Continuing saga of passports and plane tickets
When last we left the story of my passport, it was missing somewhere between the Australian Embassy and me. Well, after a week or so of waiting, things finally settled out. I tried calling the embassy, and they said, "no, we can't help you on that. send us an e-mail." I'm not sure who's brilliant idea it was to make the embassy inaccessible except by e-mail, but that's the way it is here. Rather inconvenient. I sent an e-mail and the next day they gave me the name of the Association of Travel Agents, who arranges the couriers between embassies and people (presumably travel agents) for passports. I called them, and they gave me the number of a courier, and a tracking number. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone home at the courier - all I got was an answering service, several times. Well, finally, after a couple of days of this, i got a call from a driver, who was just up the road. Fifteen minutes later, I had my passport with my visa. Ugh.
On Monday, I embarked on the next travel adventure for my return to Australia. I got on the 6:35am bus to Beer Sheva to catch the train to Tel Aviv. It was my first trip on the Israeli train, and it was not too bad, except for the awful hour of the day. An hour and a half later, I staggered off the train in Tel Aviv. Without my hat. In my daze, I had forgotten it, and before I could get off the escalator, the train left. More on this later.
I made my way to the airline office. Turns out that in Tel Aviv, every airline known to mankind has an office in a two block area. After wandering past Turkish air, and Russian air (not Aeroflot, but Russian air, whatever that is), two offices of El Al, I finally found a Qantas office. The lady there pulled up my file, asked for my ticket, and promptly told me that it was impossible for me to take the flights I'd arranged with Qantas in Australia. Well, I've been in Israel long enough to have picked up a little of the discussion style here, so I immediately raised my voice several decibels and demanded that something be done. This resulted in her printing the rules for my ticket and reading the offensive rule to me several times. After that, she called the British Air office and confirmed that there was no way for me to leave Tel Aviv on my ticket until January 13. Several minutes of 'discussion' later, I had a ticket. For January 13. Bloody One World Alliance. At least I didn't have to pay to have the ticket re-issued because I'm now back on my original routing: Tel Aviv - London - Singapore - Perth - Darwin. Twenty-six hours on the plane, two 1.5 hour layovers, and one 8 hour layover in Perth from midnight to 8am. Ugh.
Tel Aviv is remarkably uninteresting. You'd think that the largest city in Israel would have more going for it. The airlines were a small block from the beach, so I went there to calm down for a bit. I have to say, the Mediterranean waters are quite clear and beautiful. No tsunamis, either. I sat on a breakwater for a while and watched a school of small fish wandering around. I did get to see a tern of some sort dive in and grab a meal. Very interesting. Then, I wandered over to the large shouk that everyone talks about. It was pretty impressive, though really not a lot different from the one in Beer Sheva. Actually, my impression of the whole city was pretty much the same as my impression of Beer Sheva, only bigger. I wandered around a bit, bought some cheap stuff, and headed back to the train.
On the train, I decided to ask the train guy wandering around about my hat. Amazingly enough, someone had turned it in, and it was waiting in the office - in Tel Aviv. At this point, I was a good hour south of Tel Aviv, and really had no intention of going back. So we arranged for it to be sent to Beer Sheva, where I could pick it up the next day. Nothing like having to make another round trip to Beer Sheva to recover from sleep induced stupidity. Oh well, at least the falafel at the bus station in Beer Sheva is good (and cheap).
On Monday, I embarked on the next travel adventure for my return to Australia. I got on the 6:35am bus to Beer Sheva to catch the train to Tel Aviv. It was my first trip on the Israeli train, and it was not too bad, except for the awful hour of the day. An hour and a half later, I staggered off the train in Tel Aviv. Without my hat. In my daze, I had forgotten it, and before I could get off the escalator, the train left. More on this later.
I made my way to the airline office. Turns out that in Tel Aviv, every airline known to mankind has an office in a two block area. After wandering past Turkish air, and Russian air (not Aeroflot, but Russian air, whatever that is), two offices of El Al, I finally found a Qantas office. The lady there pulled up my file, asked for my ticket, and promptly told me that it was impossible for me to take the flights I'd arranged with Qantas in Australia. Well, I've been in Israel long enough to have picked up a little of the discussion style here, so I immediately raised my voice several decibels and demanded that something be done. This resulted in her printing the rules for my ticket and reading the offensive rule to me several times. After that, she called the British Air office and confirmed that there was no way for me to leave Tel Aviv on my ticket until January 13. Several minutes of 'discussion' later, I had a ticket. For January 13. Bloody One World Alliance. At least I didn't have to pay to have the ticket re-issued because I'm now back on my original routing: Tel Aviv - London - Singapore - Perth - Darwin. Twenty-six hours on the plane, two 1.5 hour layovers, and one 8 hour layover in Perth from midnight to 8am. Ugh.
Tel Aviv is remarkably uninteresting. You'd think that the largest city in Israel would have more going for it. The airlines were a small block from the beach, so I went there to calm down for a bit. I have to say, the Mediterranean waters are quite clear and beautiful. No tsunamis, either. I sat on a breakwater for a while and watched a school of small fish wandering around. I did get to see a tern of some sort dive in and grab a meal. Very interesting. Then, I wandered over to the large shouk that everyone talks about. It was pretty impressive, though really not a lot different from the one in Beer Sheva. Actually, my impression of the whole city was pretty much the same as my impression of Beer Sheva, only bigger. I wandered around a bit, bought some cheap stuff, and headed back to the train.
On the train, I decided to ask the train guy wandering around about my hat. Amazingly enough, someone had turned it in, and it was waiting in the office - in Tel Aviv. At this point, I was a good hour south of Tel Aviv, and really had no intention of going back. So we arranged for it to be sent to Beer Sheva, where I could pick it up the next day. Nothing like having to make another round trip to Beer Sheva to recover from sleep induced stupidity. Oh well, at least the falafel at the bus station in Beer Sheva is good (and cheap).
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home