#things like ''the fish was the only kosher thing on the plane!'' or ''i will spend as many of the high holy days with may as i can if this-

[ikesenhell]

1985 Camaro

AMERICAN DREAM, Chapter 2. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: Brief conversation about prior death, otherwise safe. Thank you @missjudge-me for commissioning this piece!

---

They camped out on the back patio until the sun set. He cooked gyoza and rice balls and some pan-fried chicken, and she ordered ice cream delivery, and they nested their knees together and tucked into a pint of something labeled ‘Just Ask’ and when he asked, she wouldn’t tell him, not even when he tickled her (It wound up being a delicious caramel-Oreo flavor). She instead told him about her degree and moving out, about keeping in contact with Mitsunari as he served in Tanzania through hand-written notes on origami paper. They swapped curated Instagram snapshots and embarrassing anecdotes and reminisced. 

“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “About your dad.”

Masamune shrugged. There was nothing to say. It hurt and always would, but that was his private journey. “Old bastard waited too long to have kids s’what. If he’d had me at a nice, respectable age, we wouldn’t be doing this, the old coot!” He waved a dramatic fist at the sky, relishing her giggles. “You fucked up!”

Overhead, his mother’s bedroom light flicked on. 

“Shit,” he muttered. She dropped her face into her hands to stifle the raucous laughter. 

“How—” Now she was whispering. Masamune wriggled closer, their legs reflexively entwining. “How’s that going?”

“Better than it used to. We can talk without yelling. Something something time and distance. I’m planning on hunkering down here for a little bit, and once all of the stuff is settled, I’ll probably go back north. The restaurant owners offered to hold my position for me, which is really nice.” 

“Hell yeah it is. Isn’t that kind of a cut throat world? They must love you.”

“Yeah. Good openings don’t stay open long in the restaurant biz, so that’s really cool.” Absently, he ran his thumb over the whorls of the deck. “What about you? What’s next?”

“Well.” And she paused, eyes luminous. “I got offered a job interview out east. It’s a good job.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Once upon a time, when she was too nervous to really settle her heart on something she wanted, she smiled shyly and fluttered her eyes away. Some things stayed the same. His heart surged as the familiar expression played out before him. “It could be a game changer for me.”

“That the case, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, I have to do some logistics, and I have to interview, right? But if I get it…” She stretched up to the sky, wriggling her fingers long at the clouds, all the prickled flesh on her arms visible in the cold moonlight. Without thinking, he shuffled closer to warm her. “I mean, I have to actually get to the interview first, so there’s the first hurdle.”

Masamune chewed his lip. “How far out is it?”

“It’s in Virginia. Complete other side of the country. The plane tickets are outrageous.”

“Damn. Guess you’re road tripping, huh?”

A gust of warm breath huffed from her lips. “I mean, I hate going on them alone, but I don’t even have a car right now. Mine got totaled; kid hit me when I was driving down here. Guess I’m taking a damn greyhound.”

His first reaction was to say ‘yikes’, and then… well. Masamune paused, soaking in the possibilities. “So you need a car is what you’re saying?”

“Mmhmm.”

Back in the day, his dad often said that the universe lined things up. Masamune didn't exactly believe in fate—he believed in making things happen—but occasionally, he saw the reasoning. 

“How do you like eighties cars?” He asked. 

She eyed him, a smile in her eyes and voice. “Like the Camaro? Sure, it’s cool. Why?”

Masamune snickered. “Everything in the Date family is cool as hell. What if I told you I could get you a car and a road trip buddy?”

The click of her brain working was almost audible. “Don’t you have to be here?”

“Gotta wait for the death certificates, which is probably a week or so. Mom wants the Camaro gone, and if she has to be around me too long, she’ll probably get sick of me real quick. I might as well make myself scarce and hang out with a dear friend. Besides—I’ll cut you a deal on selling you it. Call it a test drive.”

“A test drive? For like, a week?” But she was grinning, her shoulders angled in toward his. “Weeklong test drives aren’t kosher, Mr. Date.”

“And I’m not Jewish.”

“Are you being serious right now?”

“Serious as my dad’s grave.” Masamume brushed a lock of stray hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Want me along for the ride?”

Once upon a time, years ago, the whole gang got into an altercation with an older man in a Ford pickup. They were only teenagers sitting on a dock, but the guy pulled up and screamed at them for ‘loitering’. Mitsunari tried to intervene, and when the man acted like he might hit him, Ieyasu almost threw hands himself. They’d retreated into the woods—and when the man left, Masamune, Mitsuhide, and she went back and lit the dock on fire to spite him. Right beforehand, she’d fixed him with the most mischievous expression he’d ever seen: mouth sucked into her teeth, eyes glittering, staring out from under her lashes. 

Now, she made that same expression, and it lit a fire in him. 

“We’d have to leave like…” She mentally calculated. “In three days to make it.”

“Or we could take the long road, do a little sightseeing, and leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” She echoed. Only a half second later, that smile was back. “I’m game.”

---

At six a.m. sharp, Masamune tried to wake her by flinging rocks at her window. That didn't work. At last he resorted to calling her, discovering that she stayed in a completely different room now. 

“Could’a used that knowledge,” he chuckled, hopping in place to warm his legs. The fog pressed in around him, September chill early this year. “Don’t suppose anyone is using that room?”

Her voice was thin, but warm over the phone. “No, it’s a home gym now.” 

“Great! I didn't hassle anyone else. Get out here, Kitten, we got a road to get on.”

She emerged twenty minutes later, sweatpants fresh from the dryer, wet hair in a sloppy bun and a suitcase click-clacking behind her. She never was a morning person. Masamune snickered and popped the Camaro trunk. “Wanna drive, or wanna let me do it?”

“You start. Can we get some Starbucks?”

“Ugh.” He clutched his chest, mock-wounded. “All of the coffee places in the world, and you want Starbucks. My palate is crying.”

Rolling her eyes, she slid into the passenger seat. “Drama queen.”

They got Starbucks. She tucked her feet into fuzzy socks and folded them under her knees, clutching the large mocha. Only the rush of the road beneath their tires filled the silence. Asphalt and trees emerged from the mist like a benevolent ghost, Americana obscured. They’d only just merged onto the highway when Masamune realized there wasn’t an audio jack in the car.

“Shit,” he muttered. 

She opened her eyes, head lolling on the headrest. “What?”

He flicked the dashboard. Nope, no audio jack. Not even a CD player. No; amidst all the toggles and buttons of the dash was a cassette player. “I don’t have anything to listen to. This thing won’t hook up to the phones, and I don’t have any tapes.”

“Hm.” Taking a long sip of her drink, she mused, “Maybe your dad has some in here?”

“I guess that’d make sense. Take a look around, would you?”

Sure enough, she was right. Tucked away in the glove compartment was a treasure trove: Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, AC/DC, Prince, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen. “Damn,” she chuckled, “Your dad had good taste.”

Masamune took the copy of Rumors in his fingers, never taking his eyes off the road. The dust was thick under his thumb. “He’d play ‘Back in Black’ when he picked me up from school. It was cool as hell.” With a snap, he pried open the copy of Rumors and popped it into the player. The speakers hummed to life with strumming guitar, Fleetwood Mac echoing. “I know there’s nothing to say, someone has taken my place…” She rested her elbow on the center console, brushing his arm with her as she texted. 

