I suppose we could have stayed in bed this morning*

Today after ulpan, we went to Yishpro Centre to buy sheets. We are currently using borrowed sheets (on our new mattresses!), which have to be returned for Sukkot. We finally had a free afternoon, so off we went. The journey started off on a good note, when we were offered a ride to the #6 bus stop, saving us a 10 minute walk, although this meant a 10 minute wait at the bus stop. But always: better a wait than a walk! We got to Yishpro, and on a whim, decided to check out Murphy's Irish Pub. Which is all the way on the other side of Yishpro (Yishpro is pretty big). And here's where things started to go downhill. We got all the way to the pub, only to discover it was closed. Poor Morey was so disappointed - the idea of pub food** and a beer?!

I was so disappointed, because we had to walk allllll the way back. After a quick lunch at Cuppa Joe, we went to the brand new supermarket, which was great. Morey shopped, I talked to Cigal on the phone. While Morey stood in line, I went to Home Centre to get the sheets. And here's where things continued to go downhill. In hindsight, this is where we should have just called a cab and gone home.

First, we maxed the credit card. I knew we were close, I just haven't had a chance to sit down and look at the statement online and make a payment. My bad. Morey ran to the caspomat (ATM) which was 30 seconds away and came back to find the kupai (checker) had started ringing up someone else. Who had a very very full cart. 1,121 shekel, 30 agarot and 25 minutes later, Morey was finally able to pay.

Thanks to the maxed out credit card, we weren`t able to buy sheets, which was the reason we went to Yishpro in the first place. So we wound up buying only lightbulbs, and a gas hose to replace the one we're borrowing for our stove. We also ran into one of our ulpan classmates while shopping. Simon's always great to chat with; he has such a sunny disposition. I've never seen him get frustrated over anything.

Off we go to the bus, and once again, I served as Modi'in (information) for the bus. I either look like a bus company employee, or like I take the bus a lot because I'm always being asked about the bus routes. And here's where everything really went downhill. We want to catch the connecting bus from the train station next to the mall that goes nearest our house because we're laden with bags and don't want to walk far. Except the #6, which picks up at the mall to go to Yishpro, doesn't drop off at the mall. So we wind up walking to the mall (which thankfully, wasn't too far, but still...), around the mall to the other side, to wait for the 1A.

The bus driver wasn't too effusive when we confirmed that he was a 1A (the drivers rarely remember to change their sign from '1' to '1A') and double-confirmed that he went to our street, but he did nod, which we took to be a yes. Except, when he got to our street, he went up the hill instead of down, taking us very far from our destination. We were the only people on the bus at that point, so we stopped the bus, then stood our ground about how he went the wrong way. He didn't argue with us, just put his head in his hands***, which made me feel really bad for him. I'm sure he had had a bad day, and just wanted to go home, which maybe is why he decided to skip our street. However, we had 7 heavy grocery bags, plus our heavy backpacks with our (oye) school books, which we were not going to shlep all the way down the hill.

He just sat there, so finally I asked him in Hebrew, were we just going to sit there all night? He asked where we wanted to go, and we told him, and told him again that the way he went was not correct. He finally closed the door to the bus and started moving, and I asked him where he was going. He said, "L'baita, l'baita" (to your home, to your home). And he drove us to our stop. We conducted this whole exchange in Hebrew, and we were successful! Yay us! I just wish I knew how to say, "I'm sorry you're having such a bad day, and I hope it's better tomorrow." Instead I thanked him very profusely, and hopefully gently, and wished him a "G'mar chatima tova" which is the usual greeting for the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It basically means, "May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for Good." I truly wish for him a better day.

Meanwhile, while basking in our foreign language success, we got home to realize we were overcharged by one shekel for our stuffed grape leaves (thank you Leah for translating!), and our sparkling wine for Shabbat was not in any of the bags. But it most certainly was on the receipt. And somehow, we lost the box of Earl Grey tea I put in the cart, which was not on the receipt. And last but not least, when I took out one of the lightbulb boxes from the bag, it had a suspicious tinkly sound. Guess we get to do all of this again tomorrow....

* We should have known something was up: we missed our bus to ulpan this morning.
** We have since discovered they're probably not kosher, so maybe it's no great loss, anyway. Still, a beer would have been nice.
*** Like Moshe in Parshat Korach when Korach confronts Moshe about who made him a leader, anyway? and King David in Tachanun. Don't know if the bus driver's a great leader, but it's a recurring theme in Jewish texts - when leaders (a bus driver leads his passengers, no?) are questioned when they themselves question their own leadership, they put their heads in their hands.

