Between April 4th and April 8th, Ryan and Dominik from ESCXTRA.com were honoured to be invited to Israel Calling 2022. In this article, we continue our diary series of the week’s events! Here’s Ryan’s experience of day 2!
From the airport to the hotel
After landing at the airport in Tel Aviv, I was privileged to find myself with the Czech and German delegations on a private taxi transfer to our hotel with its prime location on the beachfront in central Tel Aviv. It was now 6am with little sleep for almost 24 hours so it was straight to bed for me!
Around six hours later I woke up to the news from the Israel Calling production team that I had tested negative for COVID-19 at Ben Gurion airport which had been a quick and seamless process. It was time to reunite with my colleague Dominik who had arrived yesterday! We took in a walk along Tel Aviv’s beach promenade, saw the hotel I stayed in back in 2019 for Eurovision as well as had a sneaky McDonald’s!
Tour of Tel Aviv
By 3pm we made it back to the hotel to join many of this year’s artists and delegations for the first of the week’s scheduled events: a tour of Tel Aviv! The tour was based in Jaffa, the oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo. We took in the sights, saw some amazing views and even finished the tour at an ice cream parlour – it was one of the best ice creams I’ve ever eaten!
After dinner and a quick rest, it was time to head to a bar in Tel Aviv for a party! I very nearly slept through it, I had to be woken up by the reception ringing my in-room phone! Nevertheless, the artists, delegations and ourselves put on our most glamorous outfits and enjoyed a couple of hours mingling in the bar with the Eurovision entries of the artists playing on the sound system which was quite the fun experience!
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