Jean Shorts

I have come to find that they're still cool in Israel. Sadly I left my pair back home. Tough break, I tell ya

Israeli motorcyclists

Craziest people on Earth . These guys ride around on their scooter/moped/vespa type things (some people have real motorcycles but majority not) like there's no tomorrow and they have to make every second count. They literally ONLY weave in and out of traffic, never stay in a lane... unless that 'lane' is the shoulder of a highway in which case they will gun it up the shoulder to pass by any amount of car/truck traffic that builds up. Also all the pizza delivery guys have vespa's with pizza boxed-sized containers on the back. What's more, the vast majority of them ride around in normal clothes, i.e. t-shirt, shorts/jeans, flip flops, whatever... so when they crash, which they eventually will because they're psychos, it's not going to be a good look. My boy on the team was just telling me he hit a guy a couple weeks ago... was changing lanes and the guy came out of nowhere and knocked him down. Thankfully the dude was ok but scary stuff. In conclusion, never ride a motorcycle in Israel.

Stray Cats

There's a million

Holon

Today (Tues) we had practice in Holon in a sweatshop of a gym.... I needed a shower after tying my shoes. FYI

(Gameday (The 25th

Monday night we had a scrimmage against a random group of guys... most of them from the 1^st division I think. Four quarters of ten minutes with real refs and everything. First half I played an ok amount, then I think I played the entire second half. I’m sure the coach wanted to see me play some in person, and also give me a chance to get the feel for how they play and all the guys on the team. Was pretty tired by the end... haven’t played in a real competitive game since the college season ended. I did pretty well though. The team plays a crazy uptempo style... 2-2-1 press the whole game, lots of steals, quick shots, and fast breaking. It’s pretty fun but tiring. Anyways we ended up winning something like 85-64.

Got home and showered quick before heading out to meet up with Kyle. It was another one of our high school friends’ birthday, Josh Gross, so we took a cab out to the Herzliya marina/beach for a barbeque/drinking/hangout session. Was pretty cool and met a couple people including Kyle’s girlfriend (for the boys back home I know you’ll find that hilarious)..

Hallelujah

Got my internet hooked up this morning finally. Awweeesooomeee. so here's a couple things I wrote down since last weekend.

Tel-Aviv/Weekend  in Jerusalem

Thursday night we had practice as usual, but being that it’s Israel we, and everyone in general, get Friday and Saturday off instead of Saturday and Sunday. So Thursday night everyone got cleaned up and met back up at this restaurant in Ramat Sharon which is an area right next to Herzliya. We get 50% off at the restaurant and the owner loves basketball players so she hooks it up... she’s also a craaazy cougar. Pretty sick deal tho either way, as a table like 3 people ate dinner, couple sprites, then we must have had 25-30 shots/mixed drinks and it came out to like 270 shekels so liiiike $75 or $80 maybe? Really legit. Anyways we ate/drank for a while there then headed to Tel Aviv. Two guys drove so we got there fast. Went to two clubs in the city, both were bumpin and basically exactly what any club looks like back home. You wouldn’t know you were in Israel if you couldn’t hear the Hebrew being spoken everywhere and the weird money being used to settle bar tabs. Apparently bars/clubs can serve alcohol until all hours... so the nights get pretty late. We got our late night eats at like 3:30 maybe and got home at something like 4:30. Little did I know my landlord would be waking me up 4.5 hours later to ‘talk about stuff’... Thanks guy (he’s nice tho).

For my first weekend in the country I went to Jerusalem to hang out with my family. Have an aunt, uncle, and their two kids there.  Because my landlord woke me up I figured I might as well get going. Usually I would have to take the train from Herzliya to Tel-Aviv to start the trip, but instead I got lucky and hitched a ride with my landlord’s wife/girlfriend/lover who was heading into the city. She dropped me off at one of the main bus stations in town (called Arlozorov, the other one is a station at the University of Tel-Aviv). From there it’s just one bus to Jerusalem. So I bought two trips on a ticket (costs 34 shekels which is like 10 bucks, so good deal) and headed out. The bus takes like an hour and shortly after we got to Jerusalem’s main terminal my aunt and cousin rolled through and picked me up. They actually live in a suburb of Jerusalem called Pizgat Ze’ev, so we drove a couple minutes out there. Spent the weekend hanging out with the fams, and eating (too much) really good real food (as opposed to just falafel and shwarma which, while awesome, are more the stereotypical dishes). On Saturday aka the Sabbath, aka Shabbat, aka the shazbath, my aunt and one cousin drove into Jerusalem to walk around a bit and just hang out. We didn’t go to any touristy places... just a random neighbourhood and an Aroma coffee shop. Jerusalem is pretty eerie on Shabbat because it basically shuts down. Obviously you can still see people walking around and doing normal activities, but it’s reeeeally quiet around. I guess at sundown everything opens back up. Anyways it was nice. I forgot how striking a place Jerusalem is...  I was pretty mesmerized by the drive in. It’s very hilly and new buildings and neighbourhoods are constantly popping up as you round yet another corner on the winding road.

On Sunday my uncle drove me into town and dropped me off at the station. Caught the bust back to Tel-Aviv and then walked the couple hundred feet to the train station.  Bought a ticket to Herzliya and caught the train a couple minutes later. It’s only two stops away so it took like five minutes, really convenient. I was going to go to the mall, which is nearby, to buy some stuff I needed, but it was so effin hot I just felt like going home, so I caught a cab back. Anyways it was a fun weekend and got to adventure a little bit figuring out the bus/train stuff. Also got to Hebrew it up with people on my journey into and out of Jerusalem... plus my uncle refuses to speak English to me haha, so was getting my Hebrew on with the fams too. Next weekend I think they might come out to Herzliya to come see my place and have dinner.

Food. Sweet delicious food

I am in love with the food here.  First day went to a tiny little hole in the wall falafel shopand got my first falafel in the motherland. Probably not even a great place in the grand scheme of things. Maybe it was because it was my first real falafel in like 7 years, or maybe I was just really hungry... but that thing was awesome.  Next day I went  to a take-out /sit down restaurant a little bit past the falafel spot and got lamb shiskabob in a laffa bread. Laffa is like a flatbread that gets rolled up , fyi.  

Wednesday night another  guy on the national team, Dori, was helping me out with driving me around.   After practice we had to race around finding a place to get me some more passport pictures for the university games forms... But after that he took me to the 'best shwarma place in herzliya' called Jameel. I don't know why I put that in quotations because if there's a better place than that I'd be shocked. Ridiculously good. Could eat it every day and twice on sundays. I'm at my aunt's (big Irv's sister) house in Jerusalem with her family for shabbat dinner and the rest of the weekend, and I'm sure dinner is going to be awesome. .. Lovin the eats right now.

Food related note... The man, the myth, the legend, just killin the cereal game.