Tel Aviv after the fact, Post #2

Meat Celebration!

Yes, that's right, Meat Celebration! On the last night in Tel Aviv, my co-workers and I went to a place called Banar near the Shalom Tower (formerly the tallest building in Tel Aviv and a place of many suicides, according to the locals). This was a grand adventure as we were unaccompanied by anyone who spoke Hebrew, so any trouble we got in would be our own. A good percentage of the population of Tel Aviv speaks English, so this usually isn't an issue.....until you have to read a menu.

When you go into a restaurant in Israel, sometimes saying "Anglit?" (English) will transform the menu into something that's read from left to right and often a few Shekels (Sheqalim is how it's written in English on the paper currency) higher in price than it is in Hebrew. Sometimes such luxuries aren't available, like in the Hummus shops or other counter-service places which have great food and are run by people who barely speak Hebrew and enjoy that Arabic is the other official language of Israel. At Banar, a regular restaurant with bar, tables, and comely waitstaff, the English menu was a flight of fancy.

However, the folks at Banar were more than happy to translate the menu once the ground rules had been established: "You do understand this is a....meat restaurant?" said the polite and attractive hostess, taking over from the bartendress who spoke English reasonably well, but lacked a Hebrew-English vocabulary to describe cuts of beef large enough to pacify lions. We all nodded that a meat restaurant was acceptable (I figured that we were in for something along these lines as the sign had a bull icon of some sort on it). She could have said that it was a boiled Kleenex restaurant and it might have been just as entrancing for some in my group, but, no, it was all about the meat. The hostess went through the side dishes which were pretty standard fare: arab salad(tomato, cucumber, and dill), green salad, antipasti, and tomato soup. As she went through the selections for the main course, however, the attention span extended by leaps and bounds.

"There is an entrecotte steak which is juicy, a premium entrecotte steak which is leaner and more tender, and then <some words I don't recall> which is from the flank and is also good. Each is per 100g and most cuts are 250-300g. The last one is called....hmmm....<pausing to think of the words> Meat Celebration."

"Meat Celebration? Please tell us more!" we all say in pseudo-harmony.

"It is a plate of all the meat I mentioned plus ground lamb...."

Quick exchanges of glances show quick approval from the group about the direction of the meal: "Great! We'll take 4 of them!"

"It is for 4 people, so you might only want one."

"How much do we get of each?"

"It's like....hmm...400g per person."

"SOLD!"

From there, the minor trivialities of side-dishes and beverages were dispensed and the focus squarely turned to the impending celebration of MEAT. In the interim, the owner came by and gave us each a shot of Stolichnaya on the house. Apparently, this is standard behavior in restaurants in Tel Aviv, although it was the only time it happened to us -- and we were without our local guides! We got another round of shots as we were processing the incredible pile of animal protein that was presented before us.....on 2 plates!

Needless to say, we all slept well that evening, most likely because our spleens emptied their contents and shot all the extra blood over to our stomachs. The blissful state of being logy is wonderful when induced by meat.

Apparently Leonardo DiCaprio and his Israeli model/girlfriend Raffy something-or-other were at the sushi restaurant across the way, but we didn't see them. Honestly, there wasn't anything that would tear me away from the Meat Celebration.

I understood how Harold and Kumar felt in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle when they completed their journey and polished off all the Sliders and Cokes. I wasn't stoned, either.

Tel Aviv trip report #1 (after the fact)

So I was too damn busy working and drinking in Tel Aviv to do any sort of punctual postings. D'oh!

