Tuesday, July 15, 2008, Tel Aviv

Today was the final day in Israel. We thought of going to Haifa in the morning and spending the rest of the day walking around the city - there were several flea markets.

As we approached the car rental place we saw that the car is no longer there. I was pretty sure he already rented it off to someone else and sure enough he did. Key dropping off was symbolic.

We walked around most of the day. The market near the King David is pretty interesting - there are lots of artists making handicrafts similar to what is available in stores but of lower quality and price. There were some cute things like "mystical" photos of Hasidic jews superimposed on the background of Torah, a cone with a stick with a stuffed toy on the end - you can "hide" the stuffed toy in the cone and make it peek out. We got one for Georgia.

A cute "Israeli" moment was when we came up to a street bread vendor and asked to get a bagel-like thing. Dan held out his palm with about 10NIS on it. The lady could not control her instincts. She grabbed his hand, counted off all of the coins, pulled us close to her, whispered quietly that she will give us something special, and gave us the bagel we wanted and two other ones. Obviously you don't do that with large denominations :), but it was funny.

The flea market near Dissenhof fountain is kind of yucky - lots of vendors selling nasty old trinkets, corroded coins, and old pictures.

We also walked around Neve Tsedek again. It is the prettiest part of Tel Aviv. Rotchild avenue is also not bad but it was very hot and there are few trees.

In the evening we met with Miri from the GCP near Sheraton Moriah. It was good catching up. Had a shake in the same place as before.

At night we went to the Manta Ray restaurant. I was there last time and did not even notice that it is on the beach. Pretty shameful. My only justificate is that we must have been working really hard. The place is really nice and the food is good. Don't overdo on the salads - the portions are pretty big.

We checked out and asked for a wake-up call at 2:45am, and a taxi at 3am. 2 members of the hotel staff told us that it should be 120NIS.

In the early morning a cab driver came to the hotel to pick us up. The mini van had no markings indicating that it was a cab. I heard a small voice telling me not to get in but we did because it was only 3 hours till our flight. We put our luggage in the trunk and got it. As it started moving we saw no meter. We asked about it and the driver said it is a flat fee 150NIS. That's when it hit us that it was a scam. We asked to stop and he would not. He finally drove us back to the hotel and refused to allow to take out our luggage until we payed. He went inside and got a Russian guy who called it - and Russian guy said very sorry, but I did not know about the price. Most definitely a scam that has been going on because they knew each other and cabbie was very comfortable around hotel. At this time of the night we probably would get the same treatment so we bit the bullet, got back in, went to the bank and got the rest of the money. I am sure it works perfectly every time - when you are bounded by the flight you are not in the condition to negotiate. Cab to the airport should be called for and arranged in advance.

At the airport we were not in the mood to discuss our family holidays again but probably produced reasonable enough answers to be zoomed through all the checks in about 40 minutes.

On the positive side, this is the only airport we ever saw that provides enough entertainment, open stores, and watering holes to keep the travelers busy and properly monetize every minute of their stay.

After the short flight we are back. We were probably 80 years younger that the rest of the passengers. It was good to be back.