Arguing with the Taxi Driver

One night my first week in Jerusalem I was coming home from Becky/Joseph/Greg’s house.  It was first experience trying to get home from that direction and I needed to take two buses.  The first bus was really late and I arrived at the central bus station around midnight, with about 5 minutes before the next (and last for the evening) bus was supposed to leave.  I had no idea where it was because the central bus station is huge, and I frantically jumped around from person to person asking where bus 68 was.  No one knew.  I was finally getting a good idea of where the stop was when bus 68 zoomed past me; I tried running after it and although the bus driver definitely saw me, he did not stop.  It was the last bus leaving that night and I was stranded!

            I was trying to decide whether or not to walk, because I knew that campus was fairly close to where I was.  But it was past midnight and the walk would have been in an area that I had never been to before; I decided that the best thing to do was to take a taxi.  An Israeli girl soldier was there as well and she was extremely kind and helpful, talking to the one taxi driver hanging around the bus station and trying to get a better price for me.  We finally decided on 30 shekels until another couple approached, also wanting to go to Givat Ram.  The taxi driver decided to take all of us, but he was still charging me 30 shekels, which I knew wasn’t fair if there were 3 of us.

            I got in the taxi but before we left, I asked the driver to turn on the meter, so that we could pay a fair price and split the cost.  He kept telling me, “no, 30 shekels for you” and I told him “no, turn on the meter”.  Finally, he got out of his driver seat, came over to my side, opened the door and said “Get out”.  Ha! I got out and I was furious that he was trying to rip me off, but as I stood there for a moment weighing my options, I decided that it really would be best if I just got back in the taxi and paid the price.  So I did but I was so mad the entire 5 minute ride, and I continued to glare at him, mumbling, “this isn’t fair”.  When he dropped me off at the gate, I still had a 15 minute walk home and I was feeling so frustrated that I started crying (first time crying since I have been here, pretty good considering all the times I got lost, paid way too much money, or felt very American and alone in a foreign country!) as I walked home.  A little bit in front of me was a guy also walking to the dorms, and he turned around and started talking to me.  He was also American and studying in Israel, although he was Jewish (as are most that come here) and he lived down south in Eilat. 

            He introduced himself as Jesse and told me about his hard day.  He got a phone call earlier in the day as he was out grocery shopping from his apartment building manager.  They told him that his little dog had fallen off the 11^th story balcony of his apartment and died!  Jesse was feeling so sad about it that he came up to Jerusalem for the weekend to distract himself!

            I felt so bad for him, what a horrible story; his dog jumped to his death! But I couldn’t help but laugh and be grateful that someone had a worse day than I did and was willing to share to make me feel better.

Maybe the most amazing thing I have ever tasted. This makes any bad day better. I bought a whole fresh container of these for emergencies.  They lasted 24 hours.