The daily routine went something like this:

• Wake up somewhere between 8 and 10, depending on the previous night.
• Shower, eat breakfast, and be amazed at the amount of bread the French tourists would get for themselves (the stacks were probably 12" high).
• Catch a cab to the office in Ramat Gan.
• Be scared by some aspect of the cab ride/driver, either due to incidents of driving by braille in close quartered traffic or drivers singing and accosting random people for directions to the place I wanted to go after calling into the dispatch and getting laughed at for asking such a question.
• Training.
• Lunch. Mmmm. Yummy, government subsidized lunch.
• Training and practical exercises until about 8pm.
• Go back to hotel to "freshen up".
• Meet at 2130 to go eat.
• Find bars and consume disturbing amounts of alcohol. Enjoy until 0200-0400.
• Get food/water on the way home.
• Sleep some.
• Repeat routine, saving 2 nights for recovery.

More details to come; I am about to fall asleep in a Sheraton in Woodbridge, NJ as a N'orEaster bears down on the NY/NJ metro area. Flights have been canceled, including mine.

Being here sucks.
Traveling = fine. Home = fine.
Purgatorial limbo known as Newark != fine.

Not to Boston, but still Houston and Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv in 2 weeks. Not going to Boston now and I admit I'm pretty happy about that.

Certainly, there'll be other places I'll have to go, and that's fine by me. Boston isn't among my top five places to go. Sure, I still know a few people there and have a relative or two, but it's just not where I want to be.

Rather be at Glacier Park, actually. Someday, maybe.

Things I learned today....

• Anyone who said "It's about the journey, not the destination," never took commercial airlines to get to that destination. Ditto with the US "rail system" a/k/a Amtrak.
• From the Pacific NW, it takes a long time to fly anywhere interesting. Sure, we've got gorgeous scenery, ocean, mountains, and all things outdoors. However, if you just want to go someplace that actually looks different than it does around here, then you need to go a long way by plane or train.
• Very very very few flights across the USA are done in anything larger than a 757. Most are done in the "ultra-efficient" 737-700,-800, or -900. What does this mean? While new planes are nice, they are more and more adept at shoehorning more and more people in each plane as the airframe evolves. Accordingly, you get less space and are much less likely to get seated next to someone hot as you are the traveling salesman who's eaten once too many times at Applebee's or Garlic Jim's. Of course, if you're traveling with someone, then the chances of getting someone hot next to you go up. If you're traveling with child(ren), then substitute "cute" for "hot", since referring to your kid as "hot" probably doesn't go over well with strangers.

Why do I mention all of this nonsense?

I will be going to Houston, Boston, and then Tel Aviv all in the next 3 or so months. While the Tel Aviv trip will most likely have a 777 for the international portion, all the domestic flights will be on single-aisle jets for 4-6 hours at a shot. Ugh. The headphones can only cancel out so much noise from the person next to me who seems to have some sort of walrus-like breathing issue.

I like my personal space and prefer to share it only with those I invite into it. Airline travel basically invokes Imminent Domain and forces you into situations that normally would cause panic or at least erratic driving. Alas, though, this is the way of modern "convenience." Pack more in! More features, less space! Look at the Efficiency!

Ick.

I used to love flying, and part of me still does, although mostly the takeoff and landing routines. The strange contra-dance-like flight patterns at some of the airports can be fun, simply because of the things you see. Landings can be neat when the airport seems to come out of nowhere; landing at Oakland comes to mind where you come in over the Bay for a while then suddenly the runway pops up beneath the plane like someone pulling a pizza from the oven at a pizaa shop. That's pretty cool.

I've heard from my Dad and others that the landing pattern in Hong Kong is like that, only there are a lot more buildings involved. Same with Osaka, I think, if that's the one that's basically an airport that's 4-6 feet above sea-level on a man-made island.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Between the rally-driving that some of the approaches and takeoffs can be, well, there's about 4 hours of the flying equivalent of NASCAR. Yawn...left turn....yawn...slow right turn....yawn...meal service....yawn...whadda you mean $6 for this so-called sandwich?

Yeah, the sheen of flying's worn off. I don't even do it that much anymore. Guess I'm just on a trajectory to become a curmudgeon like Andy Rooney. Actually, there's no guessing.

I know it'll happen; I'm going to be a coot.