Overseas: Uncut

As you may already know, I played basketball four years in Israel before coming to play here in Turkey. Although I haven’t played there for years, it is still one of my favorite places and normally I go back to visit at least once a year, and last week I had another chance to. While I was there, I wasn’t able to do as much as I normally would because I was still recovering from the bad ankle injury I got a few weeks ago, but I was still able to enjoy Tel Aviv’s good food, weather and catch up with a few friends who still play there.

I definitely made sure to hit my favorite food place, Old Man and the Sea. It’s a sea food restaurant located at the Jaffa Port and the food is amazing. You are served fresh fish with a variety of small dishes (kind of like Spanish Tapas), that include things from egg salad, veggies, falafel, hummus and other specialty Mediterranean foods.

Dixies, Benedict and Mike’s Place are also some other great restaurants in Tel Aviv that I made sure to go to. Israel is very Americanized, so I was able to get things like pancakes and bacon and even real pepperoni pizza, which was a nice change.

As I said, I also had a chance to see a few friends. I caught up with my old teammate Chelsea Hopkins. We checked out the Jerusalem men’s basketball game and got dinner a couple of nights. I also was able to catch up and see a lot of my other old teammates play. And finally, I did step out to experience the great Tel Aviv night life.

Overall, I didn’t do a lot, but it was nice seeing old friends and just having a change of atmosphere, and in one of my favorite places at that. I stayed right on the beach, so it ended up being very relaxing and a much needed mini-vacation. I hope to go back again sometime soon.

A few pictures I took of while out and about in Tel Aviv are included below: