Yaffo: flea market of the gods

Yesterday The Chicken and I took a weekend warrior trip to Yaffo, the old city part of Tel Aviv.

We hopped on the famous and infamous train to get there. Famous for replacing camel trains and three day donkey rides from the Port of Yaffo to the Holy City, sometime around the turn of the century. Now infamous for taking a whopping hour and a half to do what is now a forty minute drive. Buy we were told the trip was pretty, and they were right. We snaked our way between rocky desert hills, now verdant green with the winter rains, the train gently rocking back and forth. I thought it was beautiful. When I asked James if he thought so too, his response was a soft snore. I guess we will have to take the train another time as well.

Yaffo is an ancient and once very important port with a colourful history- that colour being red, as in blood red. The Egyptians took it by hiding it in clay pots- trojan style- then breaking out and slaughtering a bunch of Caananites. Some other stuff happened and then notably Saladin took it and made it a Muslim port. Then there was Napoleon, who killed three quarters of the inhabitants and they say the smell of corpses could still lingered two years later. Somehow the Ottoman Turks then got it, probably with more blood shed. Then of course Allenby and the British took it in 1917 with the help of new-fangled guns to kill everyone off, followed by the state of Israel in 1948.

Despite the long and important history, there really isn't much there. A clock tower from the Ottoman Turks who realized that every important European city has a clock tower and so built them all over their empire in the hope to make their cities just as powerful. There is the ever preset monastery, a couple of mosques and the best part of all, the best flea market I have ever been to. Yaffo is where all the junk of Israel, seemingly hundreds of years of it, goes to seek new life. Pots, pans, mix-masters, TV remotes, shoes, clothes, furniture, old maps, crystal chandeliers, ancient hanukah candelabras, cassettes and LPs of bad Israeli music, a life size statue of Spartacus, a mannequin with ethnically correct giant bazungas, a rusty automatic xylophone, terrible velvet art, WWII green helmets, telephones from every era, and endless treasures to be found. Some of the furniture was particularly remarkable and sometimes very beautiful. The market must have extended 6 or 7 city blocks. Hundreds of people were wandering around and looking for a "good deal" on that perfect piece of junk.

James was taken by the framed old maps, and I think we will be back to pick one up as a souvenir.

Now, lately I have been getting emails and notes from people who have gone skiing, went tobogganing, or skating or other joyous winter activities. My family, in particular, went on a three day cross country skiing trip without me and hid it from me until after it happened. I must say, I am absolutely green with envy. But, on the flip side, it was 25 degrees yesterday in Tel Aviv, and we topped off the day by going for a swim in the Mediterranean. After reminding myself, yet again, that I have to swim in the sea with my mouth closed, I floated and floated and let the gentle waves rock me in the sunshine.

We also did some people watching since Tel Aviv is where the funky mesh of Old meets New, East meets West happens in Israel. This elderly Muslim lady was wearing a nice green velvet robe. I was shocked when she turned around and it said NIKE in big letters across the front. We also saw two girls head down to the beach with a coat rack. Sure enough, they set it up and hung their purses on it. Then there was the usual hairy men in speedos, seven year olds on child-sized working motor bikes with no helmets, and giggling fully dressed Muslim girls wading though the water. A very pleasant day all together. We must go to the beach more often.