It felt like he'd hardly slept when he awoke at 9am. He made sure his friend was awake then sleepily went downstairs to get a coffee. The first coffee of the day always tasted the best to him. When the mouth was trying to wake up, a good, strong, sugarless coffee always helped.
They ate a small cooked breakfast of omelettes at a street cafe, bought some road smokes and set off on the long journey back to the kibbutz taking a different route north, passing through even more spectacular scenery. By lunchtime they'd arrived in a place called Mitzpe Ramon, a small town which overlooked the huge crater known as the Ramon crater - one of Israel's famous geological landmarks.
Driving towards it, across the crater floor, the view offered never ceased to move him - a sheer face of rock extending for six kilometres, the only way up via the steep, hair-pinned road cutting it almost in half.
From Eilat he'd done all the driving which was highly illegal as he didn't have a driving licence. His friend had asked him if he'd wanted to take the wheel and anyway, he needed the practice. He thought he'd done OK, well, other than taking a sharp turn off the main road like a rally driver.

After resting for an hour or so they were on their way to Tel Aviv, his friend doing the driving. A few hours and a couple of wrong turns later - almost driving into the Gaza Strip, they arrived. They'd timed it perfectly and landed right in the middle of the city's rush hour. They found a place to park the car a couple of blocks away from the beach and got out to stretch their legs. He knew a couple of friends who lived in the city, so phoned them up (courtesy of the Hilton's public phone) to tell them was was coming to visit, and led his friend on foot through the streets to their apartment.

An hour passed in which they ate, drank coffee and caught up on kibbutz gossip, and afterwards were driven back to the city centre in his city-friend's almost new Chevrolet. It was sheer luxury after the small Seat they were using from the hire company. They said their goodbyes and entered a place he'd been meaning to come to but never got round to doing so - Tower Records.
Inside, an enormous amount of discs, tapes and other music-related products. He usually kept a mental list of discs he'd like to buy but upon entering the threshold to this dream world his mind became blank. There was so much to choose from. The small shop in Nazareth paled in comparison. Still, he came away with a couple of limited edition Pearl Jam CDs and wishing the car had a CD player.