Welcome to Israel

Hi all!!
Here's the update on our trip. Feel free to check back here. So long as we have internet we're happy to post. Thank Heavens for this post-modern era when we can travel with internet ready laptops but no cell phones =) Our apt is quintessentially old jerusalem but more on that later.

Our stopover through Madrid was fun-giving us just enough time to pick up a spanish lighter (souvenior for sara's family). We slept straight thru our first flight thanks to Dramamine and other unmentionable narcotics. When we tried to board the 2nd plane though Tova had to be escorted to the bowels of Madrid Aeropuerte del Barajas airport to identify her luggage (dont ask-tight elal security).

of course we made friends with many of our travelmates including Sara's roomates sister (rachel sultan), some mother of rivka's friend (Guttman from lakewood) and a great chabad girl from florida also traveling on a shoestring budget. Each new acquantaince we met asked the famous question "so where are you staying??" When our answer was far from definitive we had to deal with big round pitiful looks and sorry faces. But they finally took us seriously when one woman offered us her unused plastic cutlery from dinner to add to our already growing collection of stowed away leftovers.(lets just say the Borensteins once-frozen airline chicken dinners are still sitting in the fridge here-reserved for SHABBOS!-Just Kidding-still trying to get through to poison control to determine their status)

Thankfully, we took our time getting off the plane and met with a nearly-empty baggage claim area and our suitcases awaiting us. Now came the true test of our Israeli fortitude - the Nesher or the bus? 90 shekel for the door to door service, or roughing it israeli style on the sure-to-be-cheaper public bus. Hey, we reasoned, our apartment is supposedly down the block from the bus station anyway, how bad could it be? Boy, were we in for an experience!!

This chavaya first required going up to the second floor of Ben Gurion, then wheeling our overburdening, groaning carts, carrying 4 gargantuan unwieldy suitcases plus carryons across the airport pickup lane, past the awaiting Neshers (no! we didn't give in to the temptataion), and past the unmasked amusement of the security cards. We proudly proceeded to the humble crowd of suitcase-free travelers awaiting the shuttle to the bus. Get that? We needed to take a shuttle for ten minutes in order to get to the bus stop to get to Jerusalem.

We got off the bus and unloading our 7 suitcases in a masterful fashion. We then discovered, much to our horror, that the bus stop for Jerusalem was a mere two minute walk away - that being of course, if you have no luggage!! We know understood why even Israelis don't take the bus.

Getting our luggage to the next bus stop necessitated serious planning. We began by taking a detour to the makolet (small grocery) to pick up water. We then worked out a wonderful system. Sara would shlep two suitcases for 50 feet, while Tova watched the others. Then we switched.

Now's where it got complicated. You see, there was a HUGE intersection that we had to cross. No simple intersection, mind you. We're talking about one of these five line, four pedestrian crossing, inter-highway interchange in the middle the middle of some under developed industrial area. You know, the type of intersection you can only find in Israel. So we began to lug our tremendous suitcases two at a time across the asynchronous pedestrian crosslights, often managing to make it across and back more than one per cross-walk light.

Twenty minutes and twenty gallons of sweat later, we made it to the bus stop. We knew were in the right place - with the payphone beckoning us to call home. While we awaited the bus of unknown-arrival-time, we called home (did you get our messages?) and even managed to find out the address of the apartment we were headed to.

Well, the saga's not over folks. The first 947 bus to Jerusalem came and went. It was so full that the bus driver wouldn't let us on as there was no room to get up the stairs. A good 15 minutes past, and, as the sun slowly went down (and our eyelids too), at last, the next 947 appeared. We efficiently asked the driver - in Hebrew no less - to open the compartment below for our luggage. With speed that would have put the Israeli army to shame, us two young ladies, managed to get the suitcases in unassisted. It must have taken under two minutes!

Absolutely exhausted and so happy to finally be on the bus to Jerusalem, we lumbered up the stairs and handed our ticket to the driver. As an afterthought, Sara asked "Atta nose'ah latachna merkazit?". You can imagine our looks of horror when the driver responded "Eizo tachana? Bi'Lod?" Absolute incredulity past over our faces as we gasped in horror, reverting to English in our fright, and blowing our cover as hard core Israelis. "What? Isn't the 947 going to Jerusalem??!?" "Ani nosea liLod" was his flat response. We flipped. As he continued driving, we began to imagine horror scenes of having to shlep our suitcases all the way back to the bus stop that we were now a good 500 feet past. Again we tried, "Isn't this the 947?" Responding in English, the driver offered dryly "You want to go to Jeruzalem? I'll take you to Jeruzalem". Now we were utterly bewildered. Was he going to Lod or not? "'Ave a zeet", was the flat toned response. Hahahahahaha. We realized we were supposed to laugh as we noticed the snickers coming from the front row. Sara made sure to give him a piece of her mind as we bumbled to the back of the bus. "This is the last thing I need after 15 hours of traveling," were Sara's parting words. But we still laugh as we type this.


We arrived in the dimly lit innards of the tachana (Central Bus Station) and noticed that we had only further complicated our predicament. No matter how close our apartment was to the tachana, there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to manipulate our sizable accompaniment through the security at the tachana, across the large station, down the stairs, past half a dozen stores, up the ramp, out to the street, and out across a block or two in search of a phantom apartment. In quick succession, we realized that the $14 we had saved by taking public trans was about to be cut into. With no choice, we bargained a taxi driver, who drove us our suitcases out of the station and around two corners for thirty shekel. Well, we figured, at least we saved ourselves $7 (and had someone carry the luggage to our door).

Our apartment is in a darling side street off of Rechov Yaffo. Its an old, decrepid building that must have seen many better days in an alley way of a street. There's something touching about the authentic Jerusalem stone and heavy barred metal doors leading into the darkened stairwell, circa 1920. We'll try to upload pictures to show you all.

The apartment itself is thankfully recently renovated, and is clean, new and simple inside. With its 25 foot ceilings, and the green heavy metal shutters it is truely a quaint a beautiful place. We have a foot-deep porch overlooking Rechov Yaffo (one flight up), and another small balcony overlooking a peaceful courtyard of stone and olive trees. We went to sleep with the beautiful breeze tickling our toes through the door of the mirpeset in our room, and awoke to see the blue sky peeping through. We awake at 7:30 to the sounds of drilling in a nearby apartment. Welcome to Israel!

We'll keep you posted.

XOXOXOXOXOX,

Sara & Tova