Israel, Day 1: travel & Tel Aviv

Dave and I recently traveled to Israel with my good friend Michael, so I'll be retro-blogging the trip with some lovely pictures and notes on travel.

We flew on Swiss Air on the way there, which meant a layover in Zurich (8 hours to Zurich, 4 hours to Tel Aviv). Everything went fine, although the airline was either having massive technical problems or their new system is ridiculous, because they couldn't give seat assignments to half the plane and told us we were on "standby," resulting in a crush of anxious humanity.

Still, we arrived in Tel Aviv safe & sound, staying at the Embassy Hotel (awkward because Trump technically and controversially moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem). The hotel was centrally located to a lot of the tourist sites and was about two blocks from the beach.

Our hotel recommended a Mediterranean restaurant called La Shuk; they called to make us a reservation, which was good because when we arrived, the wait staff told us the restaurant was closed. "But we have a reservation." "Oh, OK." Huh?

Enjoying a meal at La Shuk in Dizengoff Square

Anyway we sampled an Israeli red and had wonderful dishes, so I do recommend this spot.

Early to bed so that we could catch up on sleep and try to get on Israel time!