Life in Israel

Hi, to you all it's nice to write again. Well, I should start with saying how excited I am about the new league. There has been a ton of press all over the world this past week about it.

Even in ISRAEL, I don’t think that I ever heard so much about baseball in the Israeli press as in this last week. Just yesterday, I had a 20 minute interview with a reporter from Yedioth Ahronoth ("latest news" in English), which is the top daily newspaper in Israel (probably something like the New York Times).

Finally, it really seems that something that looked so far away a year ago might happen in Israel: bringing professional baseball to Israel.

Besides this, maybe I should talk a bit about day-to-day life here. The first thing I should say is never believe what you see on TV. Maybe you see the Gaza Strip and places like that on TV, but the reality in Tel Aviv, for example, is completely different.

Even though we are not too far from Gaza, about a 45 minute drive I guess (in Israel that is considered far because we are such a small country) and you could drive it from north to south in about 7 hours. Anyways, here in Tel-Aviv, I can't say we live any differently than in New York.

For example, we have malls (a lot of them) we go to bars (here I can drink – the law is if you are above 18) and we go to clubs (if anyone wants any recommendations, contact me and I can give you a lot of them). I also shouldn't forget the great food in Israel -everything from street food such as falafel, shwarma, humus, etc. to the most elite restaurants that serve the best flavors of the world.

I didn't even talk about the beach yet - as you know, we have a beautiful coast line all the way from the border of Egypt to the border of Lebanon. Right now it is a little cold for the beach but I can't wait in a month or two to go out with friends and chill out there. It is a beautiful coast and it is packed with people almost every day during the summer - from the early morning with the older people doing their morning workout to young teenagers staying all day and all the way through the night!

The beach in Israel is truly a great place to chill out, meet people and just relax.

Anyway, I need to get going to the army this morning, so I will keep you guys up to date about Israel and most important, about baseball, (and I didn't even say a word about spring training) anyway got to go - I'll update you soon!

Amit