It is my last weekend in Tel Aviv and the hotel treated us to disasters of biblical proportions. What next? I'll end up in the stomach of a whale and cruise back to NYC? It can happen.
Right now it is Sunday night and I will fly back to NYC in a few hours. I am in the executive suite of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. While it may be good to be the king, it ain't bad to be a suit either. A room fit for King Henry VIII. And I mean it. Free chocolates and bottles of beer. Cookies. Tea and espresso set ups. Desks, bureaus. Deluxe bathroom with a rainforest spray shower. Everything super clean, even to a fastidious insomniac like myself.
How did I get here?
Well, on Saturday, it was a miserable, rainy, appalling day. We couldn't go kayaking. We couldn't go in the Jacuzzi, as a mother was holding her diapered baby whilst there. I complained to the life guard. He shrugged--"What can I do." My friend complained to the pool woman. She said she would call her manager. A full half hour later--nothing. Mother and infant were still in the Jacuzzi, cuddling and cooing. This is disgusting, not to mention a health and safety violation. And what does the life guard mean by shrugging it away. You are supposed to obey the life guard, or there should be consequences. My friend and I complained at the front desk--the life guard is supposed to call security. Meanwhile, Mary and Jesus left and that Jacuzzi is dead to me now. Just a festering swap of bacterial germs best avoided in by the person who is recovering from gastroenteritis (I'm fine now, thank you).
We dressed and returned to our rooms. There was a break in the rain and we walked two blocks to the Ben-Gurion Museum, on Ben-Gurion, between Ben-Yahuda and the Yaarkon. It was well worth the exercise. He predicted the end of the Cold War (off by 5 years) and the reunification of Germany (also off by 5 years). I felt a sense of loss. My grandfather was about his age. While Ben-Gurion set off from Poland to Palestine at the age of 20, my grandfather set off from Romania to the Rockaways at about the same time. If he had just been inspired to become a chalutznik, I could have been an Israeli too. But would I be me if my grandfather married someone else, fathered children with someone else, and those children married and had children with others. It is a weird sensation. Like Ben-Gurion, my grandfather really didn't get along with his family and the Kahn's (aka Caan's, Cahn's, and Kaan's) all splintered and are estranged from each other.
We returned to the hotel to find the elevator banks had flooded and we had to walk up 11 flights to our room. Fortunately, after about 1/2 hour, service was restored. I could grumble, but I read on YNET that 2 Israeli's died when the elevator's in their residences flooded. Tel-Aviv yearly has had increasingly serious flooding, attributed to global warming. YNET put it in perspective--I was inconvenienced, but others had died. I cannot imagine watching the elevator fill with water and knowing that escape is impossible. To know you will die and be fully conscious all the while. No one dies wishing they had more hours to sleep or spent more time at work. So I can't complain about the hotel.
This morning, the front desk awakened us at 7:15AM. "Fire on the 13th floor. We must evacuate to the lobby." We walked down the hall, showered by the sprinkler system, squishing on the sodden carpet. Then walked down 11 flights of stairs. The lobby was lit and warm. We did not have to go outside. We went down to the breakfast room, where they served hot breakfast. At 8:15, we could go back up, but not in the elevator.
When we returned to the rooms at 8PM, we had no electricals. We were offered deluxe accomodations on the 14floor, due to this. The concierge helped us to move our items. It is amazing how many little things you accumulate during your stay which aren't packed until the end. The concierge was quite helpful. It's not his fault after all. I'm typing this snuggled in a large fluffy bathrobe. My bags are now packed, except for the stuff I will need for tomorrow. I will only enjoy a few hours in the lap of luxury.
What, you are thinking, what about the feelings. Flooding and fire--oh my.
It's absurd. I've had apartments that flooded and landlords whose response was a big "doh." One of the walk-up apartments I lived in during the 90's suffered such water damage that my ceiling collapsed. I had water damage to my property. Doh. I was lucky my landlord offered me a similar apartment on another floor. That apartment was great. Only the bathroom wall collapsed, due to a water leak. So the damage was confined that time to the bathroom. So, like the song goes, "So what." I'm all the more grateful now to live in a well-constructed, albeit unseemingly, unesthetic apartment building.
This is now my third fire. The first, as you all should know by now, was Lehman Hall, where I just numbed myself into unconsciousness and focused on academics. The second was in that walk-up in the 90's when my upstairs neighbors, who used candles, apparently was unaware that her curtains were also in the mood. My apartment also suffered water damage from that one as well. But--it resulted in two good things. That young woman always played loud techno music around 2AM. Apparently, she had a side job entertaining men. The loud music served the purpose of annoying the neighbors while concealing the true purpose of her work. Since her carelessness was the cause of the fire, the landlord promptly evicted her. And, I began in earnest looking for someplace better to live. And found my current, well-constructed, albeit unseemingly, unesthetic apartment building.
My reaction to the call to evacuate? It is to laugh. I grabbed my knapsack, which contains my passport and some papers, grabbed a few other things, my coat, my flip-flops, and proceeded downstairs. So what.
Everything and everyone is replaceable.