Israel is 60 this year, I am 35, and Tel-Aviv is about 100.

Yeah us!

Well, I am home. The last 12 hours in Tel Aviv were pretty amazing. We woke up after a night at TLV and found our way to lunch with Liana on Rothschild and then on to drinks and relaxing with Tomer @ Gavriel. Champagne and relaxing ends with a quick hail of a cab to bring us back to the hotel. We need to pack!

In a mess and whirl we throw everything in suitcases and head to the beach one last time. Maayan is hanging out with some of his friends, so we join them for a couple hours. One last meal at Brasserie with Tomer and Liana - yum, merguez - where it begins to pour! Such a nice relaxing evening in Tel Aviv. We say our goodbyes and head to the airport at about 10pm. Security was so easy this time, Jew no problemo, no bag searching, no hassle.

We chill out in Terminal 3 waiting for the Jet. Not much is going on. We end up talking to a man who was on the same flight to Israel with us.

It is one hell of a long ride back to the US - 12 hours. Ambien and some reading pass the time.

To cap the whole trip, Mr. Hayes picks up the flight attendant! Idan meets us at JFK and we are home.

Boy, I miss Israel.

There are a whole set of quotes that I have from an old schooler that I knew. One of them, ‘Run Don’t Walk’, was a serious favorite. It came to mind today as I listened to this new CD I got - and you will note this is the first time I have written about music on my web page since about 1996 when I was way into the Junior/Danny/Tunnel/Twilo thing! But this also has an as yet to be written Israel tie-in.

Dan, Anthony and I go way, way, way, way, way back in our public and private lives here in NYC, cf. ‘The Lives We’ve Led’, and as good gay men this comprises a lot of dancing and music. Age has a funny way of shifting your priorities from out and dancing to work, hobbies, and in our case civic involvement.

But, and you knew it was coming, when we were in Israel, we went out to TLV to see Offer Nissim spin. WOW! The night started with heading to Idan’s friend, Roye’s apartment where waiting for us was also Maayan, Lior, and others, and ended at about 7:30am when we left to wander back to our hotel - where we were greeted with a sarcastic/surprised “boker tov” from the security guard.

Somewhere in the middle woke up the dirty stay out in these three New Yorkers…It is not hard to figure out: A large club, with music at a level we have not heard in NYC in a long time, half the club faces the Mediterranean, an great energetic fun loving crowd, great dancers, fun hosts (thanks Roye and Maayan!) and just an off-da-hook crazy time.

I think I even ate a popsicle somewhere in the middle of the night. Old school New Yorkers will recall when they used to hand out free popsicles, yeah, free (well maybe someone paid for it, but not me, ever!).

The only bad part of the evening was when I inadvertently pushed in a bathroom stall door down on top of someone. They really should build those things better. But I had to pee, really, really, really, had to pee. Perhaps I should have learned to say that in Hebrew.

Needless to say I will be going back.

We arrive back in Tel Aviv to do a hell of a lot of nothing. This the vacation part of the Vacation. After checking into the hotel, we go wander around the Camel Shuk, Sheinkin & and surrounding areas. This results in the purchase of a couple pairs of sneakers, some shirts, and various other random items.

The guy at the sneaker store was funny, he was about to leave for New York! We gave him all these great places to go buy sneakers and other miscellaneous things to do on his trip. Whenever I look at my sneakers I will think of him, in all earnest, saying ‘these sneakers are rare, no leaning.’ To which we replied, after some time, “oh, no lining!”

One evening we find ourselves out with Meital and Lilach - and eventually Tomer and others - at an 80’s party called the 4th Grade (כיתה דלת, I think). It is down by some highway, nowhere near where we know where we are, and thus required a cab ride home. It was a blast!

We have lunch at Cafe Noire one day with more friends of Idan - they all did a great job of keep us entertained. Toured around Dizengoff Center at some food and craft fair. Downed loads of ice cream from Iceberg. Goofed off. Sat on the beach. Napped. Read. Swam.

Thursday night we stayed in the hotel, had room service, and ended up watching E! all night.

Tonight we are meeting up with Roye and Maayan to go to TLV. I am not certain it will be worth it…

Here we go! There are all kinds of Israel tours but no one does it quite like we do…

1. Ramot in the Golan - 2 nights
2. Manot in the upper Galil - 1 night
3. Haifa - 1 night, thank you Bahá’u'lláh
4. Dead Sea - 1 night (it is SOOOO boring there)
5. Eilat - 4 nights
6. Jerusalem - 2 nights
7. Tel-A-fuckin’-viv - 4 nights

Holy Land look out cause we are on our way!

I love citrus and on my last trip to Israel you could hardly ever find me without some form of it in my hands. I got a little sick once, because, I think, I drank about 4 gallons of orange juice wandering around Tel-Aviv in a few hours. Because of this love, I bought this first day issue. I also have some stamps that I bought which display fish that I live in aquaDrama. I have been trying to create a Red Sea biotope, including Red Sea Wrasses, Corals, and Shrimp.