Sept 18, 2016 in words part 1

Feeling a little overwhelmed but also proud of myself.

Where to start…the flight from Toronto was very full and the layout wasn’t very spacious so it was a long 10.5 hours and we had a lot of turbulence. You could tell that the flight attendants were getting frustrated with people not returning to their seats when the seatbelt sign came on because it switched from a polite: “The pilot has turned on the seatbelt sign, please return to your seats.” to a very blunt: “Stop congregating around the washroom area. It is very dangerous to be standing during turbulence.”

The windows were cool though. Instead of window shades you could increase or decrease the window tint. Anyway, 3 movies, 4 tv shows, 2 meals and a few catnaps later and we arrived in Tel Aviv. Did you know that it is Israeli law that everyone has to be in their seats with their seatbelts on a half hour before landing? We landed on time at 10am local time (3am Ottawa time)

When I chose a pick up time for the shuttle bus from the hotel it recommended giving yourself 1.5 hours from your arrival time. And everything people have told me and everything I have read seemed to indicate that it would be a process. But it wasn’t. I got to passport control. She asked if I was with the group (there was a big group on our plane from Loving God Blessing Israel) I said no, she passed me a Stay permit and that was it. I had no baggage to pick up and I was able to walk right out into the main terminal. Done and done. I tried seeing if there was an earlier shuttle but no luck.

The shuttle.  Take into consideration that I was tired, it was hot out (30) and I was dressed for the plane. Add to that that the meeting point was a large (7 foot) Menorah Sculpture that was right in the sun (interesting side note – the sculpture is by Salvador Dali!) and that any shade to be had was occupied by smokers and that the driver was late and I kept getting illegitimate taxi drivers telling me that I had been waiting too long equals one very unimpressed customer. I have to say I felt slightly better because he had my name and he was sort of in a uniform but the relief was short lived when he didn’t know where the hotel was! When I booked the shuttle, the website gave you a list of hotels they would drive to. So the voucher just says Peer Boutique Hotel, no address. Since the drive didn’t know the address I gave him the address of the B&B. Well he had never heard of the street. And I understand why now 1) it’s a maze of tiny little one way streets too narrow really for cars and 2) the piece of paper says Khayim Khavshush Street but the street sign says Chayim Street. Now that I type it out I see the similarity but when you are looking at a piece of paper with the one and a sign with the other they look very different, trust me. To his credit, the driver just kept asking passerby’s for directions, backing out of streets, trying other routes until we finally found it – sort of. Someone said it was one block over but he couldn’t make a left turn there so I had to get out where we were. I’ll admit, it was a little scary getting out when I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. Google maps said the hotel was another 10 minute drive away! But the woman he asked directions from was very convincing and we could see a 9 and a 7 so he said turn left and you’ll find 5. So off I went, down the street, turned left and found 5. Now what. What I thought was a doorbell turned out to be a light switch. I took a step back and noticed that the next door was also 5 so I went to that door. Still no doorbell but this time there was a person and surprise surprise it was the host of the AirBnB. High-fives all around! Check-in wasn’t supposed to be until 3 but Heidi had given him a heads up that I would be early and he said worse case I could drop my bags off while he finished cleaning the place but as it was he was almost finished so we had a nice chat while he finished up.

To market to market. After he (Tamir) left, I changed and headed out to find the market. The directions from Tamir were go straight until you smell it. He wasn’t kidding. And it’s much bigger than I expected. Tonnes of little stalls sprawling down street after street. Each vendor carrying just a few items of a specific category. The first ones I hit were the meat stalls. Chicken at one, beef at another. Then a cheese vendor, someone selling bread, another maybe 5 different types of fruit while another vegetables… I actually summoned the courage to buy stuff. I ended up with an odd assortment but it’s a start. For 70 Shekels, I got two…well they are either large buns or small loafs, two bagels (but I think I may have picked an odd flavouring on one of them), cream cheese, yogurt, hard cheese, bananas and most importantly single serving coffee! There is no coffee maker at the Airbnb (Joan you were right; I should have brought the one Manuela gave me) so I was quite thrilled to find a solution. And the best part of all was that I found my way back to the Airbnb. Phewf.