Richard Nagy

Richard Nagy

fellow of Bridge Budapest, NNG, Tel Aviv, 2014

It’s a new day; it’s a new life…

First impressions of a country have always had special meaning to me. I immediately felt that I got tothe right place when the taxi driver on the airport introduced himself as Schumacher. He tried toadvertise his services with the statement: “best drive and best music in Tel-Aviv”.

One of the first local impressions to me was how many colorful and different people live next to each other in Israel. Although the Jewish traditions are part of everyday life—it is better not to look for open shops on Saturday—the most various people live here peacefully with each other, from the orthodox Jews to gays.

Just like the locals the parts of the city widely differ from each other. Tel-Avivians tend to use every little space they can. The streets of the “Jemen” district fill up with tables around Friday noon, and because of the suddenly increased amount of people the road acts as a temporary restaurant. If a car decides to crash the party the tables and chairs are promptly removed from the way—not without a huge grin on everyone’s face. I also have to tell you about the hypermodern shopping center, Dizengoff, where the guards with machine guns search every visitor reminding the traveler that he actually is in the Middle-East. The artery of the city is the Allenby avenue which is so long that if you walk along you get an instant sightseeing: from the skyscrapers on the beach you get all the way to the slums where in exchange you are able to get the very best Shawarma in the world.