The Globetrotting Geek

Thursday – Day 16

August 5, 2012

Sleeping at the boys’ apartment is an experience. With people on both day, afternoon and night shifts, the house is always moving. As the lucky one left without a bed, for me this means shifting beds at some point during the night to accommodate for those entering the house and those just waking up. Thus last night I did not sleep particularly well and needed an extra hour in the morning.

Following my wake-up I tried explaining the finer point of scheduling attacks on the WEP WiFi encryption scheme to members of the apartment, who suddenly were interested when they realized it had practical implications.

Sarah then rocked up for me to take her to lunch, which to her surprise, was to be held at the top of the circular Azrieli Tower, the tallest building in Tel Aviv.

At the top of the forty-ninth floor, is a restaurant 2C, kosher and more upmarket, with a 360 degree view of the Tel Aviv skyline. Being a lunch reservation, we were able to order from  the business set menu which included three courses for the both of us for the price of ~70NIS each (~$20). I ordered bread and homemade dips, followed by the beef carpaccio with a main of Simia morrocan lamb on a bed of grilled vegetables. Sarah on the other hand took the dips, sweet potato soup and perfectly grilled salmon on mashed potato.

By the time they brought out the dessert menu we were completely stuffed and made a hasty exit, partially due to the impending chime of Sarah’s 3PM ambulance shift.

In the late afternoon I met up with Abi Reisner who has been living and working for the last few weeks on a permaculture farm just outside of the town of Modiin. Over an organic, fresh, eco-passionfruit we had a good chat about the gap year program and various other things.

The evening was Ma’ayan’s party, and on the way there I became a little more than slightly lost. Having been instructed by her to take bus number 25, I cleverly alighted onto bus 125.  Following her instructions to get off after a certain number of stops, I found myself in what I would describe as an urban desert. A few buildings scattered here and there, large empty fields to my left, and nary a car in sight. After deciding to walk straight for a few minutes I came across a helpful guy who showed me a map and, when I asked him how to get to Haiim Levanon St. let me know that it was a good hours walk away and called me crazy. Nevertheless, I decided to walk there.

An hour later, and sweating from head to toe I made it to Ma’ayan’s place, where her, her boyfriend and a smart guy, Ariel Davis, were chatting in speedy Hebrew. Though my Hebrew was good, the conversation was a little hard to follow for me and I felt particularly awkward as this was also my first time meeting these people. For the next few hours it followed similarly, with new people coming in and me struggling to connect with them, as I had little in common and there was a small language barrier. I ended up conversing mostly with Ma’ayan’s brother, Elior and his girlfriend Lior. However, a bit later in the night things improved and by the end I was very glad I came and had met new people.

Wednesday – Day 15

August 3, 2012

I have recently realized  that one should pack more than three tshirts, two pairs of pants, sandals and a camera, when one is unsure for how long they will be away.

As a result, much of the morning was spent finding and arranging washing. The solution ended up being a trip to Adi’s apartment with mine and Sarah’s joint washing. After a few hours of waiting around our washing came out dripping, we decided to watch some of an (unnamed) movie in order to pass the time before collecting it.

The evening I spent with Ma’ayan Dekel, an old friend from Israel. Over sushi we discussed a great deal many things including the place of psychology in science and a number of philosophical concepts.

Though today was quieter, it was much appreciated amongst the hustle and bustle of a busy trip to Israel!

Tuesday – Day 14

Today had a real adventure. One worth writing about and worth reading.

The day started slowly with a late wake-up. At ten to eleven I woke up, breaking the shower head in an attempt to wash off the sweat. Oops. Five to eleven I was out of the house, meeting a girl, Shachar, from ISSI 2012 who I had met at the dinner a few nights previously.

Following that was a decent falafel with Naomi Elstein, an older friend from my gap year in Israel. She took me to an artisan chocolatier on Ibn Gvirol and I sampled a few of the many delicious truffles.

However, the real adventure began later that afternoon when I noticed a ‘Garage Geeks’ event on Facebook, which was slated to start in Holon at eight thirty that evening.  I had heard of Garage Geeks from my uncle previously as a community run group that runs start-up, tech and entrepreneurial events. This one was a talk given by Kara Swisher (founder of All Things Digital blog) and Megan Smith (VP of Google BizDev) who were married to each other. Searching up for bus routes on Facebook I came up blank, and looking up the address on a map revealed only a large industrial zone with few roads and many warehouses.

 

Thus, I posted on the event page, asking for directions. About one minute later a guy by the name of Haggai posted a reply with his phone number, letting me know that though public transport to the area was almost nonexistent, he might be able to help given he was travelling through Tel Aviv on the way down. I gave him a call and a few hours later I was in his car on my way to the event! Haggai was a lovely guy with experience in networking and entrepreneurship, having recently secured a good deal of support for a venture in data security.

After being briefed by Haggai on how the night was going to function and having picked up a few networking tips, I entered the venue which was packed with hundreds of eager entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts and even a tech writer or two. The talk and subsequent Q&A was most interesting however the highlight of the evening came in the form of networking opportunities.  I engaged momentarily with Megan from Google, who proved a most pleasant person and she referred me to a guy named Eyal, who provided some helpful support in my ongoing quest to find an internship placement. Following that I met a few young individuals involved in the scene from all around the world, from Singapore to NYC.

Haggai, the other youths and I stayed around to help pack up and by the time we were ready to get back on the road it was already eleven thirty. Haggai was most thirsty so we stopped off at a petrol station someway along the road where we both grabbed a drink (by his courtesy) and he dropped me off right at Adi’s place. A most successful evening.