a day in the big orange

I used to live in Tel Aviv. Across the street from my mother-in-law.

I nagged, cajoled and whined until Mr. S agreed to buy an apartment in Raanana. I thought, "That's where all the anglos are; I'll be able to make friends who are like me." (Never did the thought enter my head, "I won't have to feel my mother-in-law's penetrating disapproval from across the street anymore.")

Ten years later, suburbia is a major yawn. I still don't have any friends, and I miss the action of "the big orange" and being so close to the sea. And, strangely enough, I've grown quite fond of my in-laws, and wouldn't mind being closer by.

But the quiet tree-lined streets of the outer limits have a certain sterile charm, I suppose, and Tel Aviv is just a 20-30 minute drive away, after all.

Trouble is, I almost never get to the city except on shabat (Saturday), when it's very quiet and most businesses are closed and it feels almost like a ghost town. So today was a special treat: My boss sent my colleague and me off to do some lame refresher seminar for tech writers, and it was held in a little hotel on a side street in view of the beach. Instead of working, I got to take a trip into the city on a gorgeous sunny day, drive right onto the beach road and take in the glorious expanse of blue Med first thing in the morning. It's a sight that always fills me with oxygen.

The seminar was a snore, a waste of my company's money, frankly, but who cares? I was loving the big TA on a bustling weekday, with all its noisy, fast-moving self-importance.

I'm just a city girl at heart.