“Guess what?” She murmured. “Mitsunari just got back from Tanzania.”

“Oh shit, really?” How long had it been? Masamune mentally calculated the dates. “I guess it has been two years, huh? The Peace Corps finally turned him loose?”

“Yeah. He’s apparently crashing at Ieyasu’s place—” Masamune barked a laugh, and she tittered, but continued, “—and wants to know if we’re going to head that direction.”

“He’s in Maryland, right?” Fishing out his phone, he checked it. “Yasu didn't tell me about this. Bastard. Well, we get there fast enough, then we can definitely hunker down there for a day or so and celebrate his coming back.”

Classic rock kept them company on the long drive. He didn't mind roadtrips. There was something sacred about them. Forget the American Dream; it was dead. Long live the American Road Trip, a rite of passage for the lost souls from sea to shining sea. Nothing cleared the senses like cranking up the heater on the floorboards and rolling down the window to a blast of autumn air. She let down her hair and it whipped wild in the wind. 

Thank God she was here. Masamune quietly relished her reappearance in his life. She was a gateway to an old world, one with his father alive, one where he still snuck out of the house at night and biked to the 7-Eleven for slurpees at 3a.m. They stopped at a Cracker Barrel for dinner and ordered root beer floats and roasted each other over the annoying ‘jump-the-pegs’ game perched on every table. Though you were supposed to reduce it to one peg, she couldn’t quite manage it. Somehow she kept getting two or three. 

“I got it down to one peg once,” she laughed, shoving it toward him. Masamune swirled it under his hand. 

“I can do it,” he commented. “But that’s because Mitsunari taught me the trick years ago.” He knocked the first peg out of the top of the triangle, moving it elsewhere. “That’s the one that’s gotta be empty. From there on out, there’s a set solution.”

She craned over it, investigating. “What’s the set solution?”

A long, hefty pause lingered between them as he slurped some of his float. 

“Dunno anymore.” He cracked a grin. “I forgot like, eight years ago.”

“Ass! Then you don’t know!” She swatted at his arm and grinned. “Liar!”

“Hey! I was just trying to look cool in front’a you, Kitten, I can’t look like some big dumb stud after all these years—”

“I love how you allow for the possibility that you’re dumb,” she cackled, “but not the possibility that you’re anything other than hot.”

“Am I wrong? Look at me.”

The roll of her eyes was exactly what he wanted. She shoved a biscuit at him over the table. “I think Mark Twain said something like, ‘it’s better to stop talking and appear dumb than open your mouth and remove any doubt’, Masamune.”

He clutched at his chest, but took the biscuit anyway. “You wound me, Kitten.”

As they were paying the bill, she split off and reappeared a minute later, plunking thirty cents onto the cash register and tucking a cinnamon stick into his jacket pocket. “Here.”

“My favorite!” He peeled back the plastic wrapper. “Thanks, Kitkat. You remembered.”

For the first time since they’d seen each other again, her expression evolved to one he’d almost forgotten. He’d only seen it once before. It was a moonlit night back in their senior year, after prom, when they were both lingering in the pool as everyone else passed out drunk. He’d wiped a leaf from her hair and told her she was beautiful, and she’d looked at him like that so long and hard that he wondered if he’d ever known her inner thoughts at all. 

“Of course I remembered,” she answered at last, soft and clarion clear. “I remember all kinds of things about you, Masamune.”

[drtanstravels]

We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel. During our stay we would take a tour of Jerusalem, travel along the West Bank while venturing into Palestine, visit the ancient village of Masada, and then float and get all muddy in the Dead Sea. All of the main events happened in the final two days of the trip so this will just be a relatively short post in comparison, covering the initial two days of our journey, both spent in Tel Aviv.

Friday, November 1, 2019 We had left Singapore at 11:30pm the previous night, took an 11.5-hour flight to Turkey, had a 90-minute layover in Istanbul Airport, and then took another two-hour flight to Tel Aviv. When we were in Seoul, South Korea recently we got chatting to some friends of mine who had traveled to Israel in the past and the nightmares they had faced going through immigration once they had reached Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One of them even told us about how he got cavity-searched, so we were both prepared for the worst. Once we were off the plane and inside the airport I cringed a bit when the first security guard snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, but it turned out to be just for him to search through our hand luggage. After that the line at the passport counter was taking forever, but it turned out that the reason the queue was taking so long to move was because we just had a really talkative guy checking our passports and when he first saw my Australian document, he looked up, gave me a curious look, and asked, “Do you watch Home and Away?” I smiled and mentioned that my sister used to have it on every night back in the day and that was it. We had to ask for entry border crossing cards, a separate slip of paper to be put into our passports instead of a stamp, because having an Israeli passport stamp can cause quite a bit of trouble when traveling overseas. There are currently eight countries that won’t accept passports containing Israeli visas, the most notable one being Saudi Arabia, a country to which we may need to travel one day. There are also quite a few countries whose passport holders are forbidden entrance to Israel without official confirmation from the Israeli government, Malaysia being on that list, so one of Anna’s colleagues was unable to attend. In fact, if Anna hadn’t taken Singaporean citizenship after we got married, this journey would never have happened.

As has been a pattern over recent trips, we arrived in Tel Aviv early in the morning, well before our hotel room was available so we dumped our bags with the concierge and decided to have a look around town. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza, which had an attached shopping mall so that was our first stop, mainly for a much-needed coffee and a couple of pastries, and then we discovered that there was a park and shopping district nearby called Sarona, a place with an interesting history:

Sarona was a German Templer colony established in Ottoman Palestine in 1871. Sarona is now a neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. It was one of the earliest modern villages established by Europeans in Ottoman Palestine. In July 1941, the British Mandate authorities deported 188 residents of Sarona, who were considered hard-core Nazi sympathisers. By the 2000s, the area had fallen into disrepair and was a haven for drug addicts. However, since 2003, the area has undergone massive renovation, which involved moving and relocating historical buildings before their restoration. The area is now a popular shopping district, as well as housing museums, cultural artefacts centring on its history, and IDF complexes.

