Cell phones and Rav Kav

It was kind of nice for a couple days not having a cell phone, although it certainly didn't stop the annoying people from tracking me down to ask me to work for free. Unfortunately I do need to maintain contact with the outside world, so we set out to look for a cell phone plan. Turns out cell phone plans in Israel are way cheaper than in America and you don't have to be locked into ridiculous contracts.

We went to the Tachna Hamerkazit (sp) in an attempt to get the cell phone and rav kav taken care of in one trip. There's a store there called 'Bug" which sells plans from Golan Telecom. There was a long line in the store and I was worried that we'd wait a long time and wouldn't get anything because of the language barrier. The guy who was setting up the plans had a ponytail and ripped jeans and looked like he couldn't care less about anything.

When we finally reached the front of the line, it turned out the guy spoke English and was actually really nice. I asked him if we would be locked into a contract and he said "Things are different here in Israel, you don't sign a contract of what you owe the phone company, they give you a contract of what they promise to give you. If you don't like it, don't pay and find another company" sounded good to me. We got a plan for two phones with unlimited calling in Israel and a few other countries (including the US) with 6GB of data each for roughly $60 a month.

He was also helped us find the place to get our rav kavs (Prepaid card for public transportation). His directions were 'Go upstairs, turn left and walk to the end, look for some really depressed looking people and that's where you go". Turns out his description was extremely accurate. Actually getting the rav kavs was fairly painless and not too slow.

As much as I enjoyed my temporary freedom, it felt so good to have a working phone with internet. Google maps is extremely useful in this country, especially when the trains get shut down for "chafetz chashud" which seems to happen every time I need to go anywhere.