Old Jaffa

Day 11, Thursday, Oct 21: Old Jaffa

“The eyes of Texas are upon you.  That is the sound they sing.. well – SOUNDS LIKE HELL!”

This is how our day began. For thirty minutes Will sang himself the Aggie War Hymn until the alarm went off at seven and no longer could we pretend we were still sleeping.

The plan was to head down to Old Jaffa, one of the oldest ports in the world and an ancient city that is now encompassed by Tel Aviv.  It’s also our last chance for any
kind of souvenir shopping, outside of the airport.  So, on a side note, if you thought you were getting a present and don’t, just know it’s not because we don’t love you.  It is only because the shopping over here was underwhelming, at best.

Old Jaffa was pretty cool beans.  It is very impressive that it has been a working port for 4,000 years.  Will liked the story of the sea monster and Andromeda. Supposedly, some rocks just off the coast are where the offered her up as a virgin sacrifice.

The visitor’s center with the 3BC ruins was closed for renovations so we mostly just wandered. It is a surprisingly artsy area and we saw some very nice things for
very high prices.  So, we went to the flea market.

It was a bit of a cross between your usual Trader’s Village crap-a-thon (used scissors anyone?) and some quite eclectic stores.  One of them had props from old American film; several Blue’s Brothers statues, a life size Superman and a hodge-podge of other interesting things – but nothing that was even remotely related to Israel.  There were also some very interesting restoration shops that were selling old doors, refinished furniture
etc.  I simply wasn’t in the market for shipping large items home.

I do think there is quite a niche for a Christian-centric shop.  There’s nothing beyond a random cross or picture of Jesus outside of Jerusalem, Bethlehem or the airport.

Anyhoo, we wandered, we flea marketed, we ate falafel, we headed back to Herzliya.  Dave went to see the guys at Noble again then returned the car (what a rip, the taxes and fees were almost as much as the rental).

We gave Will some playtime at the very cool Spider Park and then headed back for our requisite end-of-trip laundry time!

It’s definitely time to head home.  We went to a little pizza place on the square and were so desperate for pepperoni that we consented to cut up hot dog.  Guess what?  It tasted like cut up hot dog on a pizza.  I took mine off but it worked out because SBW was much more interested in eating hot dogs than pizza.

There’s so much more I’d like to see but it’s time to go home.

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Next Israel Post: That’s it. Israel’s done. I’ll get back to SBW, now.