here, with only five English-language publications, competition is pretty steep. London is a sea of opportunity, however grey, where I can enrol in a very well-credited course and attempt to hassle hundreds of editors to take a look at my work. It will be painful, it will be confidence-shattering and it will make me want to go back to that shwarma-faced hubby, but in the long run I’ll know I at least tried while I’m still semi-young to use the gifts the ‘Big Man’ up there gave me.

I’m hoping that by next year I’ll have honed my writing skills and made enough head-way to return and freelance-write out here for good. However, as much as this all makes sense in my head, every time I wake up to the fuzzy yellow light that fills my room, I wonder how I’m going to leave in a months’ time. Could it be that if I leave, they won’t let me back in? I feel like I’m about to break out of the perfect mirage I’ve lived in for a year and will lose it forever. Oh well, I haven’t much choice, so have decided to go out in style – with an afternoon knees-up at a local bar where I can get blind drunk, dance on tables and embarrass myself enough to know that I can’t ever return before a good year has passed.

Just as I had mastered the art of pushing to the front, running late for everything and knowing the cheapest market stands to buy from, the week of Israel’s 60th anniversary came along and threw me completely off-track. Over the past week, strange sirens woke me up, fighter jets boomed through the skies and everyone I know is attending memorial ceremonies here there and everywhere. I was feeling very much in the dark and no matter how much I asked for explanations and warnings of the next ceremonial ‘occasion’, things kept catching me off-guard. It seemed I still had a long way to go to shake my British-tourist status and become a real Israeli.

It all began last Wednesday night, which marked Holocaust Memorial Day. Every single shop, kiosk, eatery and entertainment place was closed, TV station suspended and person sent home to spend the night commemorating the six million victims of that awful genocide. Tel Aviv was completely silent, apart from the specially-broadcasted Holocaust movies and documentaries that were playing out quietly from each living room.
Not quite knowing how sombre and respectful this night would be, but wanting to play it safe, I’d luckily stocked up at the usually open-24-hour supermarket earlier in the day.
It was unbelievably depressing, as I sat there, the stillness of the city hovering around my apartment, watching ‘Schindlers List’. But as I munched on chocolate biscuits (my only comfort) I felt satisfied to be feeling this way and to be a part of such a nation-wide tribute to the Jewish people’s suffering. The internet reported the next morning that while I was still rushing from work, the Prime Minister had been broadcast in a special ceremony at Yad Vashem to hail in the evening. Strike 1.

The next morning I was awoken to a haunting wail but thought it was simply someone practicing an unidentified musical instrument. I continued to roll around in bed, until a friend called to check if I’d stood and kept silent for the 2 minutes it resounded throughout all of Israel. Strike 2.

Over the next few days I saw the Israeli flag popping up on cars, balconies and shop-fronts in preparation for Israel’s Independence day, which was to fall exactly a week later.

Another morning in bed. The sound of the sky caving in interrupted my slumber. I lay there a few seconds, trying to attribute the mega-watt rumbling to something I could understand and return to sleep, but I couldnt. I peered out of the window to see an aircraft like I’d only seen in movies, an almost-flat, triangular death-machine whizzing low above the city. Convinced I was about to be bombed and inwardly cursing myself for not calling the number that had been posted through my letterbox for a gas-mask, I found I couldn’t move. The rumbling sky had me fixated to the spot. I eventually snapped out of it and frantically dialled my cousin, who swiftly hung up on me (she was at work). I ran to the other window and saw people in the streets clapping as the death-machine flipped 360 degrees and performed aero-gymnastics. Turns out it was just practicing for a military air display that had been scheduled for Independence Day. My heart-rate returned to normal. Strike 3.

And then it was the following Tuesday evening, when the city shut its eyes and its amenities to pay tribute to the 22,437 Israeli soldiers who died defending their country since its birth. It’s also a night to remember the 1,634 civilian victims of terror attacks that have plagued the country and its people. This time I was prepared. When the siren sounded at 8pm for one minute, I stood and was silent. However I failed to expect a third and final one, which howled the next morning while I was still mid-dream.

By the time the soldiers’ memorial day ended, at 8pm on Wednesday, and gave way to the 60th Independence Day, the mood of the city had lifted to the height of the Israeli flags that were flapping from the top of every building. The city was a blanket of blue and white. All week a buzz had been building around people’s plans for the night and I’d been hearing of street party after street party. Wanting to stay in Tel-aviv and see the city celebrating, but with a group of friends who had ‘been there done that’ for the past twenty something years, I was talked into going to a kibbutz party 40 minutes from the city. Strike 4. We did however manage to join the rest of Tel-aviv in attending a barbeque beforehand, during which the entire city smelt like burgers and barbequed onions in the hours leading up to the real celebrations.

