part of traveling in israel involves figuring out what to do on shabbat, when much of the country is closed. last week, when we were staying in jerusalem, we chose saturday as the day to go to nablus. that worked out really well. so today, our last saturday, we aimed to be in tel aviv, one of the more secular cities where we heard that shabbat wasn't as big of an issue.
it may not be as bad as elsewhere, but this place is still a ghost-town. even jaffa, the allegedly "arab" area, was pretty dead when we were there earlier today (supposedly it gets more lively at night. but given our 3 a.m. run to the airport tonight, we probably will try to get some sleep). actually, much of old jaffa is just a tourist area, with parks and art galleries (most of which were closed today). the view of the sea couldn't close, however. that was nice. as was the 2.5 km walk along the beach from our hotel in tel aviv to jaffa this morning.
the tel aviv museum was open, so next we went there. it's the only place we've been all day that we saw more than a handful of people. after that, we went to the azrieli center (built over the spot where gargamel's cat was laid to rest) to pay money to see the empty city from above.
