I apologize in advance for the lack of taste in this post, but this is something that has been on my mind for a while. As you should all know, I have been walking quite a lot. I get up early and usually drive down to the beach where I typically go walking for about an hour each morning, while listening to whatever audiobook I have currently queued. Each morning I try choose a different route as I get quickly bored with walking the same scenery day after day. So I get around. A while back I started noticing the vomit.
Now this span of the Mediterranean is full of clubs and restaurants. In fact, Herzliya Pituach, where squint central is located is slap bang in the middle of one of the better eating, drinking and partying districts north of Tel Aviv (of course, TA is the epicenter of all coolness locally). What I have noticed in my many miles of walking is that a lot of people in Israel cannot seem to hold their drink. There are many, many puddles of puke. Some are quite clear, but many are littered with the remnants of last night's dinner - often you can even tell at what restaurant they ate (Zozobra noodles are common). I suppose this is not too surprising, it's summer holidays after all and drinking (or rather over drinking) in Israel, while expensive, is growing in popularity. But, surely people, vomiting up your alcohol is a waste of hard earned shekels?
This morning, I walked from home to work. It takes about an hour and a quarter. On the way I listened to a wonderful piece about Julia Child ("America's Favorite Chef" and author of Mastering the art of French Cooking). This piece was followed by an in depth explanation of the ins and outs of tripe (defined as the edible offal from the stomachs of various domestic animals). While walking, I counted no less than six separate areas of hurls on the sidewalk (most of these vomits were in Herzliya, but interestingly enough, two were in the suburbs closer to Raanana). The combination of the details of boiling cow's innards into a gelatinous ooze, and the visual stimulation of the various contents of the youth of Israel's stomachs, made me happy I'm a sober vegetarian.
When I was younger, I lost my sense of smell for a few years (about 25). A miraculous operation before we came to Israel in 2000, pretty much restored it. I often wonder if that operation was not a mistake.
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2 comments:
I'm guessing that you walked down through Kfar Shmoreyahu, one of the poshest neighborhoods in Israel. At the machlef, there is a cocktail bar school where I once had a few free drinks (because I mistakenly entered thinking that it was a real bar while a "teaching" session was underway). I would expect to find good hurl pools around there. But otherwise, I don't see where you find bars between your home and work? The conclusion would be that the drinking is happening inside homes, probably by teenages. Now, you walk through the more affluent parts of the country (Ra'anana, Kfar Shmoreyahu). My time spent living in Geneva (a rich man's haven) taught me that the richer kids are, the more sophisticated is their drug and alcohol consumption. So apart from completely inexperienced teenage girls throwing up outside a nightclub, it was rare to find vommit on the street (ok, I know the Swiss keep things very clean). So it is hard to understand your observations.
I know that apart from the Russian community in Israel, I was startled when I arrived in this country just how inexperienced people are with alcohol. It actually seemed to me that Israel was more a country of binge drinkers rather than a country of people getting high and enjoying it. Perhaps it is because the Jews have a lot to forget or perhaps it will simply take a few more hundred years until they master the art of appreciative alcoholic consumption. Let's face it, religion did a good job keeping alcohol out of the middle east, so as the west infiltrates this region, alcohol abuse is not surprising.
Well, there is Dublin, and Taverna and a bunch of other pubs. The thing is that because it never rains here in summer the up-chuck never gets washed away. I have noticed around the hotels near the beach a pretty serious concentration of spew, much of which seems to be from the beginning of summer. I agree with your observation that Israel is new to the heavy drinking habit and many teens have no clue. Mine included.
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