Spontaneous Weekend, Part 2: Haifa and Tel Aviv

The crazy adventures of last weekend continue with my return to Haifa on Sunday night. I spent a calm night in (and perhaps some Bananagrams) with my roommates. The next morning, we walked outside for the second siren for Yom HaZikaron. We went down to the street near the University to see if/how cars would stop at 11 AM to commemorate those lost in conflict or in terrorist attacks. It was really interesting—there were a good number of cars that kept on driving, but one really memorable one for me was a delivery truck that, after the siren began, swerved into the shoulder of the road. The man in the passenger seat couldn’t get out of the truck cab fast enough—before it stopped his door was already open and he was jumping out to stand and remember.

Also that morning, a friend from Brandeis asked if I wanted to join her in Tel Aviv to see the country change from the solemn mourning of Yom HaZikaron to the revelry of Yom HaAtzmaut. I said “of course!” and thus I was in four cities in four days: Sfat, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv was really fun. We got there during the daytime, so there were still signs of Yom HaZikaron (literally) around town, such as this one:

We walked down to Rabin Square and settled in for dinner at a café across the street. We got to see some rehearsals for the performance later and enjoyed seeing the square light up.
Here are the lights in the square. They said “Happy Independence Day” and “62,” Israel’s age this year.

Here’s the stage:

I was really excited to be in Tel Aviv for the night of Independence Day because it was there that independence was declared: it’s kind of like being in a mix of Philadelphia and Washington DC on the fourth of July, I think.

I also found some of the children’s traditions to be interesting to discuss: children playing with inflatable hammers with the Israeli flag and spraying each other with foam. Here’s a special little moment (foam-ment?) captured on film on the streets of Tel Aviv:

There were a lot of people at the performance!

My friend and I bought the most awesome tacky hats while we were there. The Israeli flag lights up and flashes!!

As the performance began, many Israeli Scouts (Tzofim) began to sing and dance. At one point, a folk dance began and fireworks erupted from the top of the building above. It was so cool!

Here’s some of the folk dancing:

We then began to walk back toward the bus/train station so we could get back to Haifa. On the way, we saw the Bezek building with its giant Israeli flag:

And some ultra-Orthodox men dancing on top of party vans:

After we got back to Haifa (via Sherut), we ended up going out downtown. It felt like all of Haifa was outside in the center of the city, especially high schoolers having foam fights! The University of Haifa even had its own contribution to the celebratory skyline—a giant “62” in the Eshkol Tower!

The next day, while the rest of the country was having barbeques with their friends and families, Dani and I stuck around the university and did some homework outside. It was great weather to “catch some vitamin D.” Here’s some proof of my studiousness:

And with that, we began a two-day school week! Here’s to more of that “studying” abroad—although it is midterm season here, so I have been writing a paper and studying for my Hebrew exam. As much as I loved being spontaneous and traveling so much in one weekend, it’s also nice to stay in one spot for an amount of time, even if it’s just a week. More adventures will be reported soon!