Walking around Sarona was really cool with its mix of shops, bars, and cafes, as well as the Sarona Market. When Anna was purchasing a ring in one of the stores she asked for some recommendations in the area and the first one immediately given was Anita, a boutique ice-cream store. We initially thought this was a one-off, but we ended up finding incredible ice-cream shops all over the city. Anyway, we ordered a cup with two flavours, Pavlova & Mix Berries and Salted Pretzel, before we continued walking around, visiting among other shops a handmade dreidel store called Draydel House, a place with some unique takes on the spinning tops, and then it was on to Sarona Market. The market had some great looking food and there were plenty of free samples, but as you will find out over the course of this post and the next, it wasn’t an accurate representation of kosher food. We walked around sampling different cheeses, pickles, and halva, possibly the driest substance on earth. Seriously, dust is more mouth-watering than halva. Another thing that Israel is known for is pomegranate juice, generally used for detoxing, so we ordered a large one each, a decision we would later deeply regret and one that would also put the pair of us off pomegranates for the foreseeable future, despite how nice it tasted. Once we were done with the market and walking around the gardens in Sarona, we were able to check into our room at the Crowne Plaza at around 2:00pm and take a nap for a bit. Our day up until that point (besides the awesome pickle store in the market that wouldn’t let me take photos):

Anna near the entrance of Sarona

The way Sarona is set up is really cool

Looking down a row of stores

A map of Sarona in Hebrew

Anna’s dreidel

The dreidel Anna would probably get for me

Some of the ice-cream flavours available at Anita

A few more

They also had a custom soft-serve yoghurt bar

Anna about to buy ours

Our sweet and salty combination was definitely a good mix

Halva inside the market

One of the food stall rows

There is a huge variety available in this market

Unfortunately, not all Israeli food is as good as this looks

Anna in the garden

Now in our room

After sleeping for a bit we caught a cab to the waterfront, which is split into two parts; Alma Beach, a modern seaside area, and the Old City area of Jaffa. Most modern beach areas are similar, whereas ancient cities are always fascinating so Jaffa was the obvious choice to spend some time exploring first. It would be nigh on impossible to summarise the history of a 3,800-year-old port city in the Middle East, but here’s the general background:

Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv–Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus, and later for its oranges. The city as such was established at the latest around 1800 BCE.

Modern Jaffa has a heterogeneous population of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jaffa currently has 46,000 residents, of whom 30,000 are Jews and 16,000 are Arabs. The 2010 film Port of Memory explores these themes. Tabeetha School in Jaffa was founded in 1863. It is owned by the Church of Scotland. The school provides education in English to children from Christian, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds.

Our taxi driver was an elderly man who kept explaining to us along the way that Tel Aviv was a party city, that around 69% of people there were aged between 30-40, and that we’d be among the older people out that night. I wasn’t expecting that, but another thing we weren’t expecting was the fact that the sun sets in Tel Aviv before 5:00pm, it’s almost as if the city is in the entirely wrong timezone and is something that would throw our body clocks off for the duration of this trip. When it had been dark there for a few hours, you’d be led to think it was getting kind of late when in reality it was only about eight o’clock in the evening. So, despite the fact that we arrived at Jaffa at 4:30pm, the sun was already setting, but this just made the place that much more beautiful. We spent the evening wandering through the narrow streets and laneways of Jaffa, taking in all of the ancient buildings, towers, and structures, plus the major landmarks in the area such as Jaffa Lighthouse, Clock Square, and the coastal canons, all while the sun set over the ocean.

After all of that walking we were beginning to get hungry and the waterside restaurants at Alma Beach were supposed to be pretty decent so we chose one called Manta Ray for dinner where we sat outdoors with some drinks and feasted on some selections from their great meze platter, as well as a grilled fish. We were to meet the organisers and other attendees of Anna’s course at 9:30pm after everyone had arrived in town, but it was barely 7:30pm by the time we finished dinner so we found a nearby shisha bar for a few more drinks and a pipe. After a while we both began to bloat up, neither of us could stop farting, and I was burping constantly, feeling the need to vomit. It was too soon after dinner to be from the fish or the meze dishes we chose, I had already checked that the water was safe to drink so that wasn’t it, coffee, pastries, and ice-cream don’t have this effect on me, and nothing else we had tried had been a large enough sample to make us sick. Except for the pomegranate juice, that is. We had drunk about a litre (33.8 fl. oz.) each several hours ago and it now seemed like we were paying for it, however, we couldn’t be 100% certain. Whatever it was, we both wanted to go back to the hotel and let it all out, resulting in me violently throwing up for a few minutes once inside, but then we felt reasonably fine as soon as we were both empty.

We met up with Anna’s course-mates in the lobby of our hotel and we walked down to a pub in another nearby part of town where everyone chatted over some beers, while those who hadn’t eaten had dinner. It was a really fun night and Anna decided to ask one of the local organisers, Tamir, if it could’ve been the pomegranate juice that bloated us. He said it’s good for you, most people just take a small glass and share it. When she told him that we’d had a litre each he was gobsmacked. “That’s not detox, that’s just tox!” was the response. Here are a whole bunch of photos from around Jaffa that evening, plus a couple of our dinner and the shisha bar before we bloated up like a couple of non-embalmed corpses:

Hashan Square

Anna and and I on the peninsula

Part of Jaffa from a distance

Looking over the ocean

People washing their hands

One of the coastal canons, imported by the Ottoman government in the 18th century to protect Jaffa from Bedouin raids

Overlooking a mosque

You can even find cool bars in towns dating back to the bronze age

Walking down a wide thoroughfare

The sun setting over the ocean

A museum surrounded by shops

Walking down an avenue

Anna posing in an alley

One of many interesting sculptures in Jaffa

The view of Clock Square from a very narrow stairway

We were both wondering if this was the Jewish equivalent of leaving your tie on the door handle so your roommate knows you have a girl inside

Etzel House

Dinner is served

We chose a few dishes from this platter

Baked blue bream with Jerusalem artichokes

Smoking a shisha while we both rapidly expand

Saturday, November 2, 2019 Anna was going to her course so I was free to do my own thing for the bulk of the day, but there was one small problem — Saturday is the sabbath, also known as Shabbat in Judaism, and this would severely limit what I was able to do due to many actions being classed as melakhah and thus being prohibited on this day of rest or historically punishable by death! Here’s a better description of melakhah:

Jewish law (halakha) prohibits doing any form of melakhah (מְלָאכָה, plural melakhoth) on Shabbat, unless an urgent human or medical need is life-threatening. Though melakhah is commonly translated as “work” in English, a better definition is “deliberate activity” or “skill and craftmanship”. There are 39 categories of prohibited activities (melakhoth) listed in Mishnah Tractate Shabbat 7:2.

Some acts forbidden on Shabbat include:

Threshing/Extraction Definition: Removal of an undesirable outer from a desirable inner.

Dissection Definition: Reducing an earth-borne thing’s size for a productive purpose.

Kneading/Amalgamation Definition: Combining particles into a semi-solid or solid mass via liquid.

Cooking/Baking Definition for solids: Changing the properties of something via heat. Definition for liquids: Bringing a liquid’s temperature to the heat threshold. This threshold is known as yad soledet (lit. “A hand reflexively recoils [due to such heat]”). According to Igrot Moshe this temperature is 43 °C (110 °F).

Extinguishing a Fire Definition: Extinguishing a fire/flame, or diminishing its intensity.

Ignition: Definition: Igniting, fuelling or spreading a fire/flame.

Transferring Between Domains Definition: Transferring something from one domain type to another domain type, or transferring within a public thoroughfare.

