JoelNothman.com

I don’t like writing about when I do stupid things, but sometimes I feel disloyal to what readers I have if I don’t. I have a couple of English friends who volunteered with me and the Hineni group in Karmiel in 2002. But both are now up in Manchester, rather than in London. So I have been trying to decide for many weeks whether it would be worthwhile going up to Manchester to see them and spend shabbat with them. They certainly couldn’t come down; it is exam time, and Heather has a three-month old baby (and a husband to take care of). But I hadn’t seen them in years, and when you’ve already come this far around the world, there’s no small amound of money that should stop you going a little further to spend time with people you love.

I had been warned by others that there isn’t much exciting about manchester, or about the long trip there, which is expensive. One can get a train that only takes a couple of hours, but significantly cheaper is the 4h30 bus. On Tuesday I was able to find tickets for only 14 pounds return. Mind you, any sum in pounds sounds expensive to a foreigner in the UK.

Nonetheless when I actually had things sorted with Heather, the trip was up to 19 pounds. (I printed the ticket at an internet café the next day for 20p.) I would be leaving London on Friday at 11, and leaving Manchester on Sunday at 6… which would lose me two days’ tourism in London, and would gain me one in Manchester. As well as shabbat with Heather and her husband, Ben. Hopefully it would be nice.

But when it got to the morning when I had to go, I packed and made my vegemite-sandwitch lunch late, left late, the underground train didn’t come, and when it did come it was the wrong train, but I only realised that once the doors were closed, got off at the next station, and with the right train was still not in sight, panicked, caught a taxi, got to Victoria coach station having surely missed my bus. But I saw it across the road, hopped out of the cab and waved my ticket at the bus driver. Phew! Thankfully… He saw me but refused to open the doors.

I was really upset by now. Me, stingy me, who had been careful about every pound till here in London, had just spent 1.50 on the Tube, 9 on the cab, and the National Express offices were rightly saying that I had bought a class of ticket to Manchester that was not amendable. I would need to buy another: 12 o’clock was the next. That would be 21 pounds in person, or probably cheaper online.

It is useful here that public phones have numbers, so I took advantage of Heather’s caller-ID and she called me back on the public phone. Eventually we organised her to buy me a new ticket for 10 pounds, which the National Express office would print out for me with the right details given. I ran and caught the coach. It’s an absolutely beautiful day in London, and I’m on a bus.

And at one point when I needed to call Heather the phone booth I had been using was occupied. But that was okay, there were another three. Only, two rejected my coin, and one swallowed it. Another pound gone. I swore loudly in the nearly-private confines of the phonebooth.

So there it is. What was a cheap trip to Manchester was now 19.00 + 0.20 + 1.50 + 9.00 + 10.00… which is even more in Australian dollars.

But who’s counting?
The lessons:

• You pay a lot to have friends.
• Don’t miss your bus. It’s a waste of time and money. Really.
• Never take a taxi in traffic when you’re late.
• The UK is still expensive.

PS: It turns out that in front of me on the bus were sitting three Israelis. When I eventually worked up the courage to ask them why they were visiting, I found that they were coming for the Manchester United FC pilgrimage site Old Trafford and nothing else. I don’t know if they’re going back to London for night, but 10 hours for that… makes my trip feel undoubtedly worthwhile, even with its travails.