Israel: Days 1 & 2

This trip was a lot of firsts for me: first time flying overseas, first time flying (or travelling) solo and my first time in a foreign country other than the US.
Needless to say I was a bit nervous as I left Winnipeg. I travelled to Toronto with the actors, but we parted ways there to be re-united in Jerusalem.

Killing time at my gate in Toronto. 

It took me nearly two full days to get to Jerusalem. Three flights: one to Toronto, one overseas to Rome and one to Tel Aviv. Then I took a shuttle from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which wouldn't take me into East Jerusalem to my hotel (in disputed Palestine), so I was dropped off at a hotel and took a cab to my hotel.
The world works in mysterious ways...I was the most nervous about finding my way to my hotel and as it turns out I met a girl from Tokyo named Miho who was going to my hotel too! So we split the cab fair and talked to each other the whole way!

After I checked in and settled into my hotel room we went out for dinner. A recommendation from the hotel staff: Boarderline. There we ate carrots and olives as a starter and drank Danish beer. For dinner I ate fried Denier fish. Which is a local fish from Tel Aviv.
After dinner we ordered a hooka to our table and smoked! It tasted like star anise and made me a little light headed and giggly!

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel...nothing too special, but it was free. I had a hard boiled egg, a delicious croissant with nutella inside and some fruit. Then we headed back to our rooms to rest before our tech rehearsal, I read a little on my balcony and had a nap.

Then we headed to the theatre and did tech for 6 hours. We met the festival organizers who were all very nice. We got everything we needed to do for our first performance on Sunday.  

Outside the Cultural Centre we performed at. This is the banner for the festival.

This was our theatre. It was in a bomb shelter on the 7th level of the parkade under the centre. 

The floor of the restaurant where we ate vegetarian sandwiches and coffee on our break.

We attempted to walk back to the hotel from the theatre, but it was just too far and we got tired. So we hailed a cab. We did walk through an amazing street market/mall in the new city on the way though.  

An outer wall of the Old City

Then we went out to dinner at a restaurant called Philadelphia. The food was even more amazing than dinner the night before. We got free salads to start...and not just a garden salad each! The server brought 8 small bowls and each one had a different salad and there was hummus (the best I have ever eaten!) and baba ganoush and warm flat bread. We ordered a bottle of Israeli red wine which was pretty good. Then dinner came. I had stuffed lamb with rice and veg. Really good! Then the server brought a plate of fresh local fruit for desert!

So that was day 1 & 2. And the trip just gets better from here! I'll post days 3 & 4 tomorrow!

Lisa.xo