Wednesday, November 13: With A Little Help From Our Friends

Wednesday – November 13 With a little help from our friends

We were a little bit at a loss as to what to do today, but we decided to take the train to Tel Aviv because the train was easier to deal with than the bus/shirut to and from Jerusalem. Plus we had not really scoped out Dizengoff St. and also my friend, Merry, was due to back from her trip to India. 

I've known Merry for over 40 years. I baby sat her kids while I was in college and even a bit after. No need to point out those kids are now in their late 30s/early 40s, married with two kids. They are still 4 and 6 years old in my mind. Merry had made aliyah (moved to Israel) 20 years ago.

I gave Merry a call at about 10:00, and sure enough, she was home and awake and happy to meet us for lunch at 1:00. We have a plan!

We walked over to Dizengoff and started up the street.We walked up Dizengoff window shopping till we found a store called "The Bauerhouse". Once more did our part to support the global economy by buying dreidels and a menorah.

We met Merry at her apartment at 1:00 – we hadn’t seen each other in 10 years. She took us to a restaurant in a nearby park – you wouldn’t even know we were in a big city. It was great catching up with her and what her kids were doing.

This evening we wanted to make sure we were back to Modi’in a bit early, because we had talked the Resnicks into letting us take all of them out for dinner as a thank you for hosting us this week. So we talked about heading back to the Tel Aviv Mercaz station.

And Merry said, “Why are you walking all the way over there? There’s a closer station – the Azrieli station is only 20 minutes away instead of 30.” That sounded like a great idea.

The “Azreili station” is the nick-name for the Tel Aviv HaShalom station. It’s called “Azreili” because it’s around the corner from the Azreili Center, which consists of 3 buildings – one round, one square and one triangular.

We ask the teller for the usual – 2 tickets to Modi’in. As she hands me the tickets, she tells me that the next train is in 7 minutes on platform 2. We go into the station, find platform 2, and 7 minutes later a train shows up. We get on it without verifying it’s the correct train, because of course it is, right? We’re on platform 2 and the train came in 7 minutes.

As we chug along, we hear the station announcements (all in Hebrew), but we hear words like “Ben Gurion” and “Modi’in”, so we figure it’s all good. Half hour later, Andy notices that we are in fact not going in the correct direction – we are going south, not east. We are now in Rehovot. He also points out that unlike the actual train to Modi’in where all the instructions are repeated in English, we haven’t heard a word of English since getting on this train.

Uh. Oh.

So we get off. We’re now in Rehovot. We went a half hour in the wrong direction.

We went up to the station master’s office and have a broken conversation over the turnstiles (we don’t want to exit the station because we’d have to buy new tickets). We’re told that we need to take the next train back towards Tel Aviv and get off at the Tel Aviv Haganah station, then switch to the Modi’in train on track #2. And when is the next train? A half hour.

While we’re waiting, we try to figure out the electronic signs that are flashing the incoming trains and their next few stations. Mind you, the sign is all in Hebrew, so we were a bit challenged to figure this out.

Let’s see, on the Benyamina train (the one we want) Tel Aviv Haganah is the 5^th stop once we’re on the train. We will get on the train, count 5 stops, and get off. That will work.

Another challenge is now it is dark and the train stations typically seem to have only one big sign announcing their name. We can sort of make out the name of the station from the booming announcement before we arrive, and we’re carefully counting stations as well.

As we approach the 5^th station, both of us clearly hear that the next station Tel Aviv Haganah. So we get off the train and toddle as quickly as possible to track #2, because we figure the train to Modi’in must be coming along any minute.

Guess what? It’s not Tel Aviv Haganah by any stretch of anybody’s imagination. As a matter of fact, we have no idea what station it is at all. It’s a tiny station – only two tracks – and in the middle of nowhere. What the heck did we do? What happened here? How do we get to Modi'in from here?

Because it’s such a small station, the station staff’s English is not so great. Somehow we communicate that we need to get to Modi’in – us on one side of the turnstile, the staff on the other. The ticket agent says,

“Rakefet Modi’in!”

and I reply, “Train to Modi’in!”. She smiles, thrilled that she’s understood. She says,

“Shtayim!” and I reply,

“Two!”

whereupon we seem to be stuck for a minute, because that’s all she says, and I’m not quite grasping the message. And then, voila!

“The train to Modi’in is on track #2?”

“Ken, ken, ken!!” (Yes, yes, yes!)

So we go back to where we had been just a few minutes ago.

We really don’t have a real good idea as to exactly what went wrong. That first train at the Azreili station was either the wrong train (maybe it was the train AFTER it we needed to be on?), but we hadn’t verified it was the correct train by checking the signs on the sides of the cars. Or, could be the ticket agent assumed that we knew we needed to get off at the Tel Aviv Haganah station and switch to the train to Modi’in.

Even though this is a moot point, we just can’t let it go. And it gives us something to talk about while we’re waiting for the next train. Which is in another 20 minutes – at 6:31. We have been traveling for almost 2 hours and have gone absolutely nowhere. We’ve decided to place all the "blame" on Merry for talking us into taking the train from the Azreili station. If we had just walked 10 minutes longer to Tel Aviv Mercaz, none of this would have happened. Yes, that’s it, it’s Merry’s fault! Why did she need to be so helpful! ;-)

Shula calls and I give her an update on the silly situation. While I’m on the phone with her, the stationmaster asks to see our tickets.

“This is not the train to Modi’in”, he says.

“We know”, we reply.

“You can’t get to Modi’in from here, you have to change trains.”

“We know.”

While Andy fills him in on our little adventure, I’m walking up and down the platform with Shula on the phone because she wants to know what station this is. I have no idea, and I end up walking halfway down the platform until I finally locate the station sign that says, “Kfar Badad”. Wherever that might be, Shula recognizes it. She tells me we’ll need to take the next train one stop, get off, and transfer to the train to Modi’in. Yep, that’s what we hear.

I come back to Andy and the station master, and it’s clear that the station master finds all of this pretty funny. Which, in fact, it is.  It’s beyond ridiculous into the absurd zone.

At 6:31 the train arrives. We go one stop. We get off and- it’s the Tel Aviv Haganah station! In the distance I can see the Azreili center buildings, where we were 2 hours ago.

The train to Modi’in arrives – we can tell it’s the correct train, because it’s a single level blue train (instead of a double decker red train)  and the “Modi’in” signs on the sides of the cars. It’s now 6:45 and we’re finally headed in the correct direction.

We arrive at Modi’in a little before 7:30. A quick 3 hours, and we’re at last where we’re supposed to be.

Shula picks us up and drives to the strip mall where we’ll meet the guys for dinner. Except she can’t find the restaurant. We’re beginning to thing we’re wearing our getting-lost-ness off onto other people.

But we do find the restaurant, the meal is excellent, and it’s just time for this day to end already.

Tomorrow: Our Last Day in Israel and We Go A-wandering.