I'm in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Israel, PICc to prove it

[ewave]

Hi,

I've been traveling around the world (That's why I was trying to sell all my cars.)

For reasons to hard to explain, I have been in Israel since (Sunday July 30th 2006) afternoon.

You can see current pictures of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (Both more than 100 miles south of Lebanon where the current fighting is).

Here you will find about 20 current pictures, taken durig the last two days, Sunday and Monday July 30-31, 2006.

http://www.electrowave.com/home/Tel_aviv/

Here are a couple of pictures to get you started:


Israeli choppers patrole the Tel Aviv beach during an almost perfect sunset, taken Tuesday Evening


NOW the sunset is perfect!


Tombs, Jews, Mosque, Church, Shrine, the Sun and the Moon...All I want to do is have some fun!


Believe it or not, I am in Tel Aviv right now.. A little crazy- Right?
Got here about 48 hours ago.. Will write more about my experience
here.. The best part so far- Jerusalem was DESERTED today. All the
stores were shut down in protest... Literally at the Jesus Tomb, we
were the only people in the whole church most of the time, with a tour
group of 12 people... It was GREAT! The streets were empty, the
"Stations" were deserted.

Really, I THINK the risk of being here is over rated. All the fighting
is in the north, 100 Miles away. The range of the typical Hizbolla
rocket is less then 20 miles- Though they claim to have some that can
reach to Tel Aviv, I think that's BS/ I believe they only have a
couple long range missiles, and they KNOW if they launch them Israel
will annihilate the whole country.

Really walking around, in Tel Aviv, nothing seems out of the ordinary.
(Thought I have nothing to compare it too.) It does not FEEL
dangerous, and there are no obvious signs here as to the fighting up
north.

We saw a live Satalite broadcast up link going on in Jerusalem for
"Sky News" which is out of England. It was pretty cool hearing the
"on location" news caster answering questions for the live up link.
That about as "Live" as it's ever going to get. There was a crew of
about 8 people. They had two or three beat up mini vans with all their
telecommunication equipment, and a portable generator running to power
the whole set up... (The rebel in me thought about knocking him off
the air-- A ninny nudge to the Sat disk, and they would have lost
contact! Some added excitement for the television viewer..) But I
wimped out, and just took pictures instead.


If I feel adventurous, on Wednesday, I might try to get a ride up
north. Some first hand views of the activities up there would be a
once in a life time experience. I think that what we see in the
media, and what we see on CNN is total bull****, over exaggerated, and
sensationalized... I'd like to see it all first hand, unfiltered.

I'll write more later.. I will be here for two or three more days..


So I watched the news here last night and it FREAKED me out.. I
started thinking *****, WTF am I doing here. I'm going to get my
throat cut my some extremist..

I woke up, afraid to leave the hotel.

I looked out on the balcony and everything seemed fine.

I went for a two hour walk, and it was great. The beach was quiet at
first, and then people started coming out to play. Everything seems
fine. Which brings me back to the conclusion that the News is just
being over hyped. Trying to figure out what is going on by trusting
CNN and the other networks is like asking Tom Cruise for medical
advice.

Should this really be called the Information age? Really it seems,
that while lots of information is available, the way it is dispensed
makes us have views of the world that are so far from reality. Don
Henley had it right: "It's interesting when people die, Give us dirty
Laundry."

Think about it. Over 20 THOUSAND people are murdered in the USA each
year. Over 300 in Dallas last year. Put that into perspective when you
hear about the fighting in the north. Less then 300 Israelis are
killed each year, and there are over 6 million living here. Reality
is, if being murdered is what you fear, you would be safer living in
Tel Aviv.

I'm thinking about trying to go to the dead sea tomorrow.

Reporting Live from Tel Aviv,
Paul

[charleskieffner]

great pics.................keep them coming.

[speeder]

Cool post; if you think being there is crazy, check my "Dispatch from Beirut" thread.

I would still love to go to Israel+ Jordan and Lebanon. It's high on my list.

[Jims5543]

Fascinating! Great write up and great pictures. Keep them coming. I will be checking back a lot for updates. Very coo!!

Good luck and be safe there. (Although it seems it would be more appropriate for you to tell me that.)

[JTO]

Man, Paul. Great pics and story. Really interesting. Keep it up!
Troy

[sammyg2]

Last time I checked, busses don't explode in Dallas because of suicide bombers. I can't count the times that has happened in Tel Aviv.
How far away is Egypt from your location? IIRC they have missles, and jets too. They don't like Israel either.
Lots of enemies in that part of the world and most of them do not walk around with a "terrorist" sign around their necks.
Good luck and keep your head down. Often perceptions can be misleading.
My advise is to get the heck out of their before you end up being a headline story on the same news channel you are bagging on.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Don't be silly...

I work with a number of Israelis, and except for the occasional leave some of them have had to take for active duty (mandatory military service), none of them have ever even thought twice about it.

Seriously, I personally know more people who've been gunned down in the US than have been injured in Israel...and the one injury I know of, the guy fell off his motorcycle and broke his leg.

[speeder]

Israel is a beautiful place with amazing people.

[widgeon13]

Certainly more encouraging than listening to CNN BS all day, stay safe.

[jluetjen]

Forget the BBC, try to find Lara Logan from CBS!

Never been to the Middle East, but would love to if they could just make nice with each other. They'd be in such better shape with tourest dropping money on them rather then the locals dropping bombs on each other. I've heard over and over that Lebenon is the "Garden Spot" of the eastern Med -- at least when it's not a war zone. I've been told that you can go to the beach in Berut in the morning and ski in the mountains in the afternoon. The pictures that you posted suggest that Israel is not far behind.