We exited Tel Aviv after a half hour trying to find a route around the temporarily pedestrianised streets and I waved goodbye to the fireworks and music stages I could glimpse from my car seat. But hey, I was going to a kibbutz party!
It was overflowing with Israeli-ness. Messy field-parking, a ramming-the-crowd exercise to reach the ‘selector’, also known as the rude girl disallowing entry due to age/looks/ anything in particular she wants, another Tetris of bodies surrounding the ticket booth and another exercise in shoving your way through the slim gap in the fence to the party.
Turns out I’m really not as good as I thought at any of the above and by the time I was inside I wanted to leave this awful place and hitch-hike home.

But we stuck it out and ended up drowning out our initial trauma with some unbelievably potent Israeli-vodka. Soon the place was a whirl of lights and music and we were having a great time. I was running over to every uri, avi or udi to dance my flip-flops off with and suddenly, after a year of living here but refusing to speak the language, caught the wave and was rambling on in pidgeon-Hebrew to everyone in a ten-metre vicinity. However, I ended up being a little too smiley to a guy my cousin had had her eye on and ended the night apologising profusely, like the British girl I am. Turns out I can’t handle Israeli vodka but at least it brought out the Israeli in me. For a short time anyway.

The next day brought the week’s ceremonies to an end, with an awesome naval and IAF (Israeli Air Force) display. Thousands came out to watch the show that covered the skies and seas with planes, jets, helicopters, parachuters, ships, sailing boats, submarines and a million other aircraft and navel models I couldn’t name. My old jet-fighter friend showed off in a heart-stopping routine, whereby it broke the sound barrier as it accelerated full-throttle vertically into the sun, then turned off its engines, free-fell towards us and then slid into its fancy 360 degree flip-trick. The sun was beating down the entire afternoon and good energy sweated out from the crowd, proud to see the air and naval force that has protected them for the past 60 years.

It’s been an incredibly eye-opening and unforgettable week. While I indeed started it a little ‘in the dark’, it seems it was meant to be that way. At least now I can certainly say I ended it immersed by the hot sun, newly-informed and proud to be a part of this seemingly young, but in fact thousands-years-old nation.

A few days ago, via a cyberspace platform, I wished happy birthday to an old work friend; someone whose rare pureness of mind and good nature had marked her out as a ‘good ‘un’ and preserved a space for her in my phone contacts, although we hadn’t spoken since my arrival in Tel-aviv nearly a year ago.
It was a warm but brief message of appropriate feeling, slightly generic but livened up with a few exclamation marks - you know the kind.

Expecting a simple ‘thank you and take care’, I was surprised to hear that she had decided to take off from the UK for a year to live in her family’s middle-Eastern homeland. The news that she was ‘doing a runner’, like I had done the year previously, induced a mad keyboard-tapping session, resulting in a message of encouragement and excitement that I realised had been sitting inside my subconscious for too long without being properly exposed in my regular ramblings. I therefore felt inclined to share with you the reply I made, for it captured in a short space more than I knew was in my heart.

Rafi,

Wow your move is going to be wonderful. You only live once, no point spending it trapped in the same place.
We are lucky we have outside bases to call home and feel a part of.

I’m good, not looking forward to returning ‘home’ but know it’s only so that I can drive my writing forward and eventually return to try and make a living as a freelance writer out here in Tel-Aviv. I just love the lifestyle and feel in my bones that this is where I am meant to be. I felt half dead in London and for that reason drowned myself in going out, drinking, and doing things that are not 'me'.
Here I wake up every morning and feel like I actually want to get out of bed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m broke every week as the salaries are dire, but it’s not a culture that requires as much money. Everyone’s in the same boat, enjoying life on what they have and looking after the pennies together. You can go out all night here without spending a cent as bars don’t charge entry fee, you can walk everywhere and people just don’t drink so heavily. I hardly go shopping but then again I’m surrounded by people in flip-flops and shorts; if I was buying the type of expensive clothes I wore in London I’d be positively laughed at!

The weather is wonderful and the scenery is just unbelievable. The people are warm and connected through their nation’s turbulent history so that really only the important things matter here - family, love and having fun. Israelis work as a means to an end; they rarely finish work and go straight home, no matter what age.

Ok enough yabbering. All im trying to show is that London life can be such a bubble, kept intact by status and good money oppurtunities. It can suck you in and dissolve the world around it. When you get the chance to leave you see what life can really offer.

I know you will be extremely happy as you appreciate the more important things in life other than just a good salary, which I’m sure with your experience you could make out there also.

