All bias aside, Tel Aviv is the best city in the world (ok, maybe not all bias aside). Nonetheless, Tel Avivians have a fragile and complex relationship with their city. While on the one hand, they love to complain about it morning, noon, and night, on the other hand, they are equally indebted to it and will knock you flat out if you so much as comment on the weather, ghost busses, or that moldy smell lurking around choice street corners.
No matter how hard you try to ignore them or will them away with voodoo, you'll never get used to these 19 Tel Aviv phenomena.
1. You'll never get used to agorot. If you can't use 'em, then what's the point?
2. You'll never get used to the bus schedule. Even with an app-etizing cocktail of Moovit, Google Maps, and Waze, mastering the art of the inconsistent bus system is like trying to stay sober at a Tel Aviv bracelet bar. It's never gonna happen.
3. You'll never get used to the fact that everything is within a 20-minute walking distance...yet everyone is more than 20 minutes late to everything.
4. You'll never get used to all the money you throw away on festival tickets. Not to mention the money you throw away in preparation for, during, and in detox from those festivals.
5. You'll never get used to Arnona. Where does it go? What does it mean? Which prime minister's wife's 3-champagne-bottle-a-day drinking habit is it feeding?
6. You'll never get used to all the fruits and vegetables. Even Eyal Shani's melty cheese and intimate meat-filled pitas place second behind a head of cauliflower.
7. You'll never get used to Dizengoff Center. Is it a mall? A cinema? A tattoo parlor? A gym? A rocket ship? Purgatory? A glimpse into our dystopian future?
8. You'll never get used to the rain...more so the city's reaction to rain, which inevitably equates to chaos, calamity, and something resembling a scene from The Day After Tomorrow.
9. You'll never get used to patio cats. The strays are one thing, even house pets are fine, but there's something about Felix's shifty eyes that says, "This is my territory and I'm taking it back."
10. You'll never get used to biking on major boulevards, streets, and avenues. It's pretty much the same as hopping on one of those ridiculous pedal-free toddler bikes...you're destined to crash.
11. You'll never get used to oversized, overly salty sausages at 3 A.M. Get your mind out of the gutter! We mean hot dog stands obviously.
12. You'll never get used to weed culture. But I've heard the more you smoke, the closer you'll get. The closer you get, the better you feel, so smoke that jay with every meal!
13. You'll never get used to being shoved, stepped on, nudged, or spat on (if you're lucky).
14. You'll never get used to the constant caffeine rush. Got a headache? Here's a hafuch. First Americano make you thirsty? Here, have another. Too hot? Here's an iced coffee to cool things down.
15. You'll never get used to 1+1. Insist on the double fist! When it comes to happy hour, it's not a marathon, it's a sprint.
16. You'll never get used to tourists trying to haggle in the Shuk. Should I help them? Should I walk past them? Should I use them as bait then out-haggle them? Too many permutations and combinations, cannot compute.
17. You'll never get used to drinking hot tea from a regular drinking glass. Burn that moment into your memory, and your lips.
18. You'll never get used to bats...or the 'presents' they leave behind. Perhaps it was the ancient Tel Avivians who coined the phrase "batshit crazy."
19. You'll never get used to anyone leaving. Unless it's to "find themselves" briefly in either South America or India, then come back to add to our vegan and/or hipster population.
Sticking it out for the long haul? Here are the 10 unwritten rules all Tel Avivians need to know.