So where are you going?

This morning, Yonina and I met on a bus at 8:15 am to go and get our vaccinations for our trip in February to Ethiopia and Thailand. I must be getting used to this country because what transpired this morning seemed rather straight forward and logical....for Yonina, not so much.

We got to the clinic at 8:45. I was wary to get there earlier as we were unsure if they opened at 8 or 8:30 or 8:45 (depended if you listened to the message in Hebrew, English or which menu option you selected once you picked your language. Also they are open for 2/2.5 hours on Sunday and Thursday mornings only!) We got there and went through the guard gate. The guard asked where we were going. We said to get shots, he waived us through. Once inside the building, the walls were covered with laminated signs in Hebrew and English telling you to go to three rooms. Thankfully we were not the first ones there and someone pointed to the number ticket machine on the wall above the forms in Hebrew and English. We took the forms, filled them out and waited in the hallway for our number to be called.

Yonina and I went in together. The guy behind the desk took the forms and asked where we were going. He looked at a list and then started making dots, circles, "X"-es and circles with "X"es in them all down the list of vaccinations. After giving me the English info packet and Yonina the Hebrew one and giving Yonina a hard time about improving Hebrew and having to practice Hebrew (we had filled out the English forms), he sent us to the next room.

The third room was the Nurse (aka bursar). Because today was the last day of the year, they were not accepting credit cards and they do not handle cash there. How do you pay? Well, Aviva dear, take this form to the post office. You can either do that today and come back or you can come on Sunday morning and use a credit card then. You have class then, so better that you should go today. Where is that you ask? Go out to the street, turn left and cross the street. Thanks! That seems pretty straight forward and clear. Glad I knew that it might be in a building and not just off the street and I asked a few people.

Got to the post office and took a number, saw some of the same people from the clinic, and finally were called. We walked up to the counter and I handed over the form. The teller at the post office looks at our bills from the Department of Health and asks where we are going. We tell him and he says- go to Chaing Mai and then go to the Islands. Thanks for the advice teller-man, that was basically the plan! Then it gets complicated. I go to hand him my credit card and he says- check or cash only. I happen to have enough to cover the 288 shekels but Yonina does not. I pay and get my recipt and then he tells us to get money and come back. I ask to him or do we have to take another number- he says to come back to him.

We leave the mall building and go outside to a cash machine where I take out money for Yonina (I have no fee and Yo does). Then back into the building where it is a relief that the guard recognizes us as having just been there and lets us through without too much tzurus. Back up to the post office and then to the guy at the counter. Of couse, because it is Israel, we now have 2 people yelling at Yonina because they think that she barged in line. The teller explains that we were here before and had to get money. The irony is that even with a number-calling-ticket system, they were standing in a clump infront of one of the three tellers as if that would help them be helped sooner. No doubt they need help though...

So with the post office taken care of, we headed back to the clinic. There we went back to the "nurse" and waited in line to give her our recipt of payment and to get a number to see of the two actual nurses for the shots. We got our number and waited in the hall again for a while. Finally Yonina's number was called and we went in together. Good thing that we went in together since before Yonina was done, the other nurse went on her break. It would have taken even more forever had we not been back there together (Hevruta o' Metutah at its best). The nurse also asked where we were going and then the two nurses (the first having returned from break by then) started talking in Hebrew about how all of these youngsters are going on adventures- to them it seems like everyone in Israel goes abroad and that they are the only ones still in the country. (I wonder if they get a shock when they leave the office at the end of the day-probably by 2pm-and see so many people outside.) We left there with the yellow World Health Organization cards documenting our shots for travel! WootWoot!

Three hours and two shots (polio booster and a combo of HepA and Typhoid), and one relatively typical and smooth exposure to Israeli systems and society and we were on our way to the shuk for some pre-shabbat shopping.