Shai and Imshin have written great posts that pretty much sum up the atmosphere in Tel Aviv this past weekend: happy happy joy joy. This was the first year since the intifada began in 2000 that the municipalities permitted the traditional street celebrations of Purim, and it was amazing to feel the palpable sense of freedom from fear. When I stopped for a quick salad on Basel after Friday morning yoga class, the normally packed cafe was nearly empty. Everyone was out on Dizengoff or at Hayarkon Park.

My camera is broken, but Shai took some great photos.

Later in the day I met a friend who was visiting from Vienna. We went for a walk on the beachfront promenade, which was full of visiting Irish football fans wearing green shirts and carrying cameras. It was a nice day - around 20 Celsius - but there was a chilly wind on the beach. For the Irish, though, it was high summer. We saw quite a few pairs of albino-white legs emerging from ill-fitting Bermuda shorts.

They seemed like a pretty sweet bunch, those Irish. There were quite a few families, and I saw some middle aged couples - all clad in green, of course - strolling along hand-in-hand. At one point I entered a hotel just behind one of the aforementioned middle-aged couples, and the man stepped aside to hold the door for me. "After you, please, my dear," he said. A man held a door for me in Israel! That was a moment of true cultural dissonance.

As for the game, well, it ended in an unexpected tie of 1-1. Israel scored the second goal just a minute before the game ended. I was watching a documentary at the time, but my high-testosterone neighbours kept me informed with a wall-shaking roar of approval. Gooooooaaaaaaallllll!