We are back in Israel after our trip to the US. We returned right in the middle of lockdown number two. Interestingly, the Hebrew word they use here for lockdown is seger – סגר which technically means closure; not quite as dramatic a statement as “lockdown.” And not only that, but our whole family (since all of us went on the trip this time) are also in quarantine for two weeks. After we de-planed at Ben-Gurion airport, before we had even gone through customs or passport control, we had to fill out an online form stating where we would be doing our two week quarantine (otherwise they would have taken us to a “corona hotel” I think). Not until I had received the e-mail confirmation that the form had been received were we allowed to pass through to passport control and then to retrieve our bags.
So we collected our bags and finally made it out to our car which had been parked in the airport parking lot for the past two and a half weeks. And…Can you tell where this is going? Yep, you guessed it, the car wouldn’t start. Totally dead. We’ve got the whole family, tired, jet-lagged, hungry, and a dead car. In Israel.
As the designated Hebrew-speaker of first choice, (and I suppose the “weren’t you the one that brought us here in the first place – this is your fault” designation as well…) I was tasked with walking back to the airport to try and get help. I asked the security guard at the entrance, who didn’t know anything himself but directed me to the large yellow machines where you insert your parking ticket to pay for the parking. He said they have a button where you can call for assistance. So I found the button with the little phone icon on it, pressed it, and surprisingly a woman’s voice quickly answered. Using my best Hebrew, I said something like, “We returned from the United States today and our car doesn’t work, all is dead. It seems that there is no electricity in the car, maybe the battery doesn’t work? Anyone who can help?” She replied that she’s sorry but because of the seger – סגר – closure, there is nobody even here; everyone is at home and there’s nothing she can do.
I then called the number on our car insurance policy and of course got some long computer message with mulitple options, in Hebrew. After calling four or five times and never getting through to a human being, I noticed that it said you can use their app to contact them for help. So then I downloaded their app on my phone, the battery of which was already down to 50%. And I navigated the Hebrew buttons, successfully logging in to my account with our policy number, etc, and then eventually got to a phone number to call. Which after literally 10 minutes of listening to the same musical message, I concluded wasn’t working today. I found two other phone numbers through the app, both of which resulted in a message and then just hung up on me. One mentioned, I think, that their hours during the closure were from 8AM to 1PM. (This all started at 1:30 and it was after 2 by then).
At that point, I noticed a guy going into what looked like one of the electrical cabinets on the side of the garage structure. I figured maybe he worked there so I decided to run over and ask him if he could help us. He was very nice and after again using my best Hebrew to explain to him the situation and then making the universal hand-signal for jumper cables (you know, the one where you hold both hands up and squeeze them each together at the same time? 😂😂) He said, “you have jumper cables?” To which I replied, “No, I don’t have jumper cables – that’s what i need. Do you have any?” He said no, but to wait a minute and maybe he could figure something out. So he disappeared into the electrical closet and after a minute emerged with two long stretches of bare electrical cable. He said we’ll see if we can make this work. Ok, I thought. Not really something I would do, but I guess it’s your show… And just to check, I said to him, “you work with electricity?” (the closest thing i knew how to say to “are you actually an electrician?!” ) He just smiled and said yes, not to worry…
He was able to maneuver his car through to the back of our car and after using that little knife/pliars-like tool to strip the ends of the cables, he was able to attach the bare wires to both his car battery and ours, resulting in intermittent electrical contact! And sure enough, the dashboard came to life, sort of. But still the car wouldn’t start. We must have tried a thousand time, we turned everything off so as to conserve power for the starter, etc, but it just wouldn’t work. I couldn’t believe we had come so close only to fail here, but that is literally what happened. We thanked him very much and eventually took two taxis home. And yes, our car is still at the airport.
I called the car insurance company the next morning, and was able to somehow figure out that you could text them for help using WhatsApp, and eventually had a WhatsApp conversation with them about towing our car. But when they asked if someone would be able to meet them at the car, because weren’t we in quarantine after coming back from abroad, I said yeah, we can’t really meet you there, but can you just tow it to the dealer, and I’ll deal with it later after they fix it? To which they said, no, because we’re not going to just tow it, we’re going to try to fix it there if we can, and if we can’t then we’ll tow it, so if we’re able to get it running there needs to be someone there to drive it home. So i said, Oh. Seems reasonable. But that’s not going to work for us. So they said, sorry then there’s nothing we can do. So I said OK, I’ll see if a friend can meet you there, or maybe we’ll just wait until after our quarantine since we can’t use it now anyway. They said, OK cool, keep us updated…
Sigh… So, yeah, bottom line is that our car is still at the airport…
As far as shopping, since we can’t even leave the apartment to buy food, we were able to call the local vegetable guy (the little store where we usually buy our produce from) and he was able to deliver us a load of fresh vegetables. (He’s literally just down the block) We did the same today with a restaurant just down the block the other way called, I kid you not, The Holy Bagel. They just delivered a bunch of American style bagels complete with lox and cream cheese. So I guess we’re pretty much set. 😀 And, the guy we used to check in on the cats while we were away offered to shop for us if we needed, so he is planning to get us a few things at the grocery store tomorrow.
And zoom school for the kids starts back tomorrow. So I guess life is slowly returning to normal, whatever that is, and things will take care of themselves on way or another…