Totally acclimated to our new time zone, we woke up ready for a great day.  As usual in IsraelI hotels we began our day with an enormous breakfast and then headed out on bicycles to explore the waterfront and river park.  

 The weather was perfect and we had a blast.  We spotted some interesting birds and loved the waterfront area near Tel Aviv’s old port. It isn’t a real port by modern standards but it’s now mostly a wonderful place to enjoy the waterfront. 

  This bird looks like a cross between a King Fisher and a humming bird when it hovers over the water.

  

Unusual colored pair of geese.

 

 There are lots of these grey and black crow-like birds. 

 

And a kind Woodpecker that was hunting for insects in the grass.

  And angel wings that anyone could try on for fun.

  

 

This photo is for James.  “Big Baba” is now “Super Baba”!

The park is dotted with  wonderful exercise stations. We stopped for an ice tea and salad across from Gordon Beach where the very serious were working out. We tried our hand at some of the machines and will do more today.

I got a wonderful massage and then we watched another beautiful sunset from the deck.

 

    

   

Last night we met with long-time friends of my parents: Moshe and Anat Olshevsky.  They took us out for a yummy late dinner.  They are both amazing entrepreneurs.  Moshe began his career studying oriental medicine and acupuncture in the U.S. and later helped bring these services to Israel. Now he’s involved in an interesting peer-to-peer lending company startup called Blender.  Anat was a prosecutor and also an entrepreneur In her own right with various travel businesses and other legal and consulting gigs.  

Today we left the beach for awhile to go to the Tel Aviv Art Museum and some gallery hopping.

We really didn’t find any galleries, but we did find a wonderful fresh fruit and juice stand.  Jim is supposed to eat more papaya and they made him a fresh papaya smoothie with just papaya and a few other fruits. 

 

We made it to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.  The building is beautiful, but there were some very odd video exhibits.   

 We did enjoy the impressionist exhibit.  After all the walking we took an Uber/cab back and got a very interesting history lesson from our driver who fought in the last major military tank battle between Israel and Syria in 1982 (the battle of Jezzine).

After some mid-day meditation we headed out again for some biking and reading on the beach.  This time our direction was south to the busier end of the beach area.  

Securing the perfect spot we sat, had a Leffe beer, watched the kite surfers and read more of our Israel book.  

  I took a walk to the end of the beach and found the Tel Aviv Surf Club.  There was a really cute group of beginners doing their warm up. 

   

Tonight we got to see our friend from Mercer Island, Ellie Pieprz.  We had a wonderful visit.  It was such an education to learn about all of his work in Israel and the West Bank.

At sundown, the 24-hour Holocaust Rememberance Day begins.  As part of this somber Memorial Day, all restaurants close and tomorrow at 10AM sirens go off all over the country and everyone stops whatever they are doing for two minutes to reflect on the millions of men, women & children who were systematically murdered by the Nazis simply because of their religion or ethnicity.  We expect that it will be a very moving experience.

  

Shalom!