Traveling Around: Tel Aviv, Israel

Can you relate?

• Getting stopped by the passport control workers for questioning for two hours because of some of the stamps you have in your passport.
• Asking for help with the train from the airport to the center of the city because of the huge culture shock of not knowing how to read the local script or understand any of the announcements going on over the speaker system.
• Arriving at your hotel so late (and missing your dinner) and going to the nearest restaurant possible which just so happens to be Mexican.
• Going straight to the beach the first morning your have (a nice change of scenery from your home country) and having a nice stroll on the sand.
• Realizing that if you get a cache of the map of the city on google maps that you can use the GPS even without having internet access.
• Finding a local who in the end gives you excellent advice to go to a place that has the best falafel in the city; and it actually being very good!
• Enjoying visiting a country/city during a non-high season time that is actually a very nice time to go; enjoying the city without hardly any tourists.
• Being entranced by the local stray cat population and taking many pictures of them!
• Learning more about the local political situation by listening to a number of local and personal perspectives.
• Seeing a group of people (in this instance Hasidic Jews) in a whole new light after watching and observing them up close, rather than from far away.
• Appreciating that the airport security isn’t that bad when compared to the security measures that you must go through at the Tel Aviv airport.
• Getting used to the sight of many uniformed soldiers (very quickly actually) walking around the city.
• Walking around at night trying to find a specific restaurant, then getting to the place and enjoying the guest speaker that they were having that night (she was talking in Hebrew, but the waiter told me all about her).
• Taking advantage of the beaches a second time (even though it was too cold to swim in them) to check out the nice turquoise color, it was beautiful.
• Having to leave a day early because the airline that I was flying with cancelled their flight with less than 48 hours notice!
• Going though another tough security control leaving the country and having the agent open up my suitcase to then take almost everything out of it to check the things inside. Not fun to repack everything!

Currently we have 4 international schools listed in Israel on International School Community:

• Anglican International School Jerusalem (3 Comments)
• Jerusalem American International School (8 Comments)
• Eastern Mediterranean International School (0 Comments)
• Walworth Barbour American International School (27 Comments)

If you are on a trip right now, away from your host country, write to us at admin@internationalschoolcommunity.com with your “Can you relate?” traveling experiences.  Tell us where you are traveling in the world, what you are seeing and how you are coping with any culture shock.  Once your Traveling Around experience is posted on our blog, International School Community will give 6 free months of premium membership!