Out of Quarantine (again)

We are finally out of quarantine after returning from our US trip two weeks ago.  First we went grocery shopping. And I have to say I’m continually just amazed by the produce here. I get that back in the US I didn’t go grocery shopping so much whereas here I have, so maybe that’s just all it is, but nevertheless here are a few pics:

Next, we got Val a rav-kav bus card so we could take the bus together back to the airport to get our car.  (which we had left there because it wouldn’t start after coming back from the US. remember?) I still had the text chain from the insurance company towing service, so i re-texted them, they said cool, they’ll send somebody right out, which means in about three hours.  But, they do text you a link to a nice website that literally counts down the time until arrival.  I texted them as we were leaving the apartment.  

We would have beat them to the car by a solid hour but because I’m not that strong of a bus rider yet, i failed to realize that the buses to the airport leave every hour.  We took the first bus from just up the block from our apt over to Kfar Sava, then town next to ours, where we were supposed to transfer to the 444 to the airport.  Turns out we arrived at about the same time as the 444 was arriving.  Only we missed our stop, got off at the next stop, walked back to the correct bus station, realized we had missed that 444 by about 10 minutes at that point.  At which time i realized that the next one wasn’t coming for another 50 minutes.  

It was then that I figured out that they only come once per hour, and had I known the we could have left a bit earlier, yadda yadda.  So we were stuck at this random bus stop in Kfar Sava for an hour.  However, as luck would have it, we happened to be right next to one of the big malls in Kfar Sava – Kanyon G.  Literally, the mall is just called “G.”  I think they think English letters are cool or something. 

So we walked over, but as it turns out, even though the second lockdown here is officially being slowly lifted, none of the stores are open yet. But, it was a nice walk.  We eventually got back to the bus station (ever try shepherding your wife out of a shopping mall to literally catch a bus -that only comes once an hour?  not an easy task. in fact, now that i think about it, maybe it was divine grace that the stores were actually closed 😂😂) 

The car mechanic they sent out called us just a minute after we arrived at the airport, so the timing ended up working out.  He took an actual car battery out of his van, put it on the ground next to our car, and tried to jump our car from that battery.  Like before, the electric came on in the car, but not enough to start the engine.  So then he took out a second battery, and used two car batteries hooked up in series.  And, that did the trick – it started right up, and everything seemed normal.  We thanked him as drove off.  

Then, just to make sure, we drove straight to the Citroen dealer in Kfar Sava, (pretty much our second home…😑) Luckily because of the lockdown nobody is driving anywhere so the dealer wasn’t that busy and they could check the car out right then and there.  So we had some free coffee from the machine (yeah, some things are the same i guess even across international boundaries…)  and waited.  For two hours.  At which point they said it’s not just the battery.  (I guess it still won’t start without being jumped or whatever.)  So they gave us a small green Peugot to drive home and told us they’ll call us tomorrow.  Sigh…

In the meantime, zoom school continues. No in person classes at all yet (except for gan – kindergarten, which started back this week)