trip report

[Glen_Powell@ne.3com.com]

Destination: Tel Aviv

I'd heard all the horror stories about clearing customs and immigration in
Israel, so I hired and executive transfer firm to meet me at the gate,
escort me though the processes and deliver me to my hotel, the same firm
used by our CEO Eric Banhmou here at 3Com.

I was greeted immediately at the gate by a most beautifulyoung  woman that
instantly whisked me away from the masses. She escorted me to passport
control where I was very kindly asked if I would like my passport stamped
or not - I said sure, go ahead. We then immediately bypassed customs and
security and I was whisked to a waiting limousine - all in about 60
seconds. The 'limousine' was a 3/4 ton Ford van painted up to look like a
delivery truck, but very comfortable inside.

This van was diesel-powered and must have been a BIG V8, it was a
neck-snapper off the line and acceleration was surprisingly brisk indeed.
The skilled driver negotiated the winding, narrow and extremely poorly
maintained streets of Tel Aviv at the limit of adhesion and roll-over in a
100% binary Max accel/max braking style - this was early in the morning -
virtually no traffic about. At one point we hit some very severe bumps at a
cross-roads and I thought for sure the van was going to endo - "SH_T!!!"
must be a universal exclamation...... After what seemed like about an hour
we arrived at my hotel in downtown Tel Aviv. My pulse and respiration
returned to near-normal in about 20 minutes. An interesting experience
indeed - I would do it again!

Audi content: observed very few Audis - 4 mebbe, none quattro, all older
and in various states of disrepair from fair condition to total all-out
clapper. I did observe one 4-door 90 that looked to be reasonably well
maintained, in the dark, but that was it. Did see several Seats and many
new Passats and VWs of every type and condition including more that a few
(old) Bugs. I observed _no_ enthusiast automobiles of any type - zip.

My ride from the hotel back to Ben-Gurion airport was in a diesel Mercedes
- very upscale taxi as far as I could tell. It was also well-driven and we
approached speeds as high a 150Km on the winding and bumpy "highways" - the
driver struggling to maintain control under the combined forces of
cornering and surface undulations taken at speed far in excess of normal
sanity while passing with total abandon both left and right, another good
ride!

At Heathrow now and good to be on the way home to quattro-land and soon
sno,

-glen