Tel Aviv

Back on the ship, I realized that I heard more Russian spoken today than Hebrew. We must have been in the heart of Russian emigre land. They all looked and sounded like my grandmother. I also noticed a large number of Africans and Jewish Ethiopians. In fact, we rode through the “hood” on our one-hour bus trip from the port of Ashdod to Tel Aviv. As always, uniforms were everywhere. All young people have compulsory military duty here. With so much at stake for the Israelis everyone has to be fully trained and expect the worst. Uzis were everywhere. Security, as always, is tight. You can't enter a bus station, train station or shopping mall without being wanded and having your belongings searched. I'm all for it if it means they are secure and have a little peace in their lives. A child's balloon burst in the mall we were in today and everything stopped dead for a minute. It was quite a sight. A funny thing happened for the second time. Just like the other day in Italy, someone asked us for directions in Hebrew. Second time in a week. I guess we look like locals wherever we are. People were late in getting to the ship for the third time. I don't understand how they can be so inconsiderate and irresponsible. Tomorrow we will be in our second Israeli port, Haifa. No plans yet. We might just get on a train or bus and see where we end up.