Take care sweetie and enjoy your new adventure, it's going to be great!


She replied to me with a huge amount of gratuity and thanks, and I felt good, not only for helping her on her journey to a new life, but for reminding myself why it is I am out here.

Now I have to admit I had found myself in a bit of a rut lately. As much as I love waking up each morning out here, I was beginning to feel the absence of reliable and close friends, family or any half-decent love interest. Work shifts lessened as my bosses tested out new staff to prepare for my departure (roughly 2 months away). I was feeling inactive and old and friends were starting to drag me out by the ear to our once-weekly hangout. Then a bout of illness confined me to my bed for a fortnight and plunged me further into inexistence.

So it couldn’t have come at a better time, when a friend of mine invited me along to a three day Eilat trip, organised by the university she graduated from last year. Having always intended to visit this top premier resort, where many Israelis and tourists alike find themselves on holiday, and pretty certain I may start decomposing any time soon, I eagerly accepted. A couple of bikini-buying and bikini-waxing sessions later, we were boarding the coach, which was to take us 5 hours away to a four star hotel that had been booked out exclusively to the 1000 students that were soon to beer-bottle their way in.

The start was shaky. No longer creatures of the campus, my friend and I joined the bus only after it had left the university, so on stepping aboard were stuck with the last seats left: two in the middle back row. The aisle gangway lay ahead, its perimeter perfect for two hurtling pairs of arms and legs. On discovering an absence of seatbelts, we crossed our fingers and both wondered whether we weren’t a little too old for this nonsense. Although everyone was roughly the same age as me, my student life had ended three years prior and these days I preferred a good movie to a wild night on the tiles.

But of course I was in Israel and here it is the army and not university that follows high school for 18 year olds. While I had been clubbing by the Brighton Sea and stressing over my essay word-count, the guys and girls sitting around me had been shooting rifles, encoding military intelligence systems or patrolling the 40 degree desert in full-bodied army uniforms. If anyone ever needed to let loose, it was these army graduates. I decided to turn back the clock and make the best of it. After all, you’re only as young as you feel.
My friend however couldn’t fight nature and slept the entire journey as a result of watching TV until 2am the night before. As the coach resounded with banter and song, I soon found myself following her lead. It was the last sleep we would get for 48 hours.

A whirl of bags, reception desk-arguments and room keys later, we found ourselves heading out to the pool, where a full blown teen-movie-style party was in process. Hundreds of semi-naked guys and girls surrounded the water, their plastic vodka-filled plastic cups glinting in the sunlight. Inside, beach balls were being flung around, as were the people flinging them and music blared out from the DJ booth. As surreal as it all seemed, the mood was infectious and I was soon tossing my hair around with the best of them, feeling light-headed from the vodka and semi-indulging the semi-naked sleazebag trying to chat me up. I was 18 again! My friend also got into the swing of things and was enjoying a back massage from some other unknown. A complimentary bottle of wine and chocolates welcomed us on returning to the room and as we sat out on the balcony, any doubts we’d had soon fizzed away inside our glasses.

The next two days flew past in an array of sunbathing, swimming, pool-gaming, drinking and dancing; while the nights flashed by in largely the same manner. Although it’s been a year, I never did absorb the Mediterranean mentality to prance around in next to nothing. Probably something to do with the fact I looked a lot less ‘American Pie’ and a lot more ‘Apple Pie’ bopping amongst them. In my specifically purchased black tummy-disguise-tankini however, I felt confident enough to day-dance amongst the scantily-clad size zero Israeli beauties. Meeting people was as easy as um, pie and the more I socialised, the more I felt my mood rocketing and youth flooding back into my former self-pitying Bridget Jones-veins.

Since returning, I have found it pretty much impossible to stay indoors and am currently planning my fifth night out in a row. Damn this writing obsession of mine. If only I had one of those careers that required a second degree - going to University out here would be an experience.

Before my move to spend a year in Tel Aviv, I was pretty much ignorant of the complicated political situation that has over-shadowed Israeli life since its birth in 1948.
I had never attended a Jewish school or read up on Jewish history and my family were never ones to openly discuss the problems threatening their relatives across the seas. From my safe, suburban North London bubble, Israel had for the most part remained the beautiful palm-treed beach-land where we had holidayed many a time and I was determined to leave behind my life of relative luxury to experience it.

This ignorance stayed with me throughout my first six months here. As I lounged in the summer sun, strolled through the bustling markets, worked in various cafes and restaurants, partied in open-topped sea-front bars and generally exhausted myself, I felt more alive than ever. The ‘danger’ that many of my friends back home had flapped about felt as unapparent as clouds in the clear blue sky. But the more I fell in love with Israel, the more I wanted to know about it and the history of my roots. I bought books, read-up on the Internet and asked questions for the first time, and began to realise just how incredible the Israeli nation and its people are, sixty years on from its birth.