We learns the Hebrew

Okay, we confess: we cheated. We couldn't bear the thought of getting up before 6am to ride a bus full of little schoolkids to ulpan today. Starting ulpan was stressful enough. So we took a taxi. It wasn't bad, NIS* (₪) 38, and for some reason, the driver rounded it DOWN to ₪ 35. Yes, DOWN. Maybe he felt bad for us after we told him we were going to the primary school for ulpan (Hebrew school).

First the transportation good news. Someone offered us a lift home today, right to our door. Wonderful. There is another couple in our class who drive and live right near a bus line that goes to our house. It's also very walkable from their building. We'll beg talk to them tomorrow about possibly carpooling. The other bit of potentially good news is our neighbourhood #2 bus stops near stairs that lead up to Rehov (street) Reuven, where the ulpan is. We'd never know that from the schedule, and looking at the map, the bus stop looks too far from Reuven to walk easily. So tomorrow, we try the #2! One bus, one route, maybe 10 minutes or so of walking (or climbing, if you want to get technical).

Ulpan was good. It started out a little chaotic, but eventually the teachers broke the class into two groups. Then our instructor had each of us give our name and tell where we're from, where we live, if we have family here. All in Hebrew, of course. Then we all had to write our little stories. Same information, plus a sentence or two about what we do for work. That was fun. I write just fine, but I don't know how to spell anything. Hebrew is very logical, so I think it's a relatively easy language to learn, but spelling is a different story all together. There are so many ways to indicate the "ah" sound, two letters for "v", two letters for "k", two letters for "s", two letters for "t" - there are endless possibilities for some words! Somehow, the teacher understood my story.

At 10:30 she explained that would normally be our break time, but today, we could go home. Since everything is stone and marble, every sound echoes, so sometimes it's a little hard to hear. And even though our teacher promised to speak slowly, sometimes she would go too fast for me. And everything is "rak Ivrit" (only Hebrew), no English allowed. But we got through it. Ultimately, the only mishap of the day was trying to find the ladies room in the boys yeshiva. We had permission to use the bathroom in the administrative office, so I asked someone to show me where the "sherutim" (bathrooms) are. I went through the door I was shown and saw a sink and two completely enclosed stalls (which is typical here). There was a third door with a sign on it.

However, it wasn't until I came out of one of the enclosed stalls that I realized the sign on the third door said "nashim" (women). When I left through the main door, I looked back at it and saw the sign that said "gever/nashim" (men/women). Obviously, the two stalls were for the men. Weird setup. Thank G-d, no one came in while I was in the stall.

I wondered why the seat was up...

Tomorrow: the bus!

*NIS = Israeli New Shekel (₪), the currency here. Yes, it should be INS. But that has bad connotations to American immigrants.

Ehhhhhh, ech omrim,* "Charlie Foxtrot?"

So we finally got news of our ulpan (Hebrew classes) and when it starts and where it is. It starts next week, and it's in a school in the neighbourhood of Buchman**.

Alllllll the way on the other side of Modi'in.

Now, you may have heard that the buses in Modi'in bite the big one. This is even more true if you live in the northwest of Modi'in and need to get to Buchman in the south. There is no bus that goes from here to there ("you can't get there from here"). To get to ulpan we would have to take a #1 to some point in town, then walk to a #3 bus stop. And assuming we wouldn't have to wait too long for the #3 (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA), we would still have what looks to be about a 20-minute walk from the #3 drop off to the school where the ulpan is being held. And remember, Connex doesn't do transfers, so we're talking 8 bus tickets a day for the two of us. Every day. For the pleasure of about an hour-and-a-half trip each way. To go maybe 5 kilometres.

But see, I just interrupted myself to double-check the Connex website and discovered there is no #3 that would get us to the school on time! We'd have to either take the 5:45am or the 8:25am. Except class starts at 8:30am. So rantus interruptus; I have to interrupt my rant with a new improved rant.

:sigh:

We were told the reason classes are being held in Buchman is because there is free space at the school. That's fine. But then, provide transportation. Most of us new olim (immigrants) don't have cars. And the Ministry of Absorption knows that. The Ministry also knows how bad the buses are. We were told there's are new buses for the schoolchildren, particularly the #10. That's great, the #10 stops near our house and goes right to the school. Except the #10 runs only once at 7am (and how, exactly, do we get home?) AND the Ministry of Education has not agreed yet that we adults can ride the schoolkids' buses.

