On weekend nights one can see drunken Romanians sitting everywhere, in outdoor cafes and on sidewalks, surrounded by piles of empty beer bottles, before or after spending what’s probably the better part of a week’s pay at one of the aforementioned “health clubs. One out of every seven people residing in Tel Aviv is a foreign worker, from Africa, China, the Philippines, Thailand, South America, and just about everyplace else.

About half are in Israel legally; the rest live “underground” and try to avoid being picked up by the police. This area, despite being the crime hotbed of the city, is sparsely patrolled. Except for periodic raids to please those elements in the Government who consider the foreign workers a “ticking demographic bomb” and have nightmares of the Jewish state being overrun by aliens, the police tend to leave that side of town alone.

The neighborhood around the old Central Bus Station is a concentration of ultrafast-food joints (serving mainly falafel [deep-fried chickpea fritters] and burekas.

Mainly cheap dives where vagrants sit silently in front of a beer and watched soccer on television.