Biking to Jaffa

The weekend before last was Shavuot, the long weekend that marks seven weeks after Passover, it's like Israel's version of May 2-4, so we decided to spend our free day renting bikes and riding down to Jaffa.  The bike rental system here is great - it's like Bixi bikes (which I've never actually tried) but they did a great job in Tel Aviv because there are stations everywhere, not to mention the entire city is flat, and it's roughly the same cost as taking a round trip on a bus. 

The day started out slightly less than desired. As we were figuring out how to pay, I felt something hit my shoulder and immediately thought - someone just egged me!!  That's how much impact I felt, like an egg thrown from an apartment building.  Turns out it was one of our friendly (gigantic raven) neighborhood birds...soooo gross.  I can't even tell you.  But the day was much better after that!  Unfortunately I didn't think of taking a picture so you could share in my disgust.  After recouping we got some bikes and headed out to the beach near our place.  The entire coast is lined with a boardwalk from Bat Yam in the south to Herzlyia in the North which makes it amazing for biking.  

I forgot to take any nice pictures of the coast...but here is one of a parking lot...(the sea is to the left)

The rest of the day we spent exploring the old city in Jaffa (one of the oldest cities in the world-  people have lived in the harbour since the bronze age!)  We ate shwarma and falafel for lunch and had ice cream near the docks.  

This is me exploring an alley:

Then we saw a very colourful wall:

And some pretty buildings (the first picture reminds me of St. Augustine, Florida):

And then we biked back along the coast (this is from a hill in Jaffa, looking toward Tel Aviv - our beach is another few kilometers past the farthest point)

I promise the view was better than this -  the majority of the ride is along the beach:

Whoa - I almost forgot one of the most significant happenings of the day.  We had our first full Hebrew exchange with an Israeli!  (like other than thank you and hello).  I ordered drinks (in Hebrew), and he didn't tell us the price in English!  He said it in Hebrew and I understood!  ok I also looked at the board before hand and could see how much it was going to be, but still. I know I'm impressed.