Van Trip, not Highway, to Hell

My last day in Jerusalem, after leaving Ronen's, was quite uneventful. I arrived at the Central Bus Station, got a salad lunch (regretfully, they did not place enough salad dressing in the to-go bag), and prepared for the stretch run, the last two weeks of yeshiva before Pesach break. Unfortunately, I overlooked a very important step: the van ride back to the yeshiva.

Normally, I'm in favor of the van. It is direct. It is private. It takes a relatively short amount of time. It is negotiable to time changes, unlike a public bus. For my parents, it means that I don't have to take public transportation which they deem risky. But after the nightmare that was today's ride, I might rather walk next time then take the bus.

For starters, the bus was full, every seat taken, the aisles (and my legroom!) crowded with the suitcases that people brought for their five-day vacation (as opposed to the smaller bags of the normal two-day weekend). Yet this wasn't the problem, though you will see that it was a contributing factor. No, the real problem was ventillation. This particular bus had no windows that opened, and the air conditioner didn't work. Combine that with the fact that we were travelling through a valley during the hours of high noon, and you will begin to understand how hot it was. To get a better sense of what it was like, I suggest reading the following out loud:

Hot. Pant. Gasp. Hot. Sweat. Need. Air. Need. Space. Need. Air. Hot. Hot. Pant. Drip. Gasp. Are. We. There. Yet. Are. We. There. Yet. Hot. Pant. Fan. No. Air. Need. Air. He. Took. Off. His. Shirt. It's. That. Hot. Hot. Hot. Sick. Hot. Are. We. There. Yet. Water. Hot. Cramp. Hot. Are. We. There. Yet. Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.

Read that four times in a row, while sitting in a sauna, and you will begin to get an idea of how hot it was.

For about two hours, I was in complete agony. I was dripping, drenched in sweat and a bottle of lukewarm water I poured over my head in a useless attempt to cool off. I was beginning to get sick. And, to top it all off, we were going an extra twenty minutes to a museum. I didn't want to go to a museum. I wanted to just get off that van. Thankfully, the bus driver overlooked his natural Israeli stubborness and found it in his heart to stop at the bottom of the mountain at Tzomet Ha'Etz, and Jason, Micah, Weiler and I alighted to a delightful breeze and cold water from the nearby gas station.

It is much easier to get a tramp (hitchhike) up the mountain from Tzomet Ha'Etz than from Poondak HaMa'ayan, and within five minutes I was back at the yeshiva. I took a few minutes to recuperate from that hideous ordeal, and now I am back in the swing of things.

Before I sign off for tonight, I want to mention that tonight I finished the sixth chapter of Tractate Bava Metziah with my chevruta Eitan Rubinstein. We've been working on it all year, and it's a good thing we finished today, since he's leaving the yeshiva Tuesday. Looking back, I'm not even sure what all of it was about. But I know we did something, and that my gmara reading skills improved tremendously.

Stretch run begins... now.