the Jerusalem trip of last week

As a reminder to everyone, here in Israel the week is a little different than in the US. In Israel the working days are the first through the 5th of the week (sunday though thursday) and then Friday and Saturday are the weekend. (quite literally). This also means that classes are sunday thorugh thursday.

So, last week, after class on Thursday, a group of 9 students from the class took off for Jerusalem. We took a bus from campus, transfered to another bus and then arrived at one of the central bus stations in Haifa. There we got our round trip tickets to Jerusalm for 71.40 sheqels. This was a pretty straightforward event, except that while I was waiting to buy mine, I was talking to some of the students ahead of me in line, and had been standing off to the side a little bit. When I moved around to get up to the window, an old israeli guy objected --we'll call him "OG"--, apparently saying that I should get behind him in line. There were like 2 people in line, and he apparently didn't speak english, and I'm not all that excited about getting into a fight, so I figured, hey, I can wait. Well the person in from of OG didn't take long at all. However, OG gets up to the window and starts asking the teller questions in hebrew. As close as I can tell, he was attempting to determine how many different bus routes there were in the country, with all their stops.

OG kept on asking questions and talking. I got behind him in line at about 1:30 and stayed there for a full 20 minutes. After about 15 minutes, the line had grown behind me to be about 12 people long. Getting irritated that he had been so insistant about 'HIS' unrightful place in line when he was taking so long, and having plenty of time to think, I managed to say this in Hebrew: " סליחה, יש הרבה אנשים בטור " (transliteration: slee-hach, yesh harbey anashim ba-tor; translation: excuse me, there are many people in the line) to which OG replied "I know" in Hebrew (which I was really proud I understood! ) At that point, one of the other people in line started talking to him in Hebrew in a tone that perfectly expressed my frustrations. Fortunately, he got done and finally bought a ticket before our bus left at 2pm.

Once in Jerusalem, we checked in at the youth hostel we were staying at, where we had a matress and a spot big enough for the matress on the roof for 50 sheqels a night. In case you're curious, it's the Citadel Youth Hostel, Marks St. 20, in the heart of the old city.

#####that's it for now, but I'll extend this post later####