Winter has Started

Today the heavens opened. After a month of nothing, it came all at once. Visibility was zero, and if not for someone pulling me back to the sidewalk, I would have been hit by a car. But he pulled me back, and I'm fine. By the time I got on the bus, my jeans had soaked through. I of course only wore a sweater and no coat, so I was pretty well soaked from top to bottom. As I sat there shivering on the bus, I tried to think about how Lake Kinneret is in desperate need of this storm. Its water level current stands as minus 212.2 meters below sea level, only 80 centimeters above the lower red line at which a drought is officially declared, one of the largest deficiencies in years.
(I didn't know the actual number by heart, but I knew we were in need of rain)
This didn't make me any warmer, but at least it passed the time til I got home and took a hot shower and had hot soup MyWife made for me. Hopefully this storm (which isn't supposed to end for a few days) will fill up the water reservoirs and the Kinneret.
Another bus story:
I was on a Mehadrin bus going from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem earlier this week. Mehadrin busses are busses with seperate seating (women sit in the back), the radio is kept off, and I'm sure there's other rules but I dont know them. I sat down near the front, put on my headphones, and took out my Haaretz newspaper. I noticed people looking at me, and figured they weren't too pleased with my choice of reading material. A few minutes into the ride, a man behind me tapped me on the shoulder. After the incident of a few weeks ago, I was sure he was looking to pick a fight for me having brought a non religious newspaper on the bus. My body tensed up, and I turned around and stared at the guy who tapped me.
"We're having a class in gemara on the bus, and we're wondering if you'd like to join". He tells me. Half out of an interest to learn, and half out of embarrasment for having been so quick to judge him, I told him I was interested, and he gave me a gemara. After receiving permission from the driver, he hung up a speaker connecting to a microphone, and began the class. In addition to what he talked about, I learned the valuable lesson of not to judge a whole group of people just because a few of them are fanatics.

Winter has Started

Today the heavens opened. After a month of nothing, it came all at once. Visibility was zero, and if not for someone pulling me back to the sidewalk, I would have been hit by a car. But he pulled me back, and I'm fine. By the time I got on the bus, my jeans had soaked through. I of course only wore a sweater and no coat, so I was pretty well soaked from top to bottom. As I sat there shivering on the bus, I tried to think about how Lake Kinneret is in desperate need of this storm. Its water level current stands as minus 212.2 meters below sea level, only 80 centimeters above the lower red line at which a drought is officially declared, one of the largest deficiencies in years.
(I didn't know the actual number by heart, but I knew we were in need of rain)
This didn't make me any warmer, but at least it passed the time til I got home and took a hot shower and had hot soup MyWife made for me. Hopefully this storm (which isn't supposed to end for a few days) will fill up the water reservoirs and the Kinneret.
Another bus story:
I was on a Mehadrin bus going from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem earlier this week. Mehadrin busses are busses with seperate seating (women sit in the back), the radio is kept off, and I'm sure there's other rules but I dont know them. I sat down near the front, put on my headphones, and took out my Haaretz newspaper. I noticed people looking at me, and figured they weren't too pleased with my choice of reading material. A few minutes into the ride, a man behind me tapped me on the shoulder. After the incident of a few weeks ago, I was sure he was looking to pick a fight for me having brought a non religious newspaper on the bus. My body tensed up, and I turned around and stared at the guy who tapped me.
"We're having a class in gemara on the bus, and we're wondering if you'd like to join". He tells me. Half out of an interest to learn, and half out of embarrasment for having been so quick to judge him, I told him I was interested, and he gave me a gemara. After receiving permission from the driver, he hung up a speaker connecting to a microphone, and began the class. In addition to what he talked about, I learned the valuable lesson of not to judge a whole group of people just because a few of them are fanatics.

Thank You Egged

Egged is one of the few bus services in this country, and the only one in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem (possibly elsewhere but I really only know Jerusalem), they bend over backward to cater to the Charaidi (UltraOrthodox) community. This is as much business sense as it is a public service-the majority of Charaidim only travel by bus and as such they have a strong hold on the company. One of the more recent ways they've catered to the charaidi crowd is through the mehadrin bus. A mehadrin bus is that certain busses that go through religious neighborhoods have certain rules. They are seperated by gender, with men in the front and women in the back. The driver isn't allowed to listen to the radio. All women have to be dressed modestly. I'm sure there are more rules but I don't know them offhand. While I don't agree with the need for a Jim Crow bus, everywhere I need to go there is always another bus that doesnt have these rules. Another move by Egged is that they don't post immodest ads on their busses.
But all this isn't the focus here. The service I am most thankful for is the Saturday night free bus from the Kotel.This Shabbat, my wife and I walked to the Kotel, about an hours walk. Instead of having to walk home, Egged has free busses that leave the Kotel starting around a half hour after Shabbat is over. This is because no one at the Kotel has money on them. Without this service we wouldnt have been able to go to the Kotel on Shabbat. The reason the busses arent ready the minute Shabbat is over is so that the drivers dont have to break Shabbat to get the busses ready. So thank you Egged for allowing us to go to the Kotel without having to worry how we're getting home.

The Jewellery Store

(For an explanation on my rededicated blog, look at the post below)

MyWife bought a pair of earrings a while ago from a store in the center of Jerusalem. Nothing expensive, just nice earrings. Something about them broke so she took it in to get it fixed. We came to pick it up a week later, and it was gone. Apparently someone else had come in to pick up their earrings and took ours. Possibly by mistake, possibly because MyWifes earrings were nicer then hers. OwnerOfStore apologized profusely for the mixup. Mixups happen everywhere, but its how the store deals with it thats important. This guy dealt with it wonderfully. He offered MyWife any earrings she wanted in place of the original pair. We started looking at the same price bracket that the originals had cost, so StoreOwner took out a tray of more expensive earrings and showed us some of those, and then repeated that we could have any of them, clearly showing that we shouldnt think about the price. MyWife chose a pair that she liked, which cost less then the original by a few shekels. StoreOwner first made sure that she understood she could take something mroe expensive, but when he saw she was happy with what she had found, he offered us money, which was more then the difference between the original and the new pair.

Mistakes happen all the time, but this man took a mistake and used it to turn us into very happy customers who will buy from him again.

Starting Over Again

There's too much bitching going around. I feel the negative vibes everywhere. Whether it's about the government, the police, the bakery, the fact that the Israeli equivalent to the DMV is seven different offices in different parts of the city, taxes, how we messed up in the last war, how we're going to mess up on the war, etc, etc. I'm not saying this isn't all true, but I'm tired of hearing about it. So I am rededicating my blog. The main focus will be publishing good news, stories with happy endings, the kind I was sick of as a kid, but now crave. I may also include my thoughts on Judiasm, and about life in general, but thats all side dishes.
My first two posts will be about two instances where I was very impressed with the customer service I received. In Jerusalem. After that I don't know where I'll go. Or if I'll just get bored and fade out again.
When I started this blog, I really did it becase everyone else was, hence "Junping on the Bandwagon". But now that I'm stepping into new turf, being an anglo in Jerusalem and not bitching about it, I felt the need to change my blog name to "Upcreek Without A Paddle".