Now, some of you reading this are probably thinking, “Why would you care, you’re not Jewish.” This is true, however, despite me seeing fewer Orthodox Jews in Israel than I did on any given day in New York City, prohibition of melakhah on Shabbat is enforced by law, although not to an extreme. Although no shops would be open, these restrictions would severely limit my food purchasing options. Because it had been powered down for Shabbat, I pushed my way through the revolving door to exit the hotel and hit the street. I was quite hungry due to the fact that I had vomited everything I had eaten the previous evening so I figured I might get lucky finding somewhere open to eat at Sarona. I saw a cafe with people all around it so that’s where I went and I ordered the egg white omelette on the menu, which came with some bread and a side salad. I guess the hotplate must’ve been kept burning from the previous day and eggs aren’t really a solid or liquid so changing their properties via heat would be fine. Salad was also okay because the form of the lettuce doesn’t change, only the size, and it was cut quite large so it wasn’t done to make it into a more usable, productive state. The bread had obviously been made the previous day and when it came to dissection of the food in order to eat, that was all on me, not the cafe. Juice wasn’t an option due to threshing/extraction, but it was when I ordered a latte that things got weird. The waiter told me that he could only offer me a “very weak coffee” which was the result of the water and milk only being heated to about 40°C in keeping with the law, a temperature that also isn’t really hot enough for the coffee to properly infuse the water, thus making it not very strong. It actually turned out to be infinitely easier to get a beer anywhere in town that morning than coffee. My order at the cafe was able to be brought from the kitchen to my table, and also to diners who were seated outside, without transferring between domains due to the installation of an eruv, described as:

An urban area enclosed by a wire boundary which symbolically extends the private domain of Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath.

Although the Jewish community must strictly adhere to laws of prohibition on Shabbat, going to the effort of building eruvs and heating liquids to a slightly cooler temperature than normal seem like ways of pranking an almighty deity who is easily fooled by the loopholes in the rules he wrote. Then I remembered this scene from the documentary Religulous:

After eating I decided to have a look around the beach area, making my way there via the main shopping district en route, but obviously everything was closed except for bars, restaurants, and cafes and wouldn’t be opening again until late in the evening or within the next few days. I was also having trouble getting cash out of an ATM again and this time I wasn’t sure whether the machines weren’t accepting my card or were just unable to function in general. I arrived at the beach and it was quite nice with a bunch more seaside bars and restaurants, as well as plenty of entertainment, some of which was unintentionally funny. There was Israeli folk dancing that happens at Gordon Beach every Saturday, as well as a big outdoor gym area where meatheads could work out like in Venice Beach, California, all just grunting, flexing, and slapping butts. Instead, I walked out along the pier to a lighthouse, just taking in the sights. It was a nice walk, but I could feel myself getting sunburnt so I went back to a shaded area along the shore to sit down with a bunch of senior citizens for a bit and that’s where I got the biggest laugh of the day. There were three guys working out there, one was absolutely ripped and doing chin-ups and some other impressive feats on horizontal bars directly in front of us, another was doing push ups, all the while giving the third guy tips on capoeira moves. If you are unaware of what capoeira is, it’s a Brazilian martial art that combines acrobatics, dancing, and complex moves involving hand plants, kicks, and flips (that link is a video that will give you a decent idea). The only problem was that the guy trying to do it wasn’t particularly good at capoeira so I found myself sitting there with a bunch of confused older people who were innocently trying to figure out why a muscly dude was doing cartwheels in the sand in front of several other muscly guys. It was a hot day, a dry heat compared to the insane humidity of Singapore, but I had no cash for a drink so I had a sip out of the drinking fountain where people also washed the sand off their feet, and walked for forty minutes back to the hotel, passing a cheese shop that you could smell before you could see, despite it being closed, along the way. Once back I killed two birds with one stone, grabbing a bottle of sparkling water from the minibar and making an instant coffee in the room, which turned into mud when I added water, but it still gave me the caffeine fix I had been lacking. I also managed to get cash out of an ATM next our hotel and Anna was still going to be a while so I planted myself in a bar back in Sarona for a few hours until she was done.

My kosher Shabbat breakfast with very weak coffee

Walking into town

At the beach

Looking down the boardwalk and across the road

Some huts near the ocean

Now walking down the promenade

Was Banksy in town?

More art, this time honouring the older community

Israeli folk-dancing

Beanbags on the beach

One of many cafes along the promenade

Coming over a little cloudy

That’s better

Waves crashing along the pier

A lighthouse at the end

I’m still trying to figure out if this building had caught fire or was just art-deco

The cheese shop on the way home. I wish it was open

The bottom of my instant mud coffee

Anna was soon back from her teaching and we had a dinner that night with everyone else involved in the course. This meant taking a minibus with the International Retinal Panel crew back to a restaurant at the beach, Anna’s first venture into that area of Tel Aviv, so we had a look around the boardwalk and took a few photos first. It was nice to hang out with everyone while we were feeling 100%, they were really cool people and an interesting mix of nationalities, some local, others coming from Columbia, Italy, India, France, Argentina, China, and a multitude of other other countries. The restaurant we went to looked good, but the entire group, myself included, consisted of about 30 people, taking up two massive tables, and the platters we received, two per table, were to be shared. The problem with this system was that Anna, myself, and a few others were tucked away in a corner on the back table and our food and drinks kept failing to appear. Everyone else received a meze platter except us, we waited about 20 minutes and then had to ask for it, as well as remind the staff that we had also ordered drinks. When it finally arrived, the other areas of both tables were receiving a grilled fish that looked delicious, but when we finished our platter the fish never arrived, nor did the second drink I ordered. We asked about the fish and when it finally came ours was just what seemed like fish offcuts including several heads, all of which was deep-fried to the point that it was so crunchy it was pretty much inedible. We didn’t bother eating much of it, that second beer never came, and everyone that was there for the course had homework to do so we got back in the bus, the interior blue light making my Rick and Morty “Pickle Rick” shirt appear as if it were covered in turds, and we went back to the hotel, them to do group work and me to have a couple of drinks at the hotel bar until it closed.

Anna’s first stroll along this area of the beach

The boardwalk at night

All of the people involved in Anna’s course

A merry-go-round

Some of the food has arrived, but it also looks like others are asking for stuff that hasn’t

If our fish were pork, it would’ve been the parts that go into a sausage roll

Definitely looks like faeces

Tel Aviv is such a cool city and nothing like we expected, yet a completely hidden gem when it comes to traveling, but this was just the beginning! Stay tuned for the next instalment when we do all the cool stuff you would expect one to do while in Israel that in no way would fit into this post, like visiting Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea.

The first two days of our four-night trip to Israel We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel.

[mrcoreymonroe]

OMG the food — Air Canada’s new Signature Service Delivers Big

An Air Canada 777-300ER being prepared for a transcontinental flight from Vancouver to Toronto

Earlier this summer, we had the opportunity to try out Air Canada’s new Signature Class cabin and lounge experiences.

Launched in June, the service is aimed squarely at the business/first class traveler, and competes quite readily with existing offerings by its North American mainline-carrier rivals.

Domestic Signature service is offered on flights between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver to Toronto; daily flights between Montreal and New York-Newark to Vancouver; between Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto; and between Toronto and Honolulu. Internationally, it’s offered on all Air Canada flights serviced using Boeing 767, 777, and 787, as well as Airbus A330 aircraft.

The routing for my flights were SEA-YVR-YYZ-SEA. The hop from Seattle to Vancouver was in standard coach class on a venerable Bombardier Q400.

Our Q400 was sporting the new Air Canada livery

Upon arriving at the airline’s check-in counter, I discovered quite a long line to drop off bags. As a relatively small player at Sea-Tac, Air Canada’s counter has only three general lanes and one priority line, which I couldn’t use for this leg because I was seated in economy. It took more than 30 minutes to complete that portion of the check-in, even though there were only a half-dozen or so people in front of me.

