Now, before I conclude my Israel portion of this travel blog, I feel the need to discuss two interesting aspects of Israeli life.
Number One: Weapons
Most people consider Americans gun-happy, but I have never in my life seen so many guns in one week. The soldiers (18-20 year olds mostly; they have to do two years) are required to carry around their gun wherever they go. This includes the public bus, where you might have a (hopefully unloaded) gun pressing up against you in the crowd. NOT cool. I'm sorry, but I just don't trust these young kids (or anyone for that matter) not to accidently blow someone's foot off. I stayed as far away as possible.
These are not just regular little guns, either. They looked like crazy Uzis or something to me.
This is the only picture I was brave enough to take of a soldier and his gun. (Women carried them, too, though so at least there's gender equity in that case.)
It wasn't just soldiers who had guns, though. I must've seen at least a dozen people in plains clothes with a gun loosely tucked into the back of their pants' waistband. I stayed away from them too. Somehow all these guns did not make me safer.
The best part is that every 15 minutes or so there's this announcement at the Tel Aviv airport in a friendly female voice: "Please be advised that no weapons of any kind are permitted in the airport. Thank you." That totally didn't stop them, though. I saw several just in plain sight!
Number Two: Impatience
So, I have to say that I did not expect the complete lack of respect for the concept of a line. I had (naively) assumed that a country such as Israel, with so many ethnicities from around the world, could only function with proper order and fairness. Wrong. So, I ended up taking no less than twelve buses while in the country, and this is what would happen at every single one:
People would stand in a line in the gates leading up to the bus platform, only to surge forward and shove everyone out of the way when the bus actually arrives. The line completely disappears, and you have to elbow your way in. Lily warned me, but I was still shocked. I managed to get on all the buses I had dutifully waited in line for, but I would have been quite upset if I hadn't.
At the airport this morning (jumping ahead in time of these posts...) I was treated to my last Israeli line-shoving (thank God.) I stood in line at McDonald's and watched as about four different people came up behind me, pretended to need a closer look at the menu, and then next thing you know they are ordering at the counter before you. An old man in front of me yelled at two of the girls, but with no consequences. It made me feel better, though. I had already learned that saying, "excuse me, I've been waiting here" doesn't get you the result you want - just a strange look. Oh well!
Unfortunately at the times of these incidents I was too frustrated to think to document the phenomenom with a photo.
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