As both my wife and I had errands to run in Tel Aviv, we decided to run them together on Friday morning and then act as tourists by going to the Nachlat Binyamin street fair. The train to Tel Aviv was fairly empty (who travels at 9:30 on a Friday morning?), but the streets in the metropolis were bustling.
Once we had completed our errands, we traveled to the street fair. This is open twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays) in a pedestrian only area. As much as I appreciate the fact that this fair makes one feel as if one is abroad, I have to point out that none of the stalls sold anything which could be described as 'useful'. Most of the items on sale were artistic artifacts - ashtrays, doorplates, ceramics with the occasional item of clothing. Colourful but not useful.
The only stall which remotely interested me was one selling musical instruments - wooden flutes, ocarinas and what might be termed a hammer dulcimer. This instrument was tuned something like D, C, A, G, F, D (I have very good relative pitch but not absolute pitch, and anyway it was difficult to hear with all the noise) which seems slightly limited. Playing each string in turn reminded me of a riff which took a few minutes to identify - it's towards the beginning of the long instrumental break in Richard and Linda Thompson's song "Civilisation".
It was pleasant being able to feel as if we were on holiday abroad without having to go to the effort of actually traveling abroad.
It was pleasant being able to feel as if we were on holiday abroad without having to go to the effort of actually traveling abroad.
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