My morning began to the active city sounds of Tel Aviv. Given that I can sleep through any noise (for the most part), I had a very smooth sleep… that was also propelled by being spectacularly tired. After catching up on a few emails and getting cleaned up, I headed out to walk down to the hostel where Maggie and Nathan are now staying.

My walk took me to the coast where I got my first view of the water. Gorgeous blue with glowing sand. Wonderful. The morning was heating up quickly, but not to any massive extremes. I found Maggie and Nathan and we immediately walked out to the beach. The water was absolutely perfect and terrifically refreshing! Next, we packed up and headed south along the coast. About 15 blocks later we turned east into Tel Aviv and explored Shabazi and Rothchild streets. We grabbed lunch at an Israeli-style diner, and then back tracked to the coast. In Jaffa we were treated to an elevated view of Tel Aviv, a walk through some gardens, a tour of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a few artisan galleries. Along the way we picked up a round of gelato and also made our way through a flea market.

We then walked back to the hostel where Nathan rested for a bit while Maggie and I took another trip to the beach. Maggie and I then met back up with Nathan for a cafe trip, which we followed by dinner at The Thai House. After an excellent meal, with conversation spanning some great Ultimate policy topics (Refs? AUDL? The future of youth Ultimate?), we parted ways with plans to meet up tomorrow to explore some local markets and hopefully play some pickup Ultimate in the evening. There’s also a chance I might make it out to Bethlehem to meet up with Hamouda.

Off to sleep I go.