Which actually is fine by me. It's hard enough when I have to go through each day speaking like a 5 year old and dealing with the frustrations of not being understood, and not knowing enough to make myself understood. It's embarrassing enough to stand in the middle of a store playing charades trying to get a store clerk to understand that I need a long shower curtain rod because I have a very long bathtub space. Do I really need to have what's left of my dignity buried under some kid's Dora the Explorer backpack by being the only adults on a children's schoolbus? No thank you. I love kids. I don't want to ride on a schoolbus with them.

We've asked the Ministry to compile a list of everyone in our neighbourhood who is registered for ulpan. Maybe someone has a car, and we can all carpool and share gas costs. Maybe there's enough of us to make it worthwhile for Connex to add another bus for the ulpan students. Maybe there's enough of us over here to make it affordable to split a taxi van; maybe the Ministry will arrange a van. Maybe maybe maybe.

All I know is trying to learn a new language as an adult, and living in a country where you don't speak the language is stressful enough. We don't need merely getting to the classes to be anxiety-inducing as well.


*ech omrim = "how do you say"
** Buchman is pronounced, "booochman" with a "ch" like "l'chaim!"

Help! I'm in Har Nof and I can't get out!

(another in the ongoing series of "How the bus companies hate me")

I'm going to go backwards here and start with a second story. Tomorrow, bli neder (without a vow, ie, I'm not promising), I'll post the first story. However, the second story does require some first story information. Because of a lesson learned from the first story, I gave myself an hour to get from the neighbourhood of Har Nof to the Tachana Mercazit (Central Bus Station or "CBS"). It takes 20 minutes or so by bus. It takes 45 minutes to walk. Now you have the necessary information.

My sister Pamela had invited me to a women's concert last week at Neve Yerushalayim, a seminary in Har Nof. It was supposed to end at 10:30pm, but I knew I'd have to leave early to get to the CBS in time to catch the last bus to Modi'in, which leaves at 11:00pm. It was a wonderful concert, and I was having a great time, but despite that, when my phone alarm vibrated at 10pm, I whispered "goodbye," exchanged quick hugs and hightailed it out of there. I quickly found someone who could lead me out of Neve, since I was a little turned around, and made it to the bus stop.

The woman who helped me and I chatted for a bit about the concert while we waited for our respective buses. She offered me a ride if she took a cab, but the taxi that stopped wanted too much. Eventually, her bus came, and at the same time, my bus - the 15 - arrived. I hopped on the bus, and for some reason, decided to ask the bus driver if he went to the CBS. Even though I know the 15 goes to the CBS.

Me: "Ata holech l'tachana mercazit?" (Do you go to the CBS?)*
Driver: "no."
Me: "LO?" (no)
Dr: "11 or 15"
Me: "Aval ata hachamesh esrai!" (but you the 15)**
Dr: "I let off, I don't pick up. You need the bus building, not the bus sign."***

* Feel free to correct my Hebrew. It's a constant learning process.
** Yes, the driver was speaking English and I was speaking Hebrew. Eventually I realized this, and started speaking English.
*** In some places, the buses only drop people off. In this case, there was a bus shelter where you stand to get the pick-up bus, and a little past the shelter is a pole with a bus sign on it. That's where he stops to drop off. I don't understand it either.

So he lets me off at the next stop, where I go to the shelter - which claims to be a 15 pickup stop - and wait.

And wait. And wait. After a few minutes, quite strangely, the bus that picked up the woman who helped me earlier drove by again. With the woman still on the bus. Considering she was going farther than I needed to, I'm not sure who was worse off.

Eventually, an 11 comes by. I get on it, and double-check that this bus is going to the CBS. I ask what I think is a "yes or no" question, in Hebrew, and he gives me some long answer.

What I asked: "Ata holech l'tachana mercazit?"
What I expected: "Ken" (yes)
What I got: lots of words that probably translated into something like, "I eventually will arrive at the location you requested, however before I can do that, I have to drive all over the entire city of Jerusalem, getting stuck in small alleys, stopping to yell at people who are walking in the middle of these small alleys, while stopping for a smoke and a coffee, all to make sure you go sufficiently insane and have a meltdown in the middle of some unknown neighbourhood."

Yep. I'm sure that's what he was saying.

I responded, "Slicha?" (excuse me?)

And 3 English speakers on the bus yelled, "Yes. He goes to the CBS."

I wound up sitting behind someone who was wearing a Pacific Northwest NCSY sweatshirt, so I had to ask her if she was from Vancouver. Turns out she is, and we had a lovely chat while we both missed our 11:00pm buses. I arrived at the CBS and tore through the underground tunnel, running across the path between the main roads, and arrived to see:

Nothing.

