So my friend Ilyse our friend back home put me in touch with one of her Israeli friends.. I have went out with her twice.. Her name is Shimrit and she is really nice. Her husband is on his two or three week military duty but normally he works for Cisco. So when he gets back we will have to get the geeks together around town.. ;)
Last night Shirmrit, one of her other girlfriends and I went out for dinner our reservation was made for 9 pm. By the time we found "free" parking we might have got to the restaurant at 9:30 or 10. The Israeli girls ordered hamburgers and loved them. I had salmon and greens.. They told me that the meat was not just hamburger but had better parts of the cow in it.. I couldn't think of it then but now I guess we would call that a sirloin burger.
And then we met up with one of Shimrits friends who owns a winery here in Israel. There was a huge area with couches outside on the boardwalk. I think there were 3 bars that you could have went to but we had table service.. The Israeli's don't drink a lot and will nurse a drink for a long time. Its much more about the social to them. And they all have their phones out.. Texting doesn't seem as popular over here.. I swear they are more addicted to talking on their cells than we are in the US.. There wasn't really a dance area but people danced between the two bars inside and there was a DJ. The inside of the club was smoke free which was really nice cause lots of people chain smoke over here.
Another funny thing is I was getting introduced as "Not Jewish but from America". Can't say that has ever been how I have been described before.. ;) Not sure if she was saying that to explain my lack of Hebrew or just to label me incase I did something silly. Shimrit had told me that the winery owner was religious but not.. So his family is of the very strict Jewish religion. I think they are called Hasidic. they always are seen in black suits with hats and they have beards with a part that is a curl coming down.. Anyways.. this guy he had the full beard but I guess when he goes out to the clubs he uses gel to slick the curl behind his ears.. And he wears a baseball hat.. It was very interesting.. I guess normally men in this sect of Jewish don't touch women even for a handshake. All the guyes we were out with seemed to be ok with handshakes and hugs though.. But I guess thats not normal. Good thing cause taking the hugging out of Fara.. What do you have left?? ;)
So the group we met up with at a club called Gallina was about 6-8 people 3 of us girls and the rest were different guys that wine guy knew who came with him from Jerusalem. I guess they say Jerusalem doesn't have clubs so they come to Tel Aviv and it sounds like on a fairly regular basis. It's 78km between the two cities or 48 miles. They think you only need 3 hours of time to see Jerusalem.. I think I could take three weeks based on all the sites I have seen in the tour guide books.
So lets see here what was the dynamic of the group I went out with.. Shimrit works as a PR contact for a municipality/city. Her friend is a video editor for a well known firm over here that does a lot of work with business groups from various companies. There was the winery owner. One guy owns a Sushi restaurant in New York.. And another is a driver for the Minister of Health. There was also a guy that worked for the winery that seemed really cool. I tried to learn about all of them but only talked to a few.. And they kept talking in Hebrew. They all spoke English and sometimes they would try to translate for me.. But I spent most of the night just listening to them talking in Hebrew.. Shimrit apologized at the end of the night about the continued Hebrew conversations. She thought that since they all spoke English that they would use it.. But that wasn't the case.
Its so awesome though cause the place where we went out is like 5-10 min from my house walking.. And so I learned a new place.. And the winery guy introduced me to the owner of the club.. So I will have to take Bob back there.. Bob was at a soccer game with our friend Stace from Intel.
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