[TimT]

I lived in Israel for a few years '79-'82

When I had my first free time I decided to rent a car and take a drive around the area...

I cannot remember the rental agency, it was a big name one, and I drove off in a Autobianchi...

This car had a shift lever that was in the dash... a handle you pushed, pulled and twisted to select gears....

Said handle pulled out of the dash between shifts about a 30 minute drive from Tel Aviv...

This all is taking place years before cell phones, internet, email etc..

I was only in country a few days...

OK car is broken.... find a pay phone and call the number on the rental agreement....

Takes hours to find a pay phone... Only to find out the phone does not accept Israeli coins..you need a special token that can be purchased at banks, remittance centers, some drug stores, post offices, or black market for a few sheckels more..

Then finally having to call the number on the rental agreement a few time until you found someone who speaks English....

(Note: I was 20 y/o at the time and it was my first extended time away from home, so speaking Hebrew or one of the Arab languages was chance zero)

Took me two days to get it all "exactly perfect" by the time all the connections were made, and a replacement car was arranged it was time for me to get back to Tel Aviv and my new job....Disaster narrowly averted...

Then there was the time I ran out of gas on my bike while was taking the "easy" way to get from Ovda to Eilat, and a Bedouin came to investigate "why the light went out" and invited me to stay in his tent...

The next day he made his neighbor siphon some nasty, possibly 70 octane gas out of an old Fiat for me...

Got the bike barely running...and off I went to Eilat...

I drove by that Bedouin camp a few times during my stay in Israel, and never saw that kind generous family again... They were very good people....

AcKK

Hijack

That Autobianchi was a POS