I AM AN EARLY RISER. A “morning person.” Almost always have been.
I take my coffee and tea cookies to the balcony to “slap leather” and greet the day. It’s pretty quiet at 5:30 a.m . in Yavne.
FOR MOST OF MY LIFE I lived near an airport. By near I mean within 15 minutes by car (FLL) or bicycle (MIA). I once lived in the final approach to MIA.
I am accustomed to airport noises.
Here, the commercial airport is more than 15 minutes away and Yavne is not in take-off or landing paths; no passenger planes in sight.
We do hear planes — fighters, an occasional helicopter, a single-engine high wing, and what sounded like (I didn’t see it) a C-130.
What I DO hear are trains.
Yavne has two — 2 ! — train depots (“stations” to some).
One, Yavne East is within scooter distance from the balcony. (The scooter has a roughly 12-mile range; the depot is within round-trip range.)
From the balcony I can hear the 6:24 arriving from Ashdod heading north to Tel Aviv.
At 7 a.m. I hear the first southbound train arriving from Tel Aviv.
I don’t hear other trains after 7 a.m.; I‘m “unstrapping” and ready for the rest of my day.
Northbound and southbound trains come through Yavne-East every 60 minutes. Heading north, be at the depot at *:15 to catch the *:24 toward Tel Aviv. Coming from the north, the train arrives on the hour.
Fridays and Sundays the trains are packed; truly Standing Room Only (SRO) as solders (with their packs and weapons) head home (Friday) or back to base (Sunday). Buses likewise are SRO.
At other times, however, the trains offer reliable, comfortable transportation, complete with Wi-Fi and AC outlets (for ubiquitous mobile phones).
It is possible to go to most major cities (and some not-so-major cities) by train. (See route map at the end of this entry.)
Rather than drive, we ride the train to visit kin in a Haifa suburb or in Bet Shean. The depots also are bus stops, so there is no need to depend either on a ride from a relative or shank’s mare.1
Trains are relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to the price of gasoline.
Other options
There are other travel options beside the train.
Egged, the national bus company, goes almost everywhere in Israel. Egged has competition, but it remains the “800 pound gorilla” for inter-city bus travel.
As with the train, a change of vehicles may be necessary depending on time of day and destination.
Buses are air conditioned and fairly comfortable, second only to the train.
Egged’s web site (https://tinyurl.com/yzc4ofro) provides all the information, albeit not as cleanly as Israel Railways.
Inter-city taxis also are available.
The benefit of a taxi is that it is faster than train or bus and it is point-to-point.
There are taxis and taxis. Shereuts are multi-passenger vehicles that squeeze in as many passengers as possible and there are taxis that carry just the passenger(s) who hire it.
When speed is of the essence, a taxi is the preferred method.
There also is a rental car option.
Library at the Station
It may not be unique, but it IS unusual.
Israel Railways offers, at selected depots, free lending libraries.
Borrow a book, read it on the train (or at the destination), and return the book on the return trip . . . or return it to another station.
The process is clearly presented on the Israel Railways site at https://tinyurl.com/yf4wrp8d .
The Library at the Station also accepts used books at some depots.
A word about cranes
The hedcq for this entry mentions both trains and cranes.
While there have been a lot of words about trains, herewith a few words about cranes.
No matter where you go in Israel — and no matter how you get there — you are bound to see construction cranes. They are almost as ubiquitous as cell phones.
I often wondered how they were put up and taken down.
The other day, I discovered how: with a portable crane with a l-o-n-g reach.
I watched as some very brave people disconnected crane parts so the parts could be lowered to a waiting truck.
Being a tad acrophobic, there is no way I would volunteer for a job connecting or disconnecting a crane's parts, especially when the activity is more than 100 feet above the ground. (I wonder what these guys think about the Mohawks who work big city high rises.)
Sources
1. Shank’s mare: https://tinyurl.com/ygu3rnoy
2. Volume: https://tinyurl.com/yekftcmc
3. Currency: https://tinyurl.com/yfx8744m
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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