Two Days In One: From Yerushaliam to Tel Aviv

Yesterday was a very interesting day.  My original goal for the day was to make it to Hertzeliya to hang out with Garce and her family.  Unfortunately, after letting myself sleep in a little bit I realized that the next available bus was stupidly not until 7:30 PM.  Ridiculous.  But it was not until I was already out and about that I realized this, so I just changed my plans a little bit.  I took my friend the 55 Bus to the Kiryat Ono mall, which is about ten to fifteen minutes away from where I live, and I figured that I'd just walk around and get to know the place.  I ended up listening to my i-pod as I was walking around, and had a really fun time listening to music as I was shuffling in and out of all of the stores.  I don't think I really accomplished very much, but it was fun.  Oh, actually I bought a couple necessities from Office Depot, haha, and I found a cheap cutting board as well as some produce at the supermarket in the mall.  Good stuff.  I made my way back to my apartment, where I hung out for the afternoon.  Then I decided that I was going to meet friends in Beit Shemesh, for this big Succot celebration called Shemeshfest, so I kicked it to the bus stop for the first of two legs in my journey.  The bus came really quickly and it brought me three stops to the Coca Cola factory stop, where I walked via a bridge over the highway to cross the other side.  After about fifteen minutes of the wrong bus passing me, the 497 rounded the corner and I was excited and ready to go.  But, it passed me because there wasn't enough room on the bus.  Awesome... Just kidding.  So I waited another twenty minutes for the next bus to come and guess what happened, people: it passed me.  I gave up on my Beit Shemesh dreams and got on the next bus to Yerushalaim, figuring that there would surely be people there to hang out with.  I asked Dena if she would spend the night with me and she thankfully said yes, so I was ready to go.  I decided to call my friend Jason, who is seemingly ALWAYS in Yerushaliam, to see if he happened to be there.  He said, "I'm actually just about to get on a bus to Yerushalaim.  Wait- do you know if the buses are still running there?" I kinda freaked out because I realized that I was on the very bus which he was waiting for one stop later, so I told him that a bus would be there in about thirty seconds and he was relieved and excited.  We sat together and talked for the duration of the hour-long bus ride, which was nice, and found our way to the Central Bus Station because we accidentally missed our stop.  We had a bit of a situation trying to pay for the train to take us to Rechov Yaffo, but we figured it out after a while and boarded the train.  Two stops later we reached our destination and said our goodbyes.

I met up with Dena, we had a great dinner at this place called New Deli, and we hung out with random people who we saw and knew.  We also happened upon Binny and Ilana, which was super nice, and I ran into a couple of my friends from Bar Ilan.  Since the last bus back to where I live from Yerushalaim is at 11:40, and I got there not even two hours before, I decided to just stay the night with Dena.  She so kindly offered me a bed at her apartment in the Rova, and we had a good night together just hanging around.

I woke up early this morning because I wanted to take a bus back home before 10.  Since I was already in the Rova I figured there was no possible way that I could leave without taking the opportunity to say Shacharit at the Kotel, so I did.  It was a beautiful morning at 7:20ish, and it was a perfectly cool temperature.  After Shacharit I had breakfast at this place called Holy Bagel, then made my way out of the Old City.  I really took my time walking out and looking around and in the open stores, so by the time I got to the Central Bus Station it was about 9:30.  I caught the 9:40 bus back home, and sat behind a couple with a really cute baby who kept smiling and laughing at me. 

On the way back my friend Benja, who lived in Seattle in Middle School and I've remained friends with since, called me because we had made plans to hang out today.  We decided to meet at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station at 12:30, so when I got home I quickly got my things together and made my way back to my friend the 55 Bus.  Not going to lie... I suffered from some severe confusion regarding which side of the street to be on, and actually crossed the street three times before I was sure of where I was going, but I ended up figuring it out and got on my way.  I met him when he got off his train, and it was totally great and crazy to see him! It's been somewhere around four years since we've seen each other, so it was truthfully quite surreal.  We got on the 10 Bus, which took us to the beach.  Check this out:

And that's not even a good picture... SO beautiful! All I have to say is that a person should not be able to live his or her life with as long of a gap between beach visits as there was for me until today.  We spent a couple of hours just hanging out by the beach and enjoying the incredible Mediterranean waters.  Then we headed back to the Central Bus Station via the 10 Bus.  When we got there I led us to the station for the 55.  Unfortunately and stupidly, I led us to the station for the 55 going in the wrong direction... And awkwardly I didn't realize that that was the case until literally the last possible stop.  So we just stayed on the bus and made our way along the 80% of the 55 bus route.  Fun! Haha.

Afterwards we hung out for a while until he had to go because he was meeting his other friend back in Tel Aviv.  I showered off all of the beach and feel much cleaner now.  No big plans for tomorrow, and we have an on-campus Shabbaton for this Shabbat.  Good stuff.