After the Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, Dasha and I part ways with Lisa and Tzachy and hop on the bus to Tel Aviv.
We get off the bus and take a mini bus from the main terminal to the city and start chatting with a couple of American girls onboard about a good hostel to stay at. We get off at the same stop only to find one of them has left her pack on the bus. No big deal we tell her, Dasha has done the same thing in Turkey and Cyprus, it comes back sooner or later, we tell her.
Not in Israel she says, unattended bags are routinely detonated by the IDF as they could be bombs and they proceed to tell stories about friends leaving their backpacks for a few minutes only to have them explode. There recently was a child's backpack left unattended, the detonation crew were called out and were about to destroy the bag when a little boy ran out from the crowd and to his bag, saving his favourite stuffed toy from certain doom.
We stay with the girls while they wait for the minibus to return, they keep flagging down other vans to explain the story. Half an hour later, a young guy runs up from the other side of the street and returns the girl's backpack.
The driver had discovered a bag that was unaccounted for, one of the passengers panicked and was about to call the police when the driver remembered about the American girls that were helping the two tourists (us) and realised it was their bag. He dropped all of the passengers off at the same spot to take the next minibus, turned the car around and raced back to where he had dropped us off to return the bag.
The glee on the girls face was fun to watch, she didn't care about most of her belongings, except for this one dress that she always wore when she went out, it was her "lucky dress".
Tel Aviv Skyscraper and matching Art Piece
In Tel Aviv, we walk around, visit the beach and talk about future plans before a night out with drinks to celebrate our journey together.
Tel Aviv beaches at night.