I was largely unaware of the extent of terror that the Israelis have had to live alongside. While I had been happily hopping onto buses, frequenting malls, sitting in cafes and attending large public concerts and shows, the people around me had witnessed either first hand or on the news, suicide bombers blow these same places and the people inside them to bits. Tel Aviv however, has not become a ghost city and remains as full of activity and chatter as any part of London, if not more. Israelis also live within the target region of what some call the ‘New Missile Middle East’ (Rosenthal, The Israelis, p.22), with Hezbollah’s development of short-range missiles able to reach a northern third of Israel and Iraq and Iran screaming out for its annihilation. Yet they refuse to altar their daily routine through fear, going about their daily lives with even more ‘chutzpah’ than before. It’s no wonder that cars routinely park where they shouldn’t and smokers ignore restrictions in bars and restaurants. Life is too short to be taken too seriously out here.

A country is its people and with everything that plagues them, the Israelis put on a brave face and live life to the full. They are infectiously vibrant and Tel Aviv continues to flourish with a growing number of tourists, not forgetting the thousands of Jews that make aliya each year. It is certainly relevant that the logo chosen for Israel’s 60th anniversary expresses the struggles experienced in the past 60 years, but also ‘movement of upward flight and growth’ (stated by the PR firm that created it). Israel and its people have marched forward past its traumas back into the normality that everyone here dreams will stay for good.

Being ill in the UK can sometimes seem like a blessing. Instead of waking up in 6am darkness and dashing half-naked around a freezing bedroom, you can spend a few more hours nestling into your good companion, the duvet. A morning sick, is a morning free from suffocating yourself with your hat, gloves and scarf-armour, all of which is essential to protect you from the rainy, blustery skies waiting outside your front door. This morning there’ll be no racing to the bus stop as your bus approaches, only to realise you’ve forgotten your umbrella/phone/work ID. You won’t have to arrive to work late and face your boss’s wrath due to subsequent splashing through the puddles home to fetch lost items.

Yes you may be feeling not so hot with that throat/tummy/bladder infection, but conditions are perfect to console your pains. Phil and Fern can keep you company into midday, the ‘Loose Women’ will have you hooked until lunchtime. You realise you haven’t eaten anything and can stick a sick-day pizza into the oven. Another encounter with your duvet takes you into late afternoon and when you wake up, you can lose yourself in a good book as the icy winds howl past your window.

No doubt about it, contracting the latest cold, flu, virus or bug can be quite an enjoyable break from the work-in-all-weather lifestyle inflicted on Londoners, so much so that we’ve all lengthened our bed-rest a day or two after we’ve recovered, haven’t we?

Being ill in Israel however, is comparable to finding yourself in a teen movie, where you’re the geeky nerd that’s been excluded from the biggest party of the semester (to use an American word). For two weeks now, I’ve been holed up with bronchitis, coughing my guts up and I can feel the blue skies taunting me for not being on the beach, in a park or in a café with friends. Not much chance of that when everyone’s avoiding me for fear of catching the lurgies. I most probably contracted it from work, where the customers can’t see through the smoke to read their menus. The bosses are trying to quit their 3 pack-a-day habit and hopefully the fact that they’re killing their only full-time waitress will be helpful motivation.

As Tel Aviv reverberates with movement and sound under the hot sun, I’m stuck with only my television provider, ‘Hot’ and it’s not much of one for us English speakers. All the decent chat, cookery and general daytime TV is in Hebrew so we end up trapped in a warp of movie channels and annoying American news stations. There are no dull skies to help pull our eyelids shut and put our minds to sleep, only restlessness and doubly-long seconds. With the fridge ‘of a druggie’, as one friend once commented and no brilliant fresh soups or ready-to-eat-risottos in Israeli supermarkets, I find myself resorting to hummus and crackers, but it doesn’t have the same comfort-factor somehow. I really must start stocking my fridge up with more than yoghurts, wine and cottage cheese.
Conditions are also not ideal for delving into my books, as the tiled and minimalist apartment lacks the cosy, cluttered, claustrophobic and therefore book-perfect environment present within most UK-dwellings.



It’s no surprise that the UK worker takes an average of eleven casual sick days a year, as reported by Mat Snow in The Guardian Online (March 8th 2008). It is so much more fun to be sniffling in the snow, although at least when I’ve recovered I’ll want to get back out there, rather than having to be dragged from my duvet.