I got to the stop at 11:06. After leaving the concert at 10. Had I walked, I would have been miserable, but I would have made my bus. Thank G-d I have a sister who lives in Jerusalem, and has a spare bed, and loves me. I waited for her to arrive at the CBS while trying to avoid thinking about how I missed the last performer for nothing, and she and I walked back to her lovely neighbourhood of Nachla'ot, bought a couple of beers (non-twistoffs which I opened without an opener. My teenage years weren't totally devoid of valuable lessons, thankyewverymuch.) and sat in a park chattering away. Eventually wound up hanging out with some of the artists who performed that night at Neve. Had a great time, stayed up too late, was grateful for my sister and her futon and her friends, got up early and went to catch the 10:15am bus home.

Except when I got to the CBS at 10:13, there was no bus...

Tangentia

It's happened. I came down with the Aliyah Cold. Apparently, it's very common for new olim to get sick a lot the first year. I guess it's new germs, stress, constantly being tired from running around and sleeping on borrowed mattresses. Morey got sick the second week here and stayed sick for two weeks. Which is very unusual for him - with his metabolism, he goes through a cold in 24 hours. Now I've got what he had. Blargh. The worst part is, we don't even have our couch yet, so I have nothing to curl up on.

Speaking of furniture, we bought a new dining room table.

Click on the picture for a larger image

It's beautiful, expands to seat 10 - 12, and was more than we should have spent.

However, we've spent the last few years talking about how we would love to host people for Shabbat, but we were never close enough to anyone and didn't have a big enough table.

We had 7 people for 2nd Seder this year, and were very cramped. But we had so much fun, it didn't matter at the time. So we figured that since the table wasn't strictly for our enjoyment but for the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim (welcoming of guests), it was worth the extra money. We just won't get as nice a bed.

Speaking of beds, we need to buy mattresses too. A friend drove us into Jerusalem last week and dropped us off near the tachana mercazit (central bus station aka CBS) so we could hop a bus into the neighbourhood of Talpiot. Talpiot has lots of stores and malls and is great for getting furniture. Talptiot is also home of the "big" mall, Kanyon Hadar. Morey and I nearly fell over laughing when we saw the "big" mall. It's one floor, with about 30 stores, including food stalls. In Israeli terms, it is a fairly big mall. By North American standards, it qualifies as a shopping centre.

Anyway, here's where my lousy bus karma came into play. We knew we could take the 5 or the 21 buses. We passed a 5 stop, but it said "tachana mercazit" which confused us. We were walking to the tachana, which was about a block away. Did the 5 end at the tachana? We decided to keep walking to the CBS. After waiting a few minutes, a 21 came up. Morey went to confirm with the driver that he went into the "industrial" area of Talpiot, not the residential area, and he said no, we needed the 74.

Oh.

After waiting 25 minutes for a 74, the driver of the 74 told us we needed the 21, that he doesn't go anywhere near the stores.

Oh.

We then waited for ever for another 21. (Of course, after waiting 25 minutes for the 74, 3 more showed up in the space of 10 minutes.) We were at the tachana well over an hour by the time the next 21 finally came. Then, we were stuck in the construction on Jaffa Street, so it took nearly an hour to get to Talpiot. That didn't leave us with much time, but we did get to explore Kanyon Hadar, and go to 3 different mattress stores, which left us just as confused as when we started. We weren't able to catch a ride back to Modi'in with our friend, but it seemed like G-d wanted to make up for our horrid trips to Talpiot, and when we decided to go home and left the last mattress store, we were right at a bus stop with a 21 bus sitting at the stop. Which got us to the CBS 5 minutes before the bus to Modi'in left. That was perfect.

So we still don't have a mattress, and don't have the foggiest idea what to get, but at least we have a less foggy idea of what's out there, and how much this might cost us. Suggestions welcome.

Oh, Connex*, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

* the bus company in Modi’in. They’re French. The French historically don’t like Jews (Napoleon excluded). I think Connex is their revenge.

I hate that your schedule lists only the time you’re leaving the bus depot, leaving us to guess how long it takes from the depot to our stop. Of course, in that guess, we also have to guess which route you might choose to take today.

I hate that you say there’s a #1 bus at 9:15pm. I have only seen a #1 bus in the night - at any time during the night - once.

I hate that in the 2 1/2 weeks we’ve been here, we have 3 times waited fruitlessly for hours for a bus that never came.

I hate that Morey had to wait nearly 3 hours at the mall (which is a 40 minute walk from home), starting at 5:30pm after a very long day in Haifa, only to get a bus that only went to the bus depot and ended. Out of desperation, at 8:00pm, he finally called a friend to please take him home, which he got to at 8:20. He would have walked, but he had bags of groceries. He thought it would be convenient to grab some groceries at the mall, since it’s right near the train station, where he ended up after his trip to Haifa.

