Kindness of Strangers

Along with New Yorkers, Israelis have a bad reputation of being rude and brash. It never bothered me in either place, in New York people are not rude, they're busy, in Israel it's just a part of their culture. In fact, people in both places are quite willing to help you out with where you are and where you need to go. The only problem in Israel is that I didn't speak hebrew which posed a problem when you are not really sure where you are or what's going on exactly. Luckily for me, strangers were really kind in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

After a trip to H&M in Tel Aviv at the Azrieli Center, I was sitting on a bench at a stop for a lot buses that go all over. I wasn't really sure what bus I needed to take, but figured I knew how to get to the beach from the Central Bus station, where I had come from, so it would be best to backtrack and go from there. I was waiting for quite a while and then this woman starts talking (kind of yelling) to me in hebrew and I tried to say "I only speak english", "anglit (the word for english in hebrew)" and the woman just kept talking to me very loudly and quickly. The girl next to me translated for me that the lady wanted to know if I wanted to go to the beach (I did, and was wearing beach attire) and that I should take the bus that was there. "Seshim ve shelosh" she said again, which is 63 (numbers up to 100 are part of the very limited hebrew I knew). I got on the bus just crossing my fingers that I was going to the beach and would recognize where I was at some point. That lady was amazing. She probably saved me an hour of commuting! I don't think I ever properly thanked her since I was so confused about what was happening, but thank you random yelling lady!

The last day I was in Jerusalem I was waiting for a bus to go to the bus station and a lady just handed me her ticket and I stared at it, then stared at her questioningly. She said something in hebrew that I took to mean that there was another ride on the ticket. Sure enough there was and I made I ended up saving 6.40 shekles or about $2 on that trip. Again thank you random lady, sorry for the very confused stare!

This is a lesson that everywhere there are nice people, no matter what the city or the country, even if it might not seem like it. And there is even such a thing as helpful yelling! I wish I could have helped the numerous people that asked me (probably) for directions in hebrew, to which I gave them blank stares. I'm going to have to pay it forward on public transport in Chicago, that is when I learn how to use it.

In my opinion, strangers are pretty great.

My iphone camera really sucks and is not doing the Tel Aviv beach justice at all!