The delay didn’t really matter in the long run, as I had woken to find a notification from Air Canada’s smartphone app that the departure would be delayed by an hour. This not being my first rodeo, as they say, I still went to the airport per the original schedule to be sure there was plenty of time to deal with any snags.

At the departure gate, I was delighted to find that our Q400 was decked out in the airline’s new livery, which, in my humble opinion, looks really good on the turboprop.

The roughly 30-minute flight went without a hitch, and my window seat provided a lovely view of the Pacific Northwest coastline and the beautiful approach into Vancouver International Airport.

I love flying in propeller planes. OK, so I love flying in all planes. But propellers are awesome.

The main event: Signature Class, AC118, YVR-YYZ

After a comfortable wait in the domestic terminal at YVR (my layover was brief, but Signature Class does provide lounge access), it was soon time to board our 777-300ER for the flight to Toronto. It was my first widebody transcontinental flight in at least a decade, and I was seated in Signature Class for the five-hour flight.

Boarding was quick and super easy. I was assigned seat 9D. The section was otherwise full, so it wasn’t possible to switch seats. My usual preference is for a window, but never has a middle seat felt so nice.

If you’ve got to be in a middle seat, these are the seats to be in

The cabin was very quiet. Even still, I love the sound of the huge GE90 engines at takeoff, even when muted.

I will also confess to liking the trend of including a window in the lavatory. It not only offers folks seated in the aisle or middle seats a chance to have a couple minutes to look out the window when they get up to take care of business, but it also has the beneficial effect of providing a perceptually larger space. Just do the rampers a favor and don’t forget to close the shade if you’re allowed to go in there when the plane is on the ground.

The seat and lighting controls are very well placed, and there is a lid over the TV remote and charging station – very handy, and protects against accidental activation of the remotes when trying to rest or sleep. There was also a nifty arm rest on the aisle side of the seat.

When the lid is closed, the space is quite large and useful.

Frustratingly, the USB charging outlet didn’t produce enough amperage to charge my iPad, which is my barometer for defining a good in-seat charging system. It’s always surprising to discover this issue on a newer aircraft, as the 5-watt charging requirement for larger electronics is hardly new – the iPad and similar tablets have been around for eight years. While our particular aircraft (C-FITL) was 11 years old, it was quite obvious that it had been recently refurbished with the new premium cabin and exterior paint.

With that in mind, I’ve taken to carrying a 120v wall charger in my laptop bag, which did power the iPad when plugged in to the A/C outlet. It also meant the only other way to use/charge a laptop and simultaneously charge the iPad was to first plug in the laptop to the seat’s single 110v outlet, then plug the iPad into the laptop’s USB port, which results in lots of cables in your lap and makes getting up that much more of a hassle. Overall it’s perhaps a small thing, but keep in mind that industry competition is fierce for premium fares, and most mainline products have gotten so good that details are nearly all that’s left to differentiate between competing products.

While we’re on the topic of nit-picks, I paid for the “fast” GoGo internet ($21 all day or $13 for the flight), but it was so slow that I couldn’t even load plain text emails, and basically gave up on the idea of getting any sort of value for of the price paid. I need to start training myself to look for the new-style antennas on top of the aircraft when boarding as part of my in-flight Wi-Fi purchase decision. This is a frustration that transcends individual carriers — the terrestrial in-flight Wi-Fi systems are consistently unreliable, especially when compared with the newer satellite-based systems.

So, as promised in the headline (don’t you hate it when publications tease you with a headline and then don’t deliver?), here’s where I finally start writing about the food.

The in-flight meal was glorious. Meals are designed by chef David Hawksworth, accompanied by wines chosen by sommelier Véronique Rivest. The seared ahi tuna appetizer was divine, and I selected the beef tenderloin for my entree – it was phenomenal.

The cheese course was totally delish, as you’d expect. To wrap up the meal, I opted for the seasonal fruit — I was delighted to find that there were non-dairy dessert options. There is an extensive wine and cocktail list as well.

Our cabin crew was wonderfully attentive but not over the top. Although every airline’s stated purpose for flight attendants is to provide a safe and orderly flight, and flight attendants therefore often justifiably bristle when comparisons to restaurant waitstaff are raised, definitions get a bit fuzzy in premium cabins. Suffice it to say the service levels were such that I felt appropriately cared for.

The overall experience was so comfortable, though, that I was a bit saddened by the announcement that we’d started our initial descent into Toronto. I wished the flight had been a bit farther so I could enjoy that lie-flat seat a little longer.

Did I mention that it was my first flight in ages without a window seat? But the seat was so comfortable that I didn’t really mind. And there was always that bathroom view.

The return flight: Signature Suite & Lounge, Premium Economy, AC541, YYZ-SEA

After a couple of fun days exploring Toronto (it’s a delightful city which definitely warrants a visit if you’ve not been), it was time to head back to Seattle.

Sightseeing in Toronto – #avgeek style

Although I was to fly home in premium economy, the airline’s marketing folks offered me a tour of their flagship Business/ Altitude class check-in area and lounges. The premium-class check-in area is separated from the main ticketing area and guarded by a very polite uniformed Air Canada attendant. The area is reminiscent of a high-end corporate lobby – quiet, with a very comfortable seating area, complete with a huge Dreamliner model on display.

I was also given the experience of the premium-class check-in process, which includes a ride to one’s plane in a new BMW sedan.

Unlike many other airline lounges, access to the Air Canada Signature Suite isn’t accessible based solely on mileage; customers must meet the following criteria: · Customers booked in J, C, D, Z, P classes only · Departing on a non-stop flight from YYZ to Asia, Europe, or South America in Air Canada Signature Class (lie-flat seat on mainline) · No upgrades and no mileage redemptions are allowed

The restaurant/lounge was, predictably, modern, elegant, and very exclusive feeling. It was hard to believe that you were still in an airport once you settled in to the restaurant, which is accessible only by people who have purchased a full-fare premium flight, regardless of their mileage status. High-mileage flyers have access to a more traditional, yet still quite nice, lounge elsewhere in the airport.

Just like a fine-dining restaurant, only at an airport

Considerable attention went into the design and materials that were used to create Air Canada’s Signature Suite. Designed by the Montréal-based Heekyung Duquette Design Office and Eric Majer Architecte Inc, the space is very contemporary in vibe.

Materials were sourced from across Canada, and as much of the food as possible is locally sourced.

The lounge area is delightful

According to Andrew McFarlane, Air Canada’s airport product design manager, “when reviewing the menus we want to ensure we cater to as many dietary preferences as possible. As you can see we generally cover the main proteins, red meats; poultry and fish; and ensure we have a vegan option as well. We have a team of some of Canada’s most highly skilled culinary chefs and cooks design our menus and this is all overseen by award-winning Vancouver, B.C., Chef David Hawksworth.”

Six different menus are available at the Air Canada Signature Suite (aka the ACSS): a-la-carte; on-the-go; buffet; a Cantonese inspired noodle bar menu; kosher; and dessert. “This is not only to cater to our customers preferences but to ensure we have a preferred offering based off the amount of time our guest can stay with us before having to catch a flight,” McFarlane said.

