Hamas War

Thursday, July 10, 2014

I Can't Keep Track of the Tremps aka Rides

Yes, I'm an unabashed, unrepentant hitchhiker. Since I don't have a car and am realistic enough to know that we'd never be able to afford one, and if we'd get one I'd have to spend a fortune to re-qualify as driver, it seems like tremping and I will stay "married" a long time.

And to be honest, if we got a car, we'd be giving rides/tremps, which also has its risks.

But I don't tremp because I'm a risk-taker. I am not a risk taker at all. I'm scared and phobic about most things. It's just that with the job and hobbies I have, tremping is the most efficient mode of transportation. It's not that I don't take buses. I certainly do when they arrive and I try to make plans according to buses. But if I had a rule only to travel by bus, I wouldn't yet be home from work. And I still would have needed a ride to get to the bus most probably. And I'd be waiting for that bus in a place much more isolated than where I did wait, all the places I ended up waiting.

Here's how I got home:

  1. I asked a woman who was with a full shopping cart and two teenage children to where she was going. "Ofra" was her answer. So I had ride #1.
  2. At Ofra a neighbor and I caught a ride to the Shiloh Junction.
  3. From there we caught another ride to the Shiloh-Shvut Junction.
  4. Then within a minute or two, there was a ride to the "center" of Shiloh. I got off and he stayed in the ride.
  5. I started walking up the hill to may neighborhood when a young family took me up to my street. They would have taken me to my door, but I told them that they should just continue to their home.
Yes, that's five "tremps." The tremps or rides are nothing like what hitchhiking looks like in the movies, when young people in need of a shower get into trucks or unsuitably fancy vehicles driven by people who look like they may have just knifed someone.

Some of the people who give me rides end up being people I or my husband or children know. Some actually become friends. I've even had job offers. 

Now, I need to sleep, so good night. 

PS I'm glad that I got home so easily. To think that if I had taken the bus I'd still be on it and then have to walk up the hill, a half a mile, a kilometer.

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