Tram adventure

An absolute wild goose chase yesterday. Had to renew my passport so I was told to go to Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv. Travelled about 70 plus km to get there. Went by bus, then switched to taxi from Tel Aviv. Taxi driver didn't know the place so I dropped off and walked around and asked alot of people till finally I found the building. Got inside the building after security check, but couldn't enter the elevator section because entry is only by electronic security card which employees have. Walked around and found the information counter. They told me the office was closed. It moved 10 days ago to another place and they don't know where. Totally flustered and annoyed. They found an old security guard who had their phone number. Called them up and they told me they moved to Modiin which is 40 km back from where I came. Now I really got furious. I didn't have enough money to travel all that journey. Anyway to make the long story short, I was very tired, cold and angry over the long distances I had to travel from city to city only for nothing.

Then at night I had a high fever, a bad headache and a very severe diarrhea. The worst in all these months. Absolute horror of 24 hours. This morning I was just to weak and tired to function. I also hurt my right shoulder pretty badly. I can't move my right side without pain. Didn't sleep a wink.

Anyway to cheer up, here's a picture of 3 packs of Chinese New Year cookies that arrived a few days ago from my family. The group that help bring it over is a lively young company who came to visit Fr Val (not me, to be on the record). They are having a great time learning about the land and the Bible. And eating alot of local food - Singaporean style. Like for St Peter's fish, they put Turkish salad on it .... de gustibus non est disputandum.

The infamous dish of fish and Turkish salad

The general strike in Israel is not abating ... everything is affected some way or other.  http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/general-strike-in-israel-to-continue-after-last-ditch-negotiations-fail-1.412041  That may well explain  my running up and down the country for nothing yesterday. Nothing seems to work.

And I had a pretty big adventure yesterday evening - I took my first tram ride on the Light Rail. The ticketing machine was not working so a group of us lining up had to run across the tracks to buy the tickets on the other platform. The tram came and I missed it. But anyway I got on the next one. Must have looked totally petrified and lost because an american girl and another (looks asian) came up to me separately to ask if I needed help. What a laugh ... I managed to get to my destination safely for a meeting. And back.