Since Franklin’s guitar building class was cancelled yesterday, we went with a friend by train to Tel Aviv. The train to Tel Aviv is a rather recent development (or, I guess I should say, an old development recently re-launched), and the Jerusalem station is a 10 minute walk from our house. So we meandered down to the Malcha station, and got on board.
I would not have characterized our neighborhood as being on the edge of town, but after yesterday, I’m going to have to say it is. We pulled out of Malcha Station in the Soreq Valley, and we didn’t see signs of human habitation until we drew near to Beit Shemesh. The view along the way was spectacular: high wooded hills, a twisty stream, wildlife. We even saw a group of arab shepherds with their flocks and donkeys. Now that we know that we live so near such beautiful land, we plan to go hiking soon. We thought ourselves surrounded by city.
After Beit Shemesh, we passed through Ramle and Lod - not nearly so attractive as the Soreq valley (in fact, not actually attractive at all). In most places, there is only one set of rails, so we occasionally had to stop where there were two tracks to wait for the train coming the other way to pass. It was fun crossing roads and seeing all the cars backed up, waiting for us to pass, and knowing that the train was still novel enough that the waiting drivers were possibly more interested in seeing the train go by than in being on their way. All told, the ride took us almost 2 hours - it only takes 45 minutes to get to TA from Jerusalem by car. Oh well, it was certainly worth the time consumption, and I think we’ll go again next week.
In Tel Aviv we made our way to Rothschild Street - a very posh area of town. We had dinner at the Brewhouse, and dessert at Max Brenner (Israel’s finest chocolatier). It was a relaxing evening of good food and good company. Reluctantly we made our way back to the train station, where we discovered that we had missed the last train to J’lem by 1 hour. We were going to get a cab to the bus station, but a toothless cab driver who looked like Shrek convinced us to let him take us straight to Jerusalem. We set off at a crazy speed, feeling confident that we would get home in good time. I fell asleep.
When I woke up we were stopped on the side of the highway half way to Jerusalem. Our cab was dead. We were stuck. The traffic police (yes, they have their own division here, along with the tourist police, border police, and various other branches), stopped, and tried to help. Finally, we got out on the highway and flagged down another taxi, got in and headed home. We arrived home quite late. I don’t actually remember crawling into bed.
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