Only in israel #2
Ok, so I decided to brave it and go back to IKEA again. My shipment is due in the next week or two (hallelujah!) and I really wanted to pick up a couple of pieces of furniture that I don't have coming (namely a kitchen table and chairs and a TV/DVD table unit).
My biggest mistake was going during chol ha'moed, which are the in-between days of Pesach.
The traffic on the roads was horrendous and it took half the day just to get there in the end.
When I finally did make it to IKEA, I realised that so had half of Israel. This, I thought, was not going to be fun.
Thankfully, I had pretty much worked out exactly what I was going to buy, so it was more a matter of just checking out the furniture in real life (catalogues can be so deceptive!) and then heading to the warehouse section of the store (no easy task in itself mind you) to haul the massive great hulks of flat-packed DIY bundles of joy onto my trolley.
I'd arranged for it to be delivered, so I only needed to carry a couple of light plastic bags containing the seat cushions for the kitchen chairs I had purchased.
I took the opportunity while I was near Netanya to visit my dear cousin Tammy who is currently in Israel on holiday with her Israeli husband and their two gorgeous children. Tammy's husband is from a moshav in Bet Yehoshua, which as it turns out, is a stone's throw from IKEA. How convenient!
I took a sherut (Israeli maxi-cab service) from IKEA to the Bet Yehoshua train station. The sherut drops you on one side of the station, and the moshav is on the other side. I told the security guard that I just wanted to get to the other side of the platform so I could get to the moshav. He told me that I would have to buy a train ticket first.
"No, no. You don't understand" I said. "I am not taking the train, I just need to get to the other side of the platform. I am going to the moshav."
"I understand. But you cannot go through without a ticket."
"But there must be a pedestrian crossing!" I implored. "A walkway, a bridge, a tunnel - something, surely!"
"I know. The train station must build one, but right now there is nothing. You have to buy a ticket. Sorry."
"This is crazy! Totally nuts!"
The security guard smiled, almost sympathetically. He leaned over and whispered to me that initially he told me (in Hebrew) to say that I had got off the train and come out at the wrong exit. That way he could have let me through (for nothing). Clearly, that bit of our exchange was lost on me and now, because his supervisor was looking on, he couldn't help me cheat my way across, like some desperate refugee trying to smuggle across the border into safe territory.
The guard escorted me to the ticket machine and showed me the cheapest ticket to buy (4 shekels).
Now I could react in several ways:
In case you were wondering, I chose option 3. Given I had zero choice in the matter - unless I wanted to walk several kilometres to the next crossing, if one actually exists, that is - I coughed up and bought a ticket TO CROSS A TRAIN LINE.
Ok, so maybe that means I am not a real Israeli yet, but I figured that for 4 measly shekels (about $1.50 Australian), I had better things to do with my time - like spend it with my cousin and her kids!
It's very easy to lose it over small, but utterly infuriating things like this in Israel, but as they say, "don't sweat the small things". I think I'll save my outbursts for much bigger things!
My biggest mistake was going during chol ha'moed, which are the in-between days of Pesach.
The traffic on the roads was horrendous and it took half the day just to get there in the end.
When I finally did make it to IKEA, I realised that so had half of Israel. This, I thought, was not going to be fun.
Thankfully, I had pretty much worked out exactly what I was going to buy, so it was more a matter of just checking out the furniture in real life (catalogues can be so deceptive!) and then heading to the warehouse section of the store (no easy task in itself mind you) to haul the massive great hulks of flat-packed DIY bundles of joy onto my trolley.
I'd arranged for it to be delivered, so I only needed to carry a couple of light plastic bags containing the seat cushions for the kitchen chairs I had purchased.
I took the opportunity while I was near Netanya to visit my dear cousin Tammy who is currently in Israel on holiday with her Israeli husband and their two gorgeous children. Tammy's husband is from a moshav in Bet Yehoshua, which as it turns out, is a stone's throw from IKEA. How convenient!
I took a sherut (Israeli maxi-cab service) from IKEA to the Bet Yehoshua train station. The sherut drops you on one side of the station, and the moshav is on the other side. I told the security guard that I just wanted to get to the other side of the platform so I could get to the moshav. He told me that I would have to buy a train ticket first.
"No, no. You don't understand" I said. "I am not taking the train, I just need to get to the other side of the platform. I am going to the moshav."
"I understand. But you cannot go through without a ticket."
"But there must be a pedestrian crossing!" I implored. "A walkway, a bridge, a tunnel - something, surely!"
"I know. The train station must build one, but right now there is nothing. You have to buy a ticket. Sorry."
"This is crazy! Totally nuts!"
The security guard smiled, almost sympathetically. He leaned over and whispered to me that initially he told me (in Hebrew) to say that I had got off the train and come out at the wrong exit. That way he could have let me through (for nothing). Clearly, that bit of our exchange was lost on me and now, because his supervisor was looking on, he couldn't help me cheat my way across, like some desperate refugee trying to smuggle across the border into safe territory.
The guard escorted me to the ticket machine and showed me the cheapest ticket to buy (4 shekels).
Now I could react in several ways:
- I could lose it and demand to speak to the station manager
- I could continue my fruitless conversation with the security guard, and wax lyrical about the infuriating inefficiencies of our beloved little country
- I could just suck it up, buy the bloody ticket and cross over the station
In case you were wondering, I chose option 3. Given I had zero choice in the matter - unless I wanted to walk several kilometres to the next crossing, if one actually exists, that is - I coughed up and bought a ticket TO CROSS A TRAIN LINE.
Ok, so maybe that means I am not a real Israeli yet, but I figured that for 4 measly shekels (about $1.50 Australian), I had better things to do with my time - like spend it with my cousin and her kids!
It's very easy to lose it over small, but utterly infuriating things like this in Israel, but as they say, "don't sweat the small things". I think I'll save my outbursts for much bigger things!
Labels: Only in Israel