It’s just gone 2am and I awake, confused at first, and then in pain, lots of pain; proper, excruciating pain. My right ear, jaw and temple are pulsating with it, the pressure building up and getting worse with every minute. I Google how to relieve ear pressure and try what comes up, but nothing works.
After 20 minutes or so I call my travel insurance and ask for help. “Get the hotel to call an emergency doctor,” they say, which it transpires is easier said than done. Tonight is still Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av, and emergency medics are thin on the ground. The receptionist tries her best but it’s well over two hours of mind-numbing pain before there’s a knock on the door and salvation appears in the form of a bleary-eyed doctor, brandishing a needle with a pain-killing injection which he plunges into my rear, a prescription for antibiotics, a diagnosis of a middle-ear infection (otitis) and a note recommending I don’t fly for the next five days.
After the doctor…
After he leaves I sit on my now numb bottom and call the travel insurers, along with British Airways and discuss my options before finally falling asleep for a few hours, thankful that the pain has started to subside. However I’m back up by 9.30am, filling out forms, speaking with Coman and trying to establish when I’ll be home. I was meant to be leaving for the airport shortly, and flying home this afternoon but it’s going to be another few days before I can risk getting on a plane.
Thankfully the pain has subsided and while my ears still won’t pop I feel fine, I decide to make the most of the day and explore a bit of Tel Aviv I’ve not seen before. After lunch I walk up Dizengorf street, past a profusion of restaurants and shops to the Dizengorf Center in search of some Apple accessories to enable me to work better from Israel, having not brought my laptop with me on this trip. It’s a huge shopping mall, stuffed full of shoppers, but beautifully air-conditioned away from the ferocious heat of the Israeli summer.
Beach scenes
Returning to the hotel I take my iPad over the road to Bistro Masada and clear a stack of emails whilst looking at the beautiful sea and drinking red grapefruit juice. The heat is starting to cool slightly and with no plans for the evening I walk north along Schlomo Lahat Promenade, retracing my run of a few days previously. As dusk starts to fall, the body-conscious population of Tel Aviv are out in force, jogging and cycling in large numbers, while on the beach people are swimming in the bath-like sea.
I stop for a glass of wine and watch the sunset at Metzitzim Beach before continuing to the Port Of Tel Aviv, checking out the funky restaurants and bars as darkness falls. I have dinner at Cafe Nimrod, tucking into a vegan burger and margarita in its pretty little outdoor space, before walking all the way back along Hayarkon via Independence Park and Spiegel Park and heading for bed, wondering when I’ll be flying home.
