Shekels from the ATM

Tightened security in Israel:  No one who has been to China in the last two weeks will be allowed into Israel.  What will they say when they see my passport with page after page of Chinese stamps?  “Hello.  What was your flight number?”  “Um, let me see.  Flight eighty-four.” “Where are you staying?”  “At an Airbnb on Feierberg St.”  “OK.”  That was it.  Fortunately for Israel, I hadn’t been to China in over eight weeks. 

I get some shekels from the ATM, and a coffee from the arrival hall café and consider my options for getting into the city.   Two ladies who man the train ticket booth were kind enough to explain just now one is to purchase a ticket and where to head to.  They tell me the train is in twenty minutes and when I board the one that arrives twenty minutes later it takes me to Jerusalem, which I realize is the wrong way, only when I board the next train and return right back to the airport.

I call and let my 11:00AM meeting explaining that I’ll be rather late and navigate the scrum at the exit of Hahagana station as I rise up into Tel Aviv for the first time.  I brush off the cabs automatically, but return shortly thereafter and am quoted: “twenty.”  I walk away and contemplate my “Gett” app, Israel’s answer to Uber.   The cab I was speaking with is already here.  I return to the guy with the shades and throw my bag trunk.  Halfway along the way he stops and picks up some other guy which is always disconcerting.  I whine in a whiney voice that I imagine would somehow sound familiar to him.  When we arrive “twenty” is not twenty shekels but “twenty doh-lohrs” he informs me, hand firmly grasping my luggage. 

But soon I’m in a meeting with a brilliant entrepreneur with a big, nineteenth century beard, siting in an outdoor café, a bit colder than I would have expected, here in the sun and its immediately marvelous to be beyond the requisite handling and in Tel Aviv for the first time.  My business associate, whom I’ve only ever spoken with on the phone, picks me up immediately after and we stare and smile and consider each other in person.  He sounds the same as always, driving off to the next meeting up north in Ra'anana. 

Wednesday 02/05/20