2 january 1999		israel: a saturday stroll the hunt for a green sweater.
Today's itinerary: Walking around Tel Aviv Lunch at the Dairy Kibbutz place Getting Darin's sweater		One of our tasks for the day--okay, our only task; we had the entire day free--was to see if Darin had left his sweater at the neighborhood restaurant we'd stopped at. I opined that the restaurant would be open, even though Shabbat didn't end until sundown. Tel Aviv is not a highly religious city, and while the stores and restaurants honor the Friday shabbat, many of them reopen after the evening service. Not our restaurant. It was still closed. We walked around Tel Aviv some, just enjoying the day (and it was a perfect day). We walked along the beach boardwalk, where Tel Avivans were enjoying their day of rest. Not the greatest beach in the world, but serviceable. Eventually we went back to the hotel, got Carole and Steve, and headed out for lunch. We'd spotted this place that had a large sign advertising Products of Israel's Dairy Kibbutz! (Eventually I spotted the actual name, which was Yotvata.) We sat down and had lunch. I decided to cut to the chase and get some ice cream (with cake). It was pretty tasty, but too filling. Around 6, Carole and Steve wanted to meet with some relatives of a close friend of theirs. We had drinks with them and then Mitch, Scott, Darin and I took off, mostly to go check on that sweater. Indeed, the restaurant did have it. And we decided that since we were here we'd get some dinner. And we had hummus with dinner, of course. We used the rest of our money to pay for dinner--if the owner wasn't lying and service wasn't included, then we stiffed him, but that was all the money we had.
		Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com