Some students and staff from the school decided to go to a craft market in Tel Aviv which is held every Friday. They invited me along and I said, "sure!" We met in town at Mc Donald's at 8:30 AM and walked up to the bus station to catch the bus to Tel Aviv.
We found the Tel Aviv bus station to be huge, it's like a six story mall with busses, or maybe I should say a very dirty airport. With only written instructions to go by, we decided to take a taxi from the bus station to the craft market because five people sharing a taxi would cost about as much as the bus and would also increase the chances that we actually got there. One person sat in front with the driver and the rest of us (four) piled into the back seat. I got to sit on someone's lap. The taxi driver let us out in the middle of town and pointed in the direction we should go to get to the craft market. Checking our instructions we decided that we should really be going in the opposite direction than where he pointed. No that isn't right, let's go that way...........this can't be it, let's go over here......No, no, no it can't be down there. After crossing through a smelly under crossing three times and asking several people where we should go, we came upon the craft market.......Ah ha!...... we found it. We arranged where to meet for lunch, then spread out. Over lunch we did "show and tell" with our purchases and then the old "split the bill and pass money around" thing that women always do in restaurants. (You guys don't seem to understand this ritual)
Because is was Friday and Shabbat starts at sun set, the last bus to Jerusalem would be at 4:00 PM. We caught a city bus back to the bus station and were there in time to catch the 4:00 PM bus to Jerusalem. When we got to Jerusalem, around 5:00 PM, the city busses were not running, it wouldn't have been a bad walk home, but we were all tired so again we shared a taxi.
I'm glad to have gone, now I know how to go to Tel Aviv on a bus. There are a lot of things you can get in Tel Aviv that you just can't find in Jerusalem and the round trip was only 37 NIS (divide that by 4 to get dollars).
End of my story............
Shalom..........Bernice