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MM x
Monday, February 9, 2015
Friday, February 6, 2015
Happy Tu B'Shvat!
Happy Tu B'Shvat (well actually it was on Wednesday but I have been kinda busy so hadn't got around to blogging about it until now).
Tu B'Shvat is basically a new years celebration for Trees. It's also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot which literally translates to 'new year for the trees'. It's a minor holiday meaning no time off school but it's super cute.
To simplify what the holiday means (because it's kinda confusing), Jewish law says that you can't eat fruit from a fruit bearing tree until it's third year of production. But how on earth do you figure out how old a fruit bearing tree is or when you can start eating the fruit? By Tu B'Shvat! (It's genius really). You can only eat fruit which ripens on or after Tu B'Shvat of the tree's third year.
To celebrate the holiday, school kids in Israel usually each plant a tree, except on the 7th year becayse that is the Sabbath year (or something). People also have a seder (ceremony) where you eat specific pieces of dried fruit and nuts with each of them having a different blessing. Dried fruit has also been on sale for the last month and with special varieties appearing like sun dried apple, peaches and pear without added sugar and candied pecans (which are honestly the greatest thing ever).
The kids at my school also put on a super cute play and had an hour of activities relating to Tu B'Shvat.
MM x
Tu B'Shvat is basically a new years celebration for Trees. It's also called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot which literally translates to 'new year for the trees'. It's a minor holiday meaning no time off school but it's super cute.
To simplify what the holiday means (because it's kinda confusing), Jewish law says that you can't eat fruit from a fruit bearing tree until it's third year of production. But how on earth do you figure out how old a fruit bearing tree is or when you can start eating the fruit? By Tu B'Shvat! (It's genius really). You can only eat fruit which ripens on or after Tu B'Shvat of the tree's third year.
To celebrate the holiday, school kids in Israel usually each plant a tree, except on the 7th year becayse that is the Sabbath year (or something). People also have a seder (ceremony) where you eat specific pieces of dried fruit and nuts with each of them having a different blessing. Dried fruit has also been on sale for the last month and with special varieties appearing like sun dried apple, peaches and pear without added sugar and candied pecans (which are honestly the greatest thing ever).
The kids at my school also put on a super cute play and had an hour of activities relating to Tu B'Shvat.
MM x
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Just your average Tuesday
Tuesday is my day off and each week I try to adventure somewhere new or adventure somewhere old that I love. This week, I started off with an adventure to find real coffee. None of this Americano / fake latte business. I wanted to find reaaaaal coffee, like the stuff I was accustomed to drinking on the daily in Melbourne.
After a little Googling, I found my place - Cafelix Coffee House in Jaffa. They roast their own beans on premises (#love) and have two smaller cafes in Tel Aviv. I decided to go all out and visit the roastery in Jaffa. Jaffa is the basically on the oustkirts of Tel Aviv, more to the South aka closer to Rishon, so I expected the journey bus to be fairly simple. But this is Israel so simple turned into a bit of an adventure quite quickly.
I took an express bus which goes to the central bus station in Tel Aviv but I thought that I would get off before the central bus station because that place is sketchy as eff and so confusing that's it's basically impossible to get a connecting bus unless you ask like 70 different people in and outside of the station where you need to go. To my dismay, I had incorrectly interpreted my map (unsurprising) and the bus took me right into the central bus station. After walking out of the bus station, then walking back in, then asking one information booth, then going upstairs and around a corner and walking 200m, asking another information desk and missing my original next connection, I found my bus and was on my way!
A little side note though - a group of artists have been trying to revamp the central bus station to make it less creepy so I stumbled across a wall of graffiti done by various artists. It was actually super cool and did make the place less sketchy. I snapped a few cute pics:
After catching my second bus and finally making it to Jaffa, I found Cafelix and it was everything I had hoped for plus more. They had their coffee menu on the wall written in English (#lessstruggle) and I proceeded to order a real filter coffee (#zerostruggle). While the lady was making my filter I also perused the pastry cabinet and saw a pistachio and chocolate croissant and YOLO, so I ordered that too.
The coffee was incredible. The girl told me she made the filter with their single origin Papua New Guinea and it was perfection. Extremely smooth I enjoyed veery drop. And the croissant was obvs heavenly. The cafe is only small but it is right next to a park so a lot of customers grab a cup and sit in the park enjoying the sun.