McFarlane treated me to a sample meal – it was on par with anything I’ve had at an upscale restaurant, regardless of location.

Management has trained the staff to discretely determine the amount of time a guest has to spend in the ACSS before they have to board their flight. If you have 50 minutes or more, they will be able to offer a passenger the full a-la-carte dining option; otherwise there is an “on-the-go” menu which can be prepared in 15 minutes, or an “elevated” buffet; the traveler will be presented with the appropriate menus based on their flight schedule.

During my visit, we didn’t have time to tour the kitchen, but I was still curious as to the logistics involved with having a high-functioning, high-quality restaurant within the confines of a secure airport facility.

The “ordinary” Maple Leaf Lounge was still quite comfortable and pleasant

“Anyone can tell you how hard it is to get 100ml of water into an airport, let alone bring high volumes of fine foods and top-shelf cocktails. All our deliveries are delivered to an offsite facility where they are scanned and secured before being brought through a number of security check points in the tunnels of the terminals before arriving at the Air Canada Signature Suite — our kitchen team does a fantastic job at making our customer experience similar to what you would find at a top-end restaurant downtown Toronto all while managing a complex and secure logistics network,” McFarlane explained.

A BMW beats an airport shuttle bus any day of the week

Back to that BMW service – a concierge meets eligible Signature Class customers at their connecting flight, and escorts them down a private stairwell to a BMW that will be waiting on the ramp. From there, customers are driven to a central bus bay located two levels below the Air Canada Signature Suite. It allows those customers to connect to their international flight in minutes.

Of course I got to ride in one of the BMWs

Back at the Signature Suite, the staff are trained to have an elevated attention to detail. Some of these details included recognizing a guest’s dominant hand so their cutlery can be positioned accordingly, or noticing that someone’s napkin has fallen on the ground and quickly provide them a new one, all before they notice, or, if someone has been to the ACSS before, the staff will try to remember their preferences.

Air Canada plans to expand the ACSS concept to Vancouver and Montreal, but no dates have yet been announced.

Bottom line: it is all worth it? A resounding yes. If you can swing the fare, the entire experience is very much worthy of the hype.

While Air Canada provided my flights for the purpose of reviewing their new premium product, all opinions expressed are my own.

The post OMG the food — Air Canada’s new Signature Service Delivers Big appeared first on AirlineReporter.

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[fadingfartconnoisseur]

How I Stay Healthy While Traveling

Spider-walking in Karijini National Park in Western Australia.

The following branded content post is brought to you by RXBAR. I’ve been eating roughly two RXBARs per day since the beginning of the year, and their team noticed on social media — so they reached out to do a giveaway together! Working with companies I love is my best-case scenario, so I’m very pleased to share this post here with you.

At the beginning of this year, I made a decision to reclaim my health and get back into a diet and fitness routine. For the month of January, I stayed in New York and got into a solid routine. But one of the most difficult parts was when I started traveling again.

Yes, it’s one thing to be healthy when you’re at home — but what happens when you travel?!

I was so nervous when I went to Florida with Cailin in February. This was my first trip since committing to a new gym, an exercise routine, a personal trainer, and an 80% paleo diet. How was I going to manage in a theme park famous for its milkshakes and turkey legs?

I made it through security at JFK Airport and felt like crying. I was hungry and surrounded by forbidden foods. The old me would have gone for a latte and a pastry at Starbucks, or maybe a giant bag of Cheez-Its if I felt indulgent. Was I going to fail after so much hard work?

It’s okay, Kate, I told myself. You can keep up your diet here. I went to a fountain and filled up my portable water bottle. I went to a newsstand and bought a banana. And then I reached into my RXBAR stash and pulled out my favorite flavor: Coconut Chocolate.

Yes. I could travel and stay healthy.

SUP Yoga in Key West, Florida

How I Stay Healthy While Traveling

Over the past seven months, through trial and error, I’ve gotten much better at staying healthy on my travels. These recent trips have been some of my healthiest yet.

But didn’t you eat a ton of key lime pie on those Keys trips? I sure did! But I balanced things out. I would rarely eat more than a few bites of pie. I would eat healthy fish dishes the rest of the day. And I made sure to work out like crazy while I was there! I worked out in gyms, I kayaked, I did the 7-minute workout over and over in my room, I even went to a Zumba class where I was the only participant. (That was a bit awkward.)

Here are some of my best tips for staying healthy while traveling:

On a…bicycle kayak?…on South Africa’s Garden Route.

    Establish healthy habits at home first.

There are a number of people in the travel blogging community who are super into fitness. You see them scaling mountains, running on beaches, rocking self-made bootcamps at various playgrounds in different cities. How do they do it?

Their secret is that they prioritized fitness at home before they hit the road.

The same truth holds for you, too. If you want to be in shape while you travel, you should commit to fitness at home long before you hop on your flight. The road is full of temptation — discipline at home will keep you on track while traveling!

Sipping on a black iced coffee — maybe 5 calories? — while strolling the reservoir in Central Park.

Hydrate Frequently and Limit Caloric Drinks

So much of your health rests on hydration. It helps your body work better, it keeps you alert, and perhaps most importantly, it staves off hunger. Very often we think we’re hungry when we’re actually thirsty.

Make an effort to drink water constantly. Bring a portable water bottle to cut down on trash. And if you want to drink something else, stick to drinks with few calories: black coffee, herbal tea, seltzer.

Cut back on lattes, alcohol, and delicious fruit juices and you’ll pack on fewer pounds. I say this with regret as someone who loves lattes, alcohol, and delicious fruit juices.

Pack Healthy Snacks And Use Them Often

The old me would buy a roll or two of Oreos and eat them all on a six-hour bus ride. I don’t do that anymore.

RXBAR: The Ultimate Healthy Snack for Travel

When I got into fitness at the beginning of the year, I tried all kinds of paleo protein bars. Seven months in, there’s only one brand that I still eat regularly: RXBAR.

I first noticed them at the gym, with labels reading, “3 Egg Whites. 6 Almonds. 4 Cashews. 2 Dates. No B.S.” By “No B.S.” they mean no dairy, no gluten, no added sugar, no soy, no artificial colors or flavors, no preservatives, and no fillers.

I got hooked on the bars at the gym — and then started buying them in bulk. (FYI, they’re cheapest at Trader Joe’s — even cheaper than Amazon!) My favorite flavor is Coconut Chocolate, followed by Mixed Berry and Chocolate Sea Salt. All are paleo and fit the criteria for Whole30, excluding Peanut Butter Chocolate, as peanuts and other legumes are off the paleo menu.

All the bars are gluten-free and vegetarian; some but not all flavors are paleo, Whole30 compliant, and Kosher. None are vegan due to the egg whites. See more details here.

Today I eat them constantly. In fact, the reason why RXBAR reached out to me for this campaign is because their staff noticed I was eating them all the time on Snapchat!

How I use RXBARs While Traveling

I bring a huge stack of RXBARs with me when I travel nowadays — usually two for each day. No joke, when I went on the cruise earlier this year, an entire shelf was devoted to my healthy snacks.

