Slow down, team

Tel Aviv, with its stifling drowsy heat and twenty four hour lifestyle was draining me. While at Tal's house we seemed always to be seated with strangers; these anonymous people drifting in and out, spending their time drinking, smoking, eating snack food and waking up on the sofa.

It occurred to me last night, as I went to the bathroom to trim my beard, and take a little (too much!) out of my hair, that the phrase, "There's a time and a place for everything!" is well, open to negotiation. Was Tal's bathroom at 11pm on a Tuesday night the appropriate place to trim my beard? When would have been a more appropriate time? In Tel Aviv, amongst the young people (Jesus, I sound like Louis Theroux) it's nigh impossible to get to bed before 5am. Hair trimming is not a morning option.

I guess when you're travelling, not really 'doing' anything, and always at the mercy of hospitality (rather than the paid slovenliness of guesthouses in India) you must always find some time to do your general upkeep so that it fits in with everyone else's schedule. Showers must be taken later. Laundry is done only when it's certain that you're going to be there for at least a couple of days. And somehow, all of these boy houses (like Tal's, and many student digs before it) don't exactly inspire cleanliness. They inspire a total abandon of any good habits you may have picked up along the path, and a wholehearted subscription to any bad ones you've attempted to leave behind.

Jam sessions in Tel Aviv were on a continuum: always it was appropriate to pick up an instrument and fiddle with it on the assumption that at least one other person would join in at some point. Big Jimi Hendrix revival. Tal's housemate (affectionately nicknamed Jimi) seemed a little reluctant at first to reveal the fact that he's an awesome guitarist and percussionist. He knew all the solos.

We never quite got anything, musically, done though. Always so many of those distracting anonymous acquaintances around wanting to be vaguely entertained so that banal Hebrew conversations could be soundtracked.

But you know, in the grand scheme of things, we are all soldiers in the army of the anonymous.

It was difficult to bum around Tel Aviv with a clear conscience for too long. Time is becoming increasingly short. As a team, myself and Effie have less than two remaining weeks together, unless some longed-for bolt of lightning intervenes. It is an oppressive egg timer we have on our shoulders.

However, we are here to live life, not wait for it to end.

So after a bus ride, we are now safely among the civilized tranquility of a Jerusalem suburb, having arrived at Ben's house – a good friend from India, enjoying intelligent post-hippy conversations about homogenisation in the modern world with Ben's father. Our chosen specialist subject was British pubs.

Words not, but like: "Back in the day..."

Tomorrow we will busk in Jerusalem. I like the sound of that sentence. Sounds well Jesus.