Before I get ahead of myself, I’d like to give Lisa Stansfield a big shout out for inspiring the title of this article. Alright, now that I got that part out of the way, I can get as far ahead of myself as necessary and do so completely guilt-free.
In between Greece and our current location, Italy, Pura and I spent 10 days in Israel—it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. A friend of mine from high school who was two years ahead of me joined the military shortly after he graduated. I remember when he returned home one time for a short visit, he told me how exciting it was to visit Israel, he said “when you walk on a street that Jesus walked on, you can feel it!” Ever since then, I’ve always had Israel on my radar—I finally checked that box.
While we were there, we visited the ancient port city of Jaffa, spent an entire day at West Bank in the State of Palestine which was an eye opening experience to say the least. We spent one day in Bethlehem and even got to walk through the Church of the Nativity—the church where Jesus was born. We stood on top of the Mount of Olives prior to entering Jerusalem’s Old City and quite a bit more. I took over 2,000 pictures with the GoPro I’ll be editing and formatting to share with you. Stay tuned—there’s a handful of Israel posts headed your way. An important mental note I suggest hanging onto should you or anyone you know make the trip to Israel—10 days isn’t enough time.
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, I’m a big fan of original artwork, having tried my hand at several pencil portraits since joining this community. I appreciate #art and have high respect for personal expression conveyed through art as a natural talent and something unable to be taught—you either are or are not born with it. Whether it’s pencil, paint, photography, music, writing, etc, regardless of the medium or the canvas it’s captured on, it’s all equally impressive to me—street art is no exception.
That being said, the stunning @puravidaville is well aware of my interests and, seeing how she’s the one spearheading our stays during this travel #adventure, she booked our stay in the Florentin District of Tel Aviv. I’d never heard of it but she told me it’s world-renowned for street art and attracts some of the best artists in the world who add their personal flare to the city on a daily basis. Having seen a lot of street art during our travels and personally growing up in the Los Angeles area, I was quick to discredit the reviews we read online—I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
The biggest challenge I had with this article, even tougher than mapping out the sequence (the final four are particularly significant), was deciding on a cover image. You’re about to see 97 of some of the nicest, most interesting, message inspired and thought provoking street art I’ve seen. Out of the 97, I narrowed the cover image down to four and then finally two. One is an interesting quote the artist wrote next to a spray painted portrait of Cleopatra—the Queen of the Nile. The second is another queen, at least I think she’s a queen, though I don’t know who, but I couldn’t make the decision. As any half-intelligent married man reading this will agree, when in doubt, lean on your own Queen.
On that note, the hype section of this article is over and the best is yet to come. Sit back, get comfortable, and enjoy the show—welcome to Tel Aviv, Israel.
All images - GoPro Hero 5 Black
