Not even seven stamps from Arab states in my passport earn me the tourist attraction “private interview by the Israeli immigration authorities”. The brief questioning at passport control has to suffice. “Where did you come from? Berlin. What did you do there? Fighting tinnitus at daytime, enjoying it not getting worse at night in the clubs. Had a good time? Hell, yeah, beautiful people, magnificent places. Enjoy your stay!”
That’s it? Yep. Last train to Tel Aviv and off to the hostel. Reviews on the internet are incredibly important. Nobody knows or says who rates how, but everyone goes for gold. In my case, pigs have obviously rated a broken pigsty positively. The Overstay Hostel would be a great club in Berlin. Sleeping or even eating here is seriously less great.
No matter. Good journeys often start on a pile of dung. The white city of Tel Aviv is a World Heritage Site because of its Bauhaus architecture. I’m a Bauhaus fan, and I don’t give a shit about white! After a good ten kilometres of walking, it’s clear to me that the only beautiful remnants of some 60-year-old houses are anything but white. Rather rust and dirt, but still a thousand times more valuable than the highly incompetent and shiny white renovated buildings on Rothschild Avenue. Dresden has lost its World Heritage status because of a bridge, and Regensburg is threatened with the same? UNESCO is not qualified to judge what gold is, nor what silver-plating means. It arbitrarily selects what has already been overvalued and then fights for the rigorous preservation of an often quite worthless status quo. Everywhere in the world.
Once again, I’m much more enthusiastic about the non-world heritage sites: the old town of Jaffa is cramped and dirty, but the craftsmen still really live and work here. Old carpets are mended on the pavement, Vespas are cannibalised and spices are sold. The bike police patrol the beach on blue and red flashing bikes with M16 rifles. In front of them, surfers have fun in the waves, and every ten minutes a fat military helicopter marks the air sovereignty over the mosques between gleaming luxury flat blocks. The shopping centres are cold and safe thanks to conspicuously small security gnomes at every entrance, who really do dismantle every bag down to its atomic components.
A rainbow flag hangs on every second building. Tel Aviv is the gay capital of the world. A sugar dumpling from Baden who has just emigrated here explains to me why this is the case: “Allä hungän, because alläs is teuä. It’s expensive. You can easily take two or three German prices. For everything. Since the Tel Avivians” – and especially the gays, according to my informant – “are a very body-conscious people, similar to the Brazilians, the expensive food makes workouts absolutely superfluous.” Everyone rides around on electric folding bikes or smart electric wooden scooters. Just don’t eat for a fortnight, be smart and you’ve already spent €2,500 on a hip e-bike. Once a month, you can even visit a club, which costs between €100 and €300 for a whole night with appropriate fun equipment.
On the second day, I head further south. Tel Aviv is not even a provincial capital here, more like a small fishing village. The sun is blazing. The Simon Perez Meeting Centre is an unexpected Japanese architectural epiphany. The Arabs want to kick me out, but the Jewish curator calls their advances “just joking”. There is more to connect here than probably anywhere else in the world. After 5 kilometres I try to ground my stomach, but unfortunately the attempt fails because I have to pay at least €30 for a portion of spaghetti in a third-class restaurant.
I continue through the old town and the market. Cheap Egyptian cigarettes lighten the mood, and four more legendary freshly squeezed Tel Aviv orange juices for finally well under €25 per litre. After 10 years of blogging, I’m finally working on a new contemporary layout. The basic version rocks after just two hours. The customers at home keep still, and the boombox on our roof terrace on the last evening, together with good travellers from all over the world, set the counterpoint so well that I will leave Tel Aviv without having seen a single club from the inside.
In the morning I walk a few kilometres to the train station to discover that the Jews take a much more radical approach to the Sabbath than the Bavarians do to Sunday. The railway station is completely closed. There are no trains or buses to the airport or my hire car. After a while I find a couple of Germans with the same destination and share a taxi with them for a mere 50 euros. I got myself a credit card with car insurance before I left. After only half an hour on the phone, it is accepted – but I still need personal insurance for an extra 200% of the hire price. Israel is getting more and more expensive. Israelis simply can’t take a joke when it comes to safety. Even my little ancient Chevy Spark was retrofitted with PIN code entry before starting, distance warning, overspeed warning, seatbelt warning and lane departure warning. All five beep me out of Tel Aviv and straight into Nirvana…
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.