So, I made it through the Ash cloud after all and spent six days on assignment in Israel. Lovely job in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: travel and food. Nice. I hadn’t spent much time in Tel Aviv before and really enjoyed the experience. Jerusalem was another story however. I’d forgotten that this can be the rudest city on the planet and with some notable exceptions (pretty much all the taxi drivers – notably, Benny and Salim the unfailingly helpful staff at the Addar, Samir at Pasha’s and half a dozen lovely stallholders at Mahane Yehuda market – especially Itzack and his boys), I had to really dig in and grit my teeth. What is it about Jerusalem that makes people so rude and unfriendly? Maybe I caught it on a bad couple of days – I tried, I really did but it was a bit of a slog. I had just had a particularly unpleasant encounter and was packing up for the day when I was beckoned over by a friendly fishmonger. Moses insisted that I sit down and take his picture and that we should pose together…
A real gentleman. Moses, you’ll probably never read this but you restored my faith in the city and it even made up for the hour and more grilling I had at the airport the next day (note to self: next time use the empty passport – not the one with the Saudi, Afghan, Lebanese and Pakistani stamps).
Shalom.