I pack them into my carry-on backpack. Snacks on planes are usually junk food and some airports are severely lacking in healthy options (hello, Fort Lauderdale), so they are vital on some flights.

I have them for breakfast. Each bar has roughly 200 calories, which makes them a good start for the day before grabbing a mid-morning snack.

I have them for pre- and post-workout snacks. Before the workout, they give me energy; post-workout, their 12 grams of protein helps me recover. (My trainer likes me to have 20 grams of protein after a strength workout, so I’ll often have a bar and a half after.)

I hold onto them for long rides in transit. Whether it’s a half-day bus journey or an hourlong subway ride, I keep a bar or two in my purse in case hunger pangs hit.

I bring them on road trips. When my friends and I drove out to Montauk a few weeks ago, I came bearing bars. “Coconut Chocolate, Mixed Berry, or Chocolate Sea Salt? I brought three of each!” They both went for Coconut Chocolate.

Surfing at sunset in J-Bay, South Africa.

Sign up for a fitness activity or tour.

Have you always wanted to learn how to surf? Or whitewater raft? Or rock climb? Now is the perfect opportunity to learn! I guarantee you it will be one of the most memorable activities of your trip. Plus, once you come home, you’ll have a story in your back pocket about that time you went surfing in South Africa during a pink sunset.

Another option? Try a fitness-oriented tour! Bike tours are already popular in many destinations, and running tours are starting to become popular in cities as well.

Enjoying one of my favorite restaurants on the planet: Red Snapper in Koh Lanta, Thailand.

Limit your indulging to once per day.

Definitely be sure to indulge in the local cuisine when you travel — it’s one of my favorite things to do! But balance it out. If you’re having a heavy meal for dinner, get a salad or some simple protein and vegetables for lunch. If you’re having dessert, don’t have three glasses of wine.

Let yourself live — but save the indulgences for some of the time, not every meal.

The most difficult hike of my life: the Alps surrounding Innsbruck, Austria. I hurt so much the next day!

Walk everywhere — but remember that walking is not cardio.

When you’re on the road, especially when visiting cities, you’ll be walking all over the place. You might clock upwards of 20,000 miles per day. And that’s fantastic — but walking is no substitute for cardio. Walking keeps you active, but you won’t be bringing your heart rate up much.

Is walking better than nothing? Of course! But you shouldn’t be considering it your workout for the day if you’re comparing it to your usual spin class or HIIT. Try to add some actual cardio in between the walks.

A heart rate monitor might help you here. I recently started using a Fitbit Alta HR, and while it’s not perfect, it does let me know which kind of activities get my heart rate up.

Bike riding in Caye Caulker, Belize.

Rent a bike or kayak.

Whether in a city like Berlin or a tiny island like Caye Caulker, Belize, renting a bike can be a great way to explore more of your surroundings in a healthy way.

Kayaking with Wren on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

Another fun option? Rent a canoe or kayak! It may not be the most efficient to get from town to town, but it’s a lot of fun. Plus, you’ll get new perspectives for your photos.

Trying out Anti-Gravity Yoga in New York.

Join a fitness class in another city.

One of my favorite things to do in different cities is to spend my days as if I lived there. So I visit coffeeshops, I read in parks, and I occasionally join a fitness class at a local studio. Zumba, yoga, kickboxing, spinning, barre — I’m game for anything that isn’t completely terrifying!

Above all, I recommend yoga. Yoga classes are easy to find around the world, and even if you don’t speak the local language, they usually say the name of the pose in the usual Sanskrit! Plus, yoga is all about letting go and focusing on your inner self. Nobody judges you at yoga class.

Hiking to Jesus in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, with Alex.

Grab a fitness buddy for company.

It’s much more motivating to work out alongside a friend! If you’re traveling with a friend, see if you can plan some kind of fitness activity during your trip. If not, there are other ways.

If you’re staying at a hostel or hanging out in a neighborhood with lots of backpackers, ask around. Don’t be scared — this is what people used to do before smartphones! Backpackers are often looking for something cool and different to do, especially if they’ve been traveling long-term.

Alternatively, ask on the local Couchsurfing or Reddit forum for your destination or join a Meetup Group. You never know what you might find!

On a surf and yoga retreat in Sayulita, Mexico.

Consider going on a fitness-oriented group trip.

Back in 2011, I went on a yoga and fitness retreat in Mexico. At the time, I was grotesquely out of shape and thought I would be the resident lump amongst a dozen lithe women.

But you know what? It wasn’t like that at all. All the women on the retreat were interested in fitness, and some were in very good shape, but most of them were average-sized women who wanted to go somewhere warm in the winter — and justify their nightly margaritas.

We began and ended the day with yoga. In between we’d do boot camps or go surfing. And throughout we were served delicious, mostly vegan food with a bit of fish thrown in. I felt so healthy at the end of the week!

Every retreat is different, and you should research in advance to find out what the day-to-day is like. But don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.

Just after caving and swimming in Khao Sok National Park, Thailand.

Take care of your body.

Know when you’re pushing yourself too hard. Don’t go out drinking every night. Get a good night’s sleep whenever possible. And when you feel the faintest beginnings of a cold, get yourself to the nearest place serving homemade chicken soup.

Rock climbing — and hating it — in Railay, Thailand.

If you mess up, that’s fine. Just do better tomorrow.

Fitness is not like addiction. If you mess up, it doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym tomorrow and announce, “It’s been one day since I was healthy.” It’s okay to fall short, to eat way too much dessert or to spend a day sedentary in a cafe. We all fall short sometimes. God knows I do.

Likewise, it’s okay if you try a dream activity and end up hating it. I tried rock climbing in one of the most beautiful places to do so — Railay, Thailand — and hated the experience, start to finish. From the way-too-tight shoes to putting my life in the hands of a dude named Stinky Pete (seriously), it was not for me.

That just means you need to make the conscious decision to do so again tomorrow. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Win a Travel Pack Worth $500+ from RXBAR!

RXBAR is giving away a travel pack to one of my readers, and this prize is excellent. Here’s what you’ll get:

Away Carry-On Luggage ($229)

Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 Instant Camera with 20 sheets of film ($85)

TRUFFLE Clarity Clutch ($46)

ban.do 10,000mAh Power Bank ($41)

Monogrammed Leatherology Deluxe Luggage Tag ($35)

A6 memobottle BPA-free slim water bottle ($28)

The Bucket List: 1000 Adventures Big & Small, Coffee-Table Book ($28)

One box of Chocolate Sea Salt RXBARs ($26)

To enter the giveaway, go to @adventurouskate on Instagram and leave a comment on my latest photo — the one with the RXBARs. This is open to US residents only. The RXBAR team will be choosing the winner at random. Good luck!

How do you stay healthy while traveling?

