A few months ago my Hebrew teacher in Lithuania asked me to ask an Israeli friend to write me a letter on the topic 'what I should be prepared for in Israel'. I got a very nice and sweet email from my friend M., and, among other things, he warned me to be prepared that men would be willing to randomly start conversations at the seaside.

A couple of weeks after my arrival in Israel my friends back home were already curious: is it true? Do men really approach women on the beach en masse :) ? I had to tell them that I'm probably not the type that Israelis like. However, now that I moved to the South of Tel Aviv, I realised that I was releaved of the attention of such men because, while living in the North, I used to go to the gay beach.

It is true that starting conversations on the beach is normal and acceptable in Tel Aviv. It can be pretty annoying at times, at other times it may brighten a gloomy day. One day someone froze till the sunset while I triumphantly stood on the seashore in my warm sweater and took photos, in the hope to have coffee with me afterwards.

What's interesting is that Israeli authorities know of the practice of flirting on the beach, and use it to advertise Israel. Again, too bad this blogging system doesn't allow embedding videos. You can see two examples here and here.

You can also learn some interesting cultural differences on the way. For example, how do you know that someone grew up in France? He would make sure he says "You're pretty" several times during the first minutes of the conversation rather than hurry to ask, "Are you Jewish??"