In my defense, I hadn’t had coffee yet.
My friends and I were traveling from Haifa to Akko, a small city famous for its Crusader-era Old City. Katie, my fellow caffeine addict, and I had made plans to placate our coffee cravings earlier in the day, but a number of obstacles, like late buses, had thwarted our plans. And so we reached the Akko bus station coffee-less.
At that point, my two friends were ready to go explore the city, but I was on the verge of being truly grumpy. I no longer cared about the Crusader Castle, the Arab market, or even the Templar Knights’ Tunnels (in spite of all the awesome Da Vinci Code jokes I had prepared on the bus ride).
I spotted a café with a nice patio in the entrance to the old city, and told my friends that I would somehow find them on the tangled, narrow streets of the Akko market after I went to get my fix.
A waiter was selling fresh-squeezed juices to passersby. He asked me if I wanted some, and I told him that actually I really wanted coffee. He seemed confused for a second, then smiled, and motioned for me to sit in the white, plastic chair on the sidewalk.
But I had my eye on the patio. Throughout my travels in Israel and Jordan, Muslim women had been fairly elusive figures, but here there was a group of beautifully scarfed women enjoying tea on the patio. I wanted to befriend them, so I asked the waiter if, instead, I could sit in the patio.
Again, he looked confused, but then quickly smiled and opened the locked gate for me to come inside. The coveted patio only had one table, at which the ladies were sitting, so a young boy brought me to a separate patio.I gave up on making friends and resolved myself to at least getting some caffeine.
And then the coffee came. I am not too picky about my coffee, but Turkish (or Arabic, or Greek, depending on where you are) coffee isn’t my favorite; it’s a little too strong. It usually comes in small portions, so it’s ok. But this was the biggest pot of Arabic coffee I had ever seen. I got through four cups before I had to give up, and half of the pot was still left over.
Unfortunately, it was only then that I realized I was not, in fact, in a café, but rather, in a family home. All the confused looks and the drying laundry suddenly made sense. I shamefully and hurriedly gulped down as many cups as I could and, with caffeine-induced shaking hands, paid for my coffee and ran to find my friends in the labyrinth of Akko’s streets.