This past weekend we went up to Ramat HaSharon to see Israel play in the Davis Cup Tennis tournament. It is different than regular tournaments, for you are playing for your country, not as an individual. This is the first time Israel has ranked high enough to play in the world group, so it was a pretty exciting time. We were looking forward to seeing some great tennis in a relaxing, pleasant fashion. However, we were in for a surprise. Though the players were playing tennis, the audience felt they were at a soccer match. People had drums, flags waving (though Aaron was also one of the people waving a flag), noisemakers and techno chants. You don't think it could happen - check out the videos (make sure your volume is up loud).
On this first video you can hear the people chanting Israel Oleh - meaning Israel will rise and after singing that for a little bit they would scream out the players name - in this case Dudi Sela. Also, feel free to note the head referee asking people to remain quiet during play - part of the problem is they kept on announcing this in English and I'm not sure that most of the people there had a clue what he was saying.
This next video is a techno version of a religious hebrew song - an interesting selection for the mostly secular crowd at the stadium - the words mean that we are believers, children of believers and we have no one in which to place trust, except for our father who is in heaven.
On Friday we also had a slight rain delay - it actually only rained for about 5-10 minutes, but who thinks it rains in Israel. Even though this is technically the rainy season, the past number of years, including this one, has seen Israel in more of drought condition than rain. Drying the courts is what took the time - almost an hour for that.
Sunday, was great - from the parking lot to the actual stadium was taking me almost 30 minutes to walk - but on Sunday, some nice lady stopped her car only 3 minutes into the walk and asked if we were going to the tennis center, when we said yes, she replied that it is too far for me to walk with a stomach like this and gave us a ride the rest of the way - only in Israel does someone stop to do that, and do we get in the car. Sunday was also gorgeous weather to be outside - at least 70 degrees and nice and sunny.
Since we rented a car (which Aaron was very excited about that I still fit behind the wheel and could reach the pedals - I had about 1 inch to spare) to get around for the weekend we also got to do a drive through of Herziliya on Saturday night - the houses and marina there are beautiful. We also got to do some grocery shopping and stocked up on all those heavy, cumbersome stuff that is a pain to carry back from the grocery store. It was a great mini vacation.
1 comment:
That was GREAT! I wish we were there with you ;-)
Loved the video!
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