By zamorse
The University of Haifa is situated atop a mountain on the edge of the city and thus is the beginning of many of the bus routes into the city. To make life more exciting, there are two central bus stations in Haifa, one by the beach and one on the other side of the city.
That context is important because I tried to go to the beach today on bus #146. Bus #146 is an Egged bus route, the main bus company in Israel. It runs from the University to both of the central bus stations, sometimes the one by the beach and sometimes the one on the other side of the city. That's why it's important to ask the bus driver before you get on the bus which bus station he's going to. To make matters even more complicated, the #146 will run to the beach at 8:30 and another #146 will run to the other central bus station at 8:32, so they leave literally around the same time.
I used my Egged phone application to track when the bus was coming, got to the bus stop a few minutes early, and where I see that the #146 is already waiting, so I get on it. Without checking which central bus station it's going to...
Luckily I realized that I was on the wrong bus before we had left the University and got off the bus. Unfortunately, as I got off the bus, the correct #146 zoomed past us and I was left to wait for the next bus a half an hour later. And I made it to the beach anyways.
That was actually the second time I've taken the wrong #146, and the last time because I didn't know how to take the buses, I took the 146 all the way to the wrong central bus station and then had to take another bus from one central bus station to the other.
As they say in Yiddish, oy vey.