Nachalat Benyamin

One of the reasons that Anne and Mark decided to spend their break in Israel is that another faculty member, who had previously lived in Tel Aviv for several years, invited them to travel along with her as she returned to that city.  Two other faculty members accepted similar invitations and all of the sudden, it was a party.  One of the big advantages of traveling with a "local" is knowing where all the cool stuff is in a foreign city, rather than being limited to the "tourist" areas.

On Tuesday and Friday (until sundown, anyway), our 'Tel Aviv ExPat' colleague took the group to Nachalat Benyamin, where everyone attended an artist market/ street festival.

Now, sometimes when you attend a market like this, you think you are getting cool, locally-made stuff, but it is actually 'locally imported' stuff that was made in China or wherever.  This was not the case, here.  How could we know?  Well, first, our Tel Aviv ExPat told us.  And she knew, because she knew most of the vendor/artists at this market.

Our guide is in the blue on the right.  An old friend/artist/vendor greets her.

As we walked part of the way through the market with her, vendor after vendor greeted her by name and our guide described what this vendor's art was (and, often, how she had purchased some of it in the past :-)  The second way that we knew that the items at the fair were legit was because some of the artists were there working on the items.  Fairly convincing evidence.

A legit artist.  You can tell by the commitment to the mullet.

So Anne and Mark felt fairly confident shopping with the local craftspeople.  Especially Anne.  At one point the question was not "What did you buy?" but rather, "What did you leave?"

I'll TAKE IT!!!

But, this is not to say that the event was all about consumerism.  Quite the contrary.  This was a show.  As you often see at artist markets, there was a variety of street performers.  The range of acts was very broad: everything from musical acts to dancers to acrobats to a guy who claimed he was the messiah.  And the quality of the talent had a range that was equally broad from "How did he do that?" all the way to "Why is he doing that?"

Frog man in a blue tub.  I know what you're thinking: "Same old, same old."

The last thing that must be mentioned is the food.  Throughout the entire trip, Anne and Mark were treated to a wide variety of delicious meals from the cuisines of many different people.  On this day, Mark was able to have lunch prepared by a Druze family.

Kind of like a Mediterranean burrito

The entire family was in on the preparation.  At the far end of this 'assembly line,' a man is placing the bread on a large oven-type contraption.   After the bread is ready, he loads it up with hummus, spices and whatever else is in the Druze family secret recipe.  You can also see some other members of the family seating on left side of the photo (behind the guy making the bread).  These women were preparing the other ingredients (vegetables, chick peas, spices and what not).

After attending the market, it was time to head to beach for a nice sunset.

Whatever floats your boat.