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[helios7media-blog]

35 Great Things to do in Venice Italy

Ok, you already have the train, plane, bus, boat or donkey ticket in your hand. You are ready to go to the city " dell-Amm more ": Venice. And now you're looking for ideas about what you can see-do, right? Well, here we are! Let's tell you 35 things to do yes or yes in Venice, some very typical (which for some reason will be), and others ... so of our roll. If you are preparing a trip to Venice and you can not find a good, nice and cheap accommodation, we have prepared a list with the best options regarding value for money-location in Venice, just click on the image: 1 - PIAZZA SAN MARCO is the icon of Venice. And a 3 in 1: there you can admire the "Basilica di San Marco," the "Campanile" and the "Palazzo Ducale." Tip: if you have little time available and want to visit the main attractions of Venice, a good idea is to join this tour (in Spanish). It includes tickets without queues to the Ducal palace and the Basilica of San Marcos (with the four museums of San Marcos Square), one-hour excursion to the island of Murano and guides in Spanish. This type of tours is recommended for people who want to make the most of the weather ... but obviously, it is cheaper to do it on your own and to inform you about the history of the city by yourself. 2 - CANAL GRANDE : it would be like the Gran Vía of Madrid or the Diagonal of Barcelona, ​​that is the main way of the city, where you can admire the most beautiful Venetian palaces that at one time belonged to the powerful families, in addition to the Life "aquatic" of the city: Vaporetto, gondolas, boats ... 3 - LOOK FOR THE "NISSIOETI" MORE RARE: they are the signs of which the streets are given the name of the city. There are some curious! 4 - ATIBORRATE OF ICE CREAM: the Italian "gelati" are the best in the world. Good, nice and cheap (just in case you ask the price, but they would have to cost between 1 and 1.50 €). 5 - PONTE DEI SOSPIRI: and the sighs were not of those romantics, rather of those of terror: it is the bridge through which the prisoners of the prison passed before being executed, today it has become a symbol of the city. 6 - "SESTIERI ": step each of the sisters, the neighborhoods of the city. There are 6: Cannaregio, Castello, Dorsoduro, San Polo, Santa Croce and San Marco. Everyone hides treasure. 7 - GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM: with its interesting permanent exhibition dedicated to the best artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Miró, Chirico, Mondrian, Magritte, Kandinsky or Malevich. The entrance fee is € 15. 8 - PONTE RIALTO: the most beautiful bridge in the city that will give you the best view of the Canal Grande. 9 - GHETTO HEBREW: it is the first Jewish quarter built in Europe. In it, you can visit the synagogues of the city and the holocaust memorial, taste the Kosher food, and stroll through the attractive Ghetto Novo. 10 - CRAFTSMEN SHOPS: do not forget to visit a "machete" carnival shop. The prices are not tailor-made for the backpacker, but the look is free! 11 - NAVEGA: depending on the thickness of your wallet you can do it in a gondola or vaporetto. Although there are not so expensive alternatives, you can book a return in Gondola half an hour for about 30 € (per person). Although if you prefer you can try to bargain the price directly with the gondolier, if you take € 50 for 45 minutes you are a bargainer (the price is around € 80 for that time). And if you do it with dinner included and you finish the trip! 12 - ENJOY VENICE IN PARTY: Carnevale, Redentore, Film Festival and other great festivals of the city give a unique atmosphere that makes the trip unforgettable (even more). You can see the dates of the celebrations here. 13 - ENJOY VENICE WITHOUT PARTIES: but if you go on dates without designated parties do not be sad: maybe it's better: prices will not be overcast, and you can enjoy the city with fewer tourists. 14 - PASS ONE OF THE WORST STREETS OF THE WORLD: but do it before eating, or the risk of getting stuck will be high. The street in question is Calletta Varisco and measures only 53 cm! 15 - DISCOVER YOURSELF the best thing to do is to forget the map and guide you by instinct, only so you can discover unique and authentic corners. 16 - GET A TASTE OF MOST POPULAR DRINK: we do not want you to end up drunk under the effects of the alcoholism, but a peeled pipe with a few spritz! It is one of the most popular drinks in northeastern Italy. You can not leave without trying! 17 - ALWAYS ASK THE PRICES: never ask for something without asking the price, depending on where you are the account can go bluff! 18 - LA FENICE: one of the most beautiful Italian theaters that like the bird Fenix always resurges of its ashes. 19 - TAKE CHARGED - REPLACED BATTERY: it will seem silly to you, but you have no idea how many photos you will take, I will always finish the battery of my camera! We go for the number 20, relax, take a breath, and we go for the things to see and do in Venice that is missing! 20 - CICCHETTI E OMBRE: a fun and cheap way to eat in Venice: tapas and wines. Here we leave you a guide of the best Bacardi (tapas bar) in Venice. 21 - VENICE TO BIRD'S VIEW: do not miss the views from the plane! If you arrive by land do not despair: you can climb the campanile of San Marco! 22 - VISIT BURANO: I have fallen in love with their houses of thousands of colors and old women who knit. Look at all that awaits you in Burano. 23 - AND MURANO: very interesting this is lite with its factories to produce the glass and the famous "murrine." Tip: there is a great tour that for only € 20 will take you to discover Burano, Murano, and Torcello ... 3 of the most beautiful islands in Venice !! It is well worth taking into account that only the i - v towards an island costs about 15 €! Here you can find more info and book it. 24 - GASTRONOMY VENETA: not only pasta and pizza lives the Italian man. Do not miss the post of " eating for Venice ." 25 - CASAS Y PALACIOS: each house is a work of art in itself, not to mention typical Venetian palaces with unique Gothic and Byzantine influences such as the Ca d'Or, Ca Rezzonico, Cà Pesaro ... 26 - LOOK FOR A VERY ITALIAN GONDOLIERE: black and white striped t-shirt and to be able to sing "oh sole Mio"! It may be asking too much, but there are some! 27 - MARKET OF RIALTO: among other tourists, you will find cooks looking for the best ingredients and affable old ladies. You will have an authentic Venetian experience in this fish and vegetable market. That yes, go in the morning! 28 - SAN MARCO DE NOCHE: They say it is an almost mystical experience. Surely there is something hypnotic walking through the little squares and alleys under the dim lights of the streetlights and without the thousands of tourists on their way to San Marco. 29 - ITALIAN BREAKFAST: cappuccino and cornetto. (Remember to ask about the prices, I do not want to have the death of your bank account in the conscience! It calculates about 2.50 - 3.50 €). 30 - SYMBOLIC PHOTO: the symbol of Venice is the Winged Lion, look for it all over the city and do not go without a photo with it! It brings so much luck (this I just made it up, but trying does not hurt!). 31 - CRAZY FOR SUNSET: If the sunset is the most special moment of the day, imagine yourself in Venice! Do not go to the hotel before sundown !! 32 - TRAFFIC SIGNALS: you will know that in Venice there are no cars, no bikes, no bikes, but it is full of unique signs in the world. Do not miss them! 33 - KAYAK TOUR: A different way to visit Venice from its canals. It is not the lowest cost there but certainly an original idea! (90 € half-day, more info at www.venicekayak.com ). 34 - BICYCLING: it is forbidden to go on the streets by bicycle ... but in the canals? Look what the rock has invented ( http:--shuttlebike.com- ). 35 - FREE TOUR: a free tour through the streets of Venice, even if you're not a good guy, it always works well. ( Www.freetourvenice.com ). Or, if you want to be calmer and book it with a good web, here we leave you an option. These are the 35 things we can think of to see and do in Venice. Surely we forget many things, if you have more tips or advice do not be vague and leave us a comment! Here we leave our Guide to Venice for Backpackers, with much more useful info that will come to you from pearls to your trip: Click to Post