My cousin, Joel, lives in Tel Aviv with his partner and a cat. And since we would be in the neighbourhood, we had decided to squeeze in a three-day visit to Israel. While we were there we ate some great food; it was mostly cooked by Joel and Oded, but we cooked for them on the last night. We went out for an Israeli dinner on the first night and had excellent cake and coffee the next day.

We spent a lazy Saturday wandering up the coast of Tel Aviv admiring the very well serviced beaches, architecture, playgrounds and kite surfers. We enjoyed running around on the wave shaped broadwalk near the docks like all the little kids. All the beaches were left unattended during the Jewish sabbath and we could walk into the Separated Beach, which usually had designated days for male or female bathing. A few people were on the beaches; some were jogging, but a lot were kite surfing. Watching them made Matt think about taking up kite surfing as a hobby.

Closer to Joel's new apartment we found a very modern playground that used recycled materials and wood. There were more swings (of all different types) than you could poke a stick at. Many of the swings were designed to be used by two or more people and my favourite consisted of a horizontal pole that swung like a pendulum. We swung it.

Being the sabbath, people were out doing the usual things. We saw many people playing a game with hard paddles (like ping pong but bigger) and a hard rubber ball. I couldn't even see where the ball was half the time and I am sure you could seriously hurt yourself. It is called matkot*. In close proximity was a group dancing...I shall explain it as line dancing in a circle. Apparently the dances were created in the kibbuts' to entertain everyone.

We didn't see that much more of Tel Aviv because of the weather - it rained for most of the time we were there! However, it gave us a chance to relax and chat to Joel. We have no photos of Joel and Oded even though I distinctly remember taking a group photo...was it Joel's camera?

The last thing that should be noted about our trip to Israel was what it was like to leave. The security at the airport was so insane that we had to arrive 3 hours before our flight to Madrid, Spain. We had a mini interview while lining up to have all our bags x-rayed as well as undergo bomb residue tests. They basically wanted to know where we had been, where we were going, what we did in Israel and the nature of our relationship. It was a bizarre experience, but at least we got our emergency aisle seats on the plane - win!

*we also saw this played on beaches in Brazil.

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