With Shabbat to follow.

We arrived late at night into a fierce electrical storm with driving rain. Our cab driver got us to the hotel in plenty of time and by 3 am we were sound asleep.

Thursday morning the rain continued only slightly abated. We had some laundry that needed to be done. The David InterContinental laundry list started with $5 (that’s US dollars) for a pair of socks! Looking at $200 for what we needed done.  Google offered us several laundry options within a  20 minute walk. The first one I got to was a do it yourself laundromat, not what I was looking for. The next, Day Laundry Tel Aviv, was full service, located in what appeared to be an alcove just off the street.  “It will ready by 2 tomorrow we close for Shabbat at 4!” Carol and I returned at 3 PM on Friday to pick it up. NIS 70 (about $20) for everything. 

Later in the afternoon, on Thursday, the rain had let up some more so Carol and I set out for a walk to buy a Bar Mitzvah present at a Judaica shop we had found on the web and with the help of Janet in the Executive Lounge of the hotel. The walk took us through the Carmel Market which stretched on for several blocks. We found the shop and found a wonderful gift which we will carry back with us. We returned through the market and resolved to return the next day when it was supposed to be clear.

Friday morning I peered out out 19th floor hotel room window to see this view of the sky and the Mediterranean.

We set out to go to the Center for Contemporary Art just adjacent to the Carmel Market. The exhibit of work by Jonathan Monk was well worth the time we spent there.

We walked back along the sea and watched people getting into the idea of sun even if the temperatures had not climbed over 60 yet. The pictures of surfers and sun bathers are nothing special.

We had one more walk to take, Carol wanted a pharmacy and I located one about 15 minutes walk. I was surprised when we got there as it was in the Shalom Tower. It had been the first tall building in the Tel Aviv in our visits in the 70’s and was a tourist stop to go to the top. Today it seems rather ordinary. The pharmacy was closing early for Shabbat but they let us in to get what Carol wanted and a bit lighter in purse and a bit heavier in stuff we left to walk back to our hotel. 

If anyone cares about such things, we took about 10,000 steps (about 4.5 miles) today and the evening has not started.