Tel Aviv Pride boasts up to 250,000 revellers. It is massive. Yet I felt Glen and I were largely on the outside of it all. Perhaps I just get too tired or too over it. After our late Thursday night, we spent most of Friday morning in bed.

We organised to meet our Sydney friend, Asaf, for lunch. The parade was on but Glen and I hadn’t made any real plans to see it. The boys were doing their own thing. I realised at about 11:30am that I’d lost my bank card. At 11:56am, after tearing the hotel room apart searching for it, a guy messaged me via Facebook and said he’d found it at the club the night before. Hallelujah!

We walked in reverse along the parade route, seeing a lot of partying going on. It was amazing to see so many people participating in what appears to be an extremely conservative country. If I hadn’t been tired, or trying to get my bank card back, or being generally a delicate flower, I would have liked to take our time, see more of the parade, enjoy the beach, all that sort of stuff that comes with the parade but the sheer size of the crowd got to me and I think I’m less likely now to put up with shit I don’t want to do. 

Anyway, got my card back from the very helpful man. I offered him a reward but he wouldn’t take it. The card hadn’t been skimmed or had anything taken from it. I was very relieved (even though it wouldn’t give us any money after Glen got 400 shekels out later that afternoon. Had to borrow from friends). We then met Asaf for lunch, then walked to the parade route and saw about five floats (apparently there were only ten).

Glen and I walked back to the hotel, seeing the end of the parade and the thinning crowd as ‘everyone else’ went to the after-party by the beach at the other end. The boys went too, struggled with getting food and drink, but were impressed with the size of it all. I think Glen and I went to bed again.

In the evening we went for dinner and then to a party called Arisa, which was Middle Eastern themed. I enjoyed some of the music (even though I had no idea what they were saying) but we were all done after about an hour and blessedly went home.

The running theme while in Tel Aviv has been trying to get taxis to either a) put on their meters or b) accept a reasonable price. Outside the club it was impossible so we started walking. Some of the boys were too tired to walk the 45 minutes home so we started flagging cabs without any luck. Then a random guy, who wasn’t a cab driver or Uber (equivalent) driver, pulled up and asked me if we wanted a lift. Worried that he might be about to murder us (though seven against one are good odds), once I told him where and he looked it up, he was happy to take us for 50 shekels. Bargain!

We threw the most tired of us into the car and he drove them back to the hotel. How strange but also how nice! He was cute too. Simon, Dion and I managed to get a cab shortly after for the same price so it wasn’t long before we were home.

Saturday was another mostly slow day. We went to the gay beach – and saw a lot of beautiful men. The water was warm – I think this was my first time in the Mediterranean – and extremely salty. After only a short swim, we returned to the hotel and sat by the rooftop pool, had our lunch and relaxed.

Saturday night was the big party, an outdoor event headlined by DJ Offer Nissim, an Israeli DJ with a massive following. We were all a bit later leaving than I expected but in the end it was probably for the best as we missed the hottest part of the day. We went for dinner, had a delicious meal, and then got our taxis to the event.

I’d decided not to drink a lot (the prices were exorbitant) but probably should have put a few more away to get me in the mood. The cigarette smoke got to me, my legs were tired, the music was great but I struggled to get in the swing of things, and it all got too much. By 9:30 I was ready to go, reluctant to admit that I wasn’t having as good a time as the other boys, but I couldn’t shake the mood, which was a real shame.

(God, reading back on this makes it sound like I had an awful time all round, but I didn’t. There were highlights but I think I had unrealistic expectations that I’d love everything about this when that was just, well, unrealistic.)

Glen was ready to go too. We broke Asaf’s heart by leaving early. We’d lost the other boys (they’d followed me into the crowd and then I went wandering and Glen couldn’t find them again). We exited the venue, got an overpriced cab (getting taxis has been a hassle here; only one out of the seven we caught would put on their meter and the rest had to be haggled) back to the hotel and was asleep by 10:30. Oh well.

And so ended Tel Aviv Pride. Would I go again? Possibly. I’d plan to have a bigger rest around everything, pick some different parties too. I’d also know what to expect so that might help overall.