The first week of MEET ended with me presenting how to write methods in java. No one died. Great success! (Borat) The students also filled out some surveys about how they think the program is going. I have never seen such an abomination of English spelling. (and yes, I am including this blog.) Granted they are 15 year olds who don’t speak English as their first language, but my name was spelled Brinon, that’s hilarious.

Tel Aviv vs Jerusalem

The weekend we spent 2 nights in tel aviv. A 45 minute drive from Jerusalem, the two cities could not be more different. For starters, the jews that live in each place are obviously very different. In Jerusalem you’ll see many unlta-orthadox jews who wear large hats and black suits all the time, and even more jews who wear a yarmulke of various sizes. When we were in Tel Aviv, it wasn’t until my second day that I saw anyone wearing even a yarmulke. We went out all night on Friday night during the Shabbat, and everything was open. By contrast, all of Jerusalem (west Jerusalem, I should say) shuts down for Shabbat. (see “Brennan vs. Shabbat” for further info)

Second, the climate is very different. Tel Aviv runs entirely along the Mediterranean sea, and as a result is very humid. (People say this is a contributing factor to…..how should I say this…..the overall lack of clothing in Tel Aviv.) Jerusalem, inland only 45 minutes, is much much drier. The Judea (and potentiallythe sumeria, but I’m no sure) mountains separating Jerusalem from the coast also probably contributes to the different climates.

The geographic layout of Tel Aviv is also very different from Jerusalem, as well as from any other city I’ve seen. Tel Aviv was all built in the past 100 years, and it shows that it was not built in any kind of old-style defensive way. By this I mean that they just looked at a beautiful beach that was a few miles long and said “let’s make a city right here”. For a city like Jerusalem, the thought seemed to be “let’s make a city on top of a mountain with really steep hills so horses and men will have a tough time running up, and we can shoot arrows down.” A city like boston the thought seemed to be, “there’s a lot of rivers coming from every direction and there is good cover from the ocean for a good port. It’s also in a weird egg-shape and has a rocky, freak-nasty coast line that’s really hard bring men onto in a random spot.” So with Tel Aviv, it’s very different. You’re always near the beach. And the beach, by the way, is magnificent. The water is very warm and clear, and there are decent waves. The sands slopes down very slowly into the water, and you can wade out for 100 or more feet.

Here is a shot of my view from my hotel my hotel room, as well as a picture of the beach which was about 50 yards from the door of our hotel.



In case you haven't noticed yet, but Middle Easterns don't really "do" clouds. It's just not what's done. It's also important to note the security that is in tel aviv, just like jerusalem. Here is a picture of the siren in our hallway that goes off when a bomb is coming into tel aviv. Seriously.

Tel Aviv Night Life

Here's a random picture of a place called the alcohome. We thought it was funny, and I really looked like a stupid tourist taking the picture.



I don’t see any better way of describing the night life other than to just tell what I did for the two night and throw in some comments along the way. We started out Thursday night by going out to dinner at about midnight. After that we headed out to kind of a fancy bar. I reminded me of a place I would see in new york, with prices simlar. Despising new york, I was happy when we left.

We then went to a place that I think is what gay clubs looks like in America. I guess the way to really describe it was that it was very European. Techno was blaring, there were some couches that were surrounded by cages, and there was a swinging chair hanging from the ceiling. Along with that were groups of guys dancing together all having a little bit too much fun, if you know what I mean. But you know what they say, "when in rome"……and that was my first homosexual encounter. Wait, no, that didn’t happen. But I do remember thinking “when in rome”, and so I had a few drinks, closed my eyes, pretended I was alone, and danced in a circle of guys that I had come with.

After that is was about 4:30 or so, and we tried to get into The Breakfast Club, which I think is known for being a best late night club in tel aviv. That night though however, we were a group of 7 guys all together, and I think the place was already packed. At all these places there had been no cover, but we were told here there would be a 50 sheckel cover ($12). While this is completely reasonable in the US, to Amir, who was bringing us around, it was unacceptable. I think most of us were also tired, so the idea of paying a cover on top of everything else wasn’t too appealing, so we retired to our hotel.

******WARNING: HATER ALERT******

I’d like to now discuss places that are “so awesome” for having bars that are open all night, places like new york, tel aviv, and probably a bunch of other cities, as well as places that “totally suck” for having bars that close at 2am. Let’s have a little look at the average night out in both boston and new york, I’ve spent summers living in both. In Boston, you go out to dinner at maybe 7, that goes until 9, and then you can have some casual drinks before really going out and your home by 2. Now lets talk about going out in nyc. You have dinner at 10, go out for casual drinks at midnight and then really go out, home around 4 or 5. Notice that the night lasted THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME! (and note, this is when people and boston and new york go out to dinner. I didn’t just make those numbers up.) The only difference is that new yorkers have stayed out later. Now, there was a time in my life when I loved staying out late because it showed my parents that I was a grown up, just like them. I think I was 12. Then 11 years happened and I no longer feel the need to show anyone that I have the ability to stay out late. So I really don’t see what the big deal is, unless you do exctasy and go out from midnight till 8 am. Another caveat; I agree that it completely sucks that the T in boston only runs until 1 am so people can’t use public transport. That is horrible and nyc is definitely a better city for that.

*******END OF HATE****************

The next night the rest of the group had joined us, and after dinner and a desert at a chocolate bar (an interesting place) we began at the Breakfast Club at about midnight, the place we had failed to get into the night before. I would describe it as a standard techno club (apparently they were playing house techno, I have no idea about the differences). There was, however one interesting thing to note, and I noted it quite well. On a series of televisions above the bar was a 1970’s……well, it wasn’t a porn, it was more of a…..topless film? Basically it showed a lot of women topless running around, having a good time. There didn’t seem to be much of a plot other than “what might the topless girl do next?” mystery that had me on the edge of my seat. I spent the rest of the night pondering the artistic significance of the film. Wait, no, that didn’t happen either. Some of the group weren’t able to get into the Breakfast Club (you’ll notice I’m beginning to develope a theme about this place) and so we went to a lounge.

This new place was more open air and didn’t play as much techno. The crowd was a little younger and the music was more stuff that I had heard of, so I like it. They even played “gold digger”, however when the always famous line, “say we want prenup” I found myself the only one in the crowd yelling back “we want prenup!” God damn foreigners. Later on there was a rock song in Hebrew they all seemed to know. I had never heard of it. It was probably a stupid song. Later on in the night, “Gansters Paradise “ was played, and I had a flashback to my 6th grade middle school dances. It was wonderful.

We then tried for the third time to get into the Breakfast Club. While some of us got in, others were once again turned away being told that it is 27 and up, which is appalling and the woman just said it so we would go away. We then had a kid with a stamp on his wrist press it up against the wrist of kid who didn’t have a stamp, and it smudged off and he was able to get in. Totally MIT. After hanging out there for a while (it was absolutely bumping from 4-5) I ran out of money and went home. I then swam in the ocean as the sun came up at 6 am, which was lovely.

Looking back on my summary, my time out on the town may sound a little sucky. I feel like I mainly only mentioned that bad parts, because the good parts were just listening to music, drinking, and dancing, which aren’t really fun to describe. I did though have a very fun time, and combined with the beach is one of the most fun weekends I have ever had. The night life is really great and the women were “Very nice!” (Borat)

I’m going to stop here and give another blog post about our tour on Friday in Jaffa, as well as what’s been going on in the past few days in MEET.

There was a free lunch at MEET on Thursday, and on Friday morning I got a great free breakfast form the hotel. (picture seen below. Free food count: 11.5)