The cafe also has a coffee wall of fame whereby they have labelled cups for VIPs. If you are a VIP, you go into the cafe, pick up your cup, put it on the counter and order your coffee. To me, that is the coolest VIP membership card out and also a goal of mine although the bus trauma to get there may stop me from ever reaching it.
I also tutor (I say tutor but really we just talk in English with me correcting a few mistakes here and there) a med student every Tuesday with his English and after I'd got my coffee and read my book in the park, he called. As part of our agreement, E has offered to take me to cool places in Israel so we don't get stuck in a cafe for our tutoring sessions. As I was already in Jaffa, he decided to take me to Abu Hassan, which apparently serves the best hummus in Israel.
After devouring that scrumptious croissant earlier on, I wasn't particularly hungry but I'm not one to shy away from food on a full stomach so we both ordered 15 shekel bowls of hummus (that's $5). We actually ordered masbacha which E informed me was like creamy hummus with chickpeas. Cool fact for those players at home, chickpeas are called hummus (with a throaty ch sound at the beginning) so I was basically eating hummus with hummus. They serve it with raw onion, a spicy pickle onion sauce thing and fresh pita bread. I would say quite comfortably that it was one of the best hummus' I've had in Israel. It was so so so creamy and the chickpeas in the hummus were soft and delicious.
After our hummus adventure, E took me to this really cool park in Tel Aviv. Israel is basically all desert so visiting a park with greenery, trees and a lake with ducks was a real treat. It reminded me of Princes Park in Melbourne. I basically couldn't stop taking photos and I really wish I had some bread to feed to the ducks. (Well I did have some leftover pita from our hummus stop but I wasn't in the mood to share it!)
MM x
After a little Googling, I found my place - Cafelix Coffee House in Jaffa. They roast their own beans on premises (#love) and have two smaller cafes in Tel Aviv. I decided to go all out and visit the roastery in Jaffa. Jaffa is the basically on the oustkirts of Tel Aviv, more to the South aka closer to Rishon, so I expected the journey bus to be fairly simple. But this is Israel so simple turned into a bit of an adventure quite quickly.
I took an express bus which goes to the central bus station in Tel Aviv but I thought that I would get off before the central bus station because that place is sketchy as eff and so confusing that's it's basically impossible to get a connecting bus unless you ask like 70 different people in and outside of the station where you need to go. To my dismay, I had incorrectly interpreted my map (unsurprising) and the bus took me right into the central bus station. After walking out of the bus station, then walking back in, then asking one information booth, then going upstairs and around a corner and walking 200m, asking another information desk and missing my original next connection, I found my bus and was on my way!
A little side note though - a group of artists have been trying to revamp the central bus station to make it less creepy so I stumbled across a wall of graffiti done by various artists. It was actually super cool and did make the place less sketchy. I snapped a few cute pics:
 |
| The birds are made of string! |
 |
| Filter coffee AHHHHHHH!!! |
 |
| The coffee wall of fame |
The cafe also has a coffee wall of fame whereby they have labelled cups for VIPs. If you are a VIP, you go into the cafe, pick up your cup, put it on the counter and order your coffee. To me, that is the coolest VIP membership card out and also a goal of mine although the bus trauma to get there may stop me from ever reaching it.
I also tutor (I say tutor but really we just talk in English with me correcting a few mistakes here and there) a med student every Tuesday with his English and after I'd got my coffee and read my book in the park, he called. As part of our agreement, E has offered to take me to cool places in Israel so we don't get stuck in a cafe for our tutoring sessions. As I was already in Jaffa, he decided to take me to Abu Hassan, which apparently serves the best hummus in Israel.
After devouring that scrumptious croissant earlier on, I wasn't particularly hungry but I'm not one to shy away from food on a full stomach so we both ordered 15 shekel bowls of hummus (that's $5). We actually ordered masbacha which E informed me was like creamy hummus with chickpeas. Cool fact for those players at home, chickpeas are called hummus (with a throaty ch sound at the beginning) so I was basically eating hummus with hummus. They serve it with raw onion, a spicy pickle onion sauce thing and fresh pita bread. I would say quite comfortably that it was one of the best hummus' I've had in Israel. It was so so so creamy and the chickpeas in the hummus were soft and delicious.
After our hummus adventure, E took me to this really cool park in Tel Aviv. Israel is basically all desert so visiting a park with greenery, trees and a lake with ducks was a real treat. It reminded me of Princes Park in Melbourne. I basically couldn't stop taking photos and I really wish I had some bread to feed to the ducks. (Well I did have some leftover pita from our hummus stop but I wasn't in the mood to share it!)
MM x
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