I hate that you wouldn’t wait 20 seconds at 2:30 for Morey to cross the street, causing us to miss our transfer to Yishpru Centre, which only comes once an hour. So instead of getting to Yishpru at 3:30, we got there at 4:30. However, I did learn that if this happens again, I’m standing in the door of the bus. The driver can’t move if the door is open.

I hate that after taking the bus home from Yishpro to the bus depot, the #1 bus that STARTS at the bus depot at 9:15pm (straight from the Connex driver’s mouth) never showed. And that Morey, who is sick, and I had to walk home carrying the standing fan that we bought today. Thank G-d it wasn’t a long walk.

I hate that you won’t take us where we want to go: for example Ligat Centre (where our lawyer is) and Shilat (where all the cheap shopping is).

I hate that huge, gas-guzzling, environmentally damaging busses are cruising around town empty. Switch to shuttle busses and run more frequently. And for cryin’ out loud, if there’s NO ONE on the bus, turn down the A/C!!

I hate that huge, gas-guzzling, environmentally damaging busses are cruising around small, narrow, filled-with-children neighbourhood streets. Switch to shuttle busses and leave the big busses on the boulevards.

I hate that busses are empty. Few people take the busses because they are unreliable, so the busses become a second thought, put on the back burner, not considered important, which causes less people to take the busses, creating the classic Catch-22.

I hate that the busses are unreliable, inconsistent and often take you where you want to go only after taking you on a full-on tour of this whole beautiful city. There are no transfers, so to go from one side of the city to the other, you have to take 2 busses, but it costs you 2 trips.

This is why each task we needed to accomplish took us an entire day per task. Yet, when Rachel drove us around town, we were able to take care of 4 things in 2 1/2 hours.

I love Modi’in. I hate the busses.

Remember to bring a book for watiing for the bus

So today was one of those days that reeeeeaaly tries your patience. We decided to jump on the bus that takes a tour of the whole darn city before you get to your destination. Mainly because it’s that bus, or the bus that goes to the top of the hill, which, for a change, was not where we needed to go today.

After our lovely scenic ride, which at least took us exactly where we needed to go after all that, we visited a lovely Israeli/South African couple who are moving back to South Africa and selling some things. They have a beautiful dining room table that we’re going to buy. Their fridge is way too big, as is their washing machine, unfortunately, but the diningroom table, which is very big, is perfect for us.

Then we crossed the street to The Mall (tm). It’s the only one in town, so if you say The Maill, you can only mean this one. We wandered around, explored the Mega Ba’ir - a supermarket chain - (OMIG-D, you can get wine and vodka and Frangelico IN THE GROCERY STORE! Cheap!) and looked for a wireless router. The guy at the store was trying to convince us we had to get a mega powerful router, because we plan on using our computers mostly in the second bedroom. Our second bedroom is our Mamad. The Mamad is a safe room - I think I’ve mentioned this previously - all Israeli apartments built after a certain year have to have a Mamad. The Mamad has a metal door like a bank safe door, the walls are reinforced, the window is reinforced glass and there is a metal plate that slides across the window. All this is in the event of a bombing, war or another Sadam who threatens to disperse mustard gas. That’s also where we’ll keep our gas masks when the new ones are distributed in January.

Aaaanyway, for the signal to get through the walls of the Mamod, the salesman was saying the router has to be super duper strong. But we know people who have a regular ol’ router in their Mamad and it works just fine. We didn’t buy one yet, so it’s back on the list for tomorrow.

Then we walk up to the shopping centre where our health care service is so we can sign up. Except Morey didn’t bring the papers with him. He thought he gave them to me, which he didn’t (I have them now!). Then we walked up yet another hill to the next shopping centre to look for a non-intimidating muzzle for Maimo so we can take him on the bus so he can get microchipped (Israeli law) tomorrow morning. No luck on the muzzle (I will NOT put one of those cage things on Maimo), so we’re going to jerry-rig something tomorrow and b.s our way onto the bus.

After all that walking, my ankle was shot again. Just when it was doing better, and after I had planned our whole day so that we’d have to do a minimum of walking (we thought there’d be a pet store in The Mall). Thank G-d, another new Modi’in friend offered to drive us around tomorrow on all our errands. So tomorrow, we should be able to accomplish the last 4 things on our beaureaucratic list (instead of the one a day), and then it’s on to fun stuff like garbage cans and shower curtains.

Oh, and to mark the end of the fast, our neighbour blasted Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” It’s not our custom, but hey, they do all sorts of weird things here ;)