The Sixth Sense Would Have Been 'Direction.'

Autobus seven (sheva) finally pulled up in front of us. We had been standing outside the Einstein dorms for well over thirty minutes trying to catch the bus to Ich Ilov. Ryan had been adamant that it was bus seven and that the bus stop was directly across from the dorms. Dominique thought it was the stop down by the mall. Dustin and I scanned the bus routes and thought that we needed to catch bus twenty-seven.

Where consensus was needed there was none save for the decision to embark on the trip itself.

Chris had fallen ill the day before. When he arrived at our dorm after classes, he could barely walk and described the pain to me as akin to the Incredible Hulk "trying to tear my esophagus from my stomach." I called Liran, one of the madrichim, and told them Chris needed to see a doctor. By the end of the night, he was checking into the Ich Ilov medical center for tests on his kidneys, which weren't functioning properly.

So after classes ended on Tuesday, we loaded up and decided to go visit him. I had been told that the transit system was idiot proof. We did our best to punch a hole in that particular theory.

By the time we made it on to autobus sheva toward Ich Ilov, we were nearly an hour late. Dominique had been right all along, rubbing it in with a self-deprecating quip about Americans never listening to Canadians. Ryan and I had collected Chris' things, including his passport, which he said the Israeli doctors needed. Besides being physically exhausted from the heat, our brains were fried from the third day of Ulpan. We were learning a lot. And quickly. One of Dustin's buddies, who had studied Arabic and Hebrew in Haifa, had told him that at points, his brain literally hurt. This was definitely one of those days.

The trip to Ich Ilov lasted about twenty minutes. We discussed football most of the way and observed Israelis going about their business on the streets of Tel Aviv. 2009 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the city of Tel Aviv. In exactly a century, this area has gone from dust and sand to a thriving metropolis. While not the religious center of the state of Israel, Tel Aviv is without a doubt the cultural and economic heart and soul of the Jewish state. It's very existence is a testament to the Israeli people's ingenuity, with so much being made of so little.

A man sitting in front of us told us what stop to exit and wished us well. Despite their outward appearance of being hard and their reputation for being rude, Israelis are extremely helpful if approached. Stigmas have been one of the first casualties eviscerated by my time here.

Off to our left were two massive buildings of an almost postmodern design. The Ich Ilov medical center looked like something out of a Star Wars film.

"Anyone have a clue where to go?" I asked.

"There's a Toys R Us," Ryan blurted out.

"And a Go Active," Dustin chimed in.

"Noted, but I don't think Chris is in there."

We crossed the street toward the medical center/mall/futuristic compound and passed through security into the primary concourse. Israeli doctors are some of the best physicians in the world. As we scanned the buildings for a lead, it was apparent that their facilities were nothing to scoff at either.

"Let's just go in that one and ask around," Ryan suggested. As we entered the tower, we found a wide open cafeteria and lobby. The receptionist was an old gentlemen who spoke near perfect English. It was amazing to hear him switch from Hebrew to English so smoothly. After two years here, I hope I'll be able to do the same thing. Ryan handed him a piece of paper, written in Hebrew, with Chris' floor and room number written on it.

"Go past the book store, take the elevators, go to floor shelosh (three), take a right, and go to dalet (D analog). He should be in that area."

"Toda raba," Ryan replied.

"We should get him one of those horse balloons," Dustin said.

We took the elevator to the third floor and started looking around. Ryan charged through a pair of doors ahead and to the left. I saw the sign above the door and was pretty sure that it did not have a dalet sign above it.

Within seconds, we had become those people. You know the type back home; they're usually foreigners who talk loudly, seem confused, and lack most of the tact needed for the given environment. We went to a nurse sitting behind a desk and asked her for directions. She read the note and shook her head.

"Schtayim (two)," she said forcefully.

We made our way out of the ward and back toward the elevator. Exiting on the second floor, we went right and through a pair of doors that did have a dalet above it. Good, I'm starting to be able to read this chicken scratch.

We entered into the ward to find a myriad of older patients sitting in beds in the hallway. We found yet another desk jockey and handed her the paper with Chris' information. She squinted hard and turned her head to the side. She looked up and then back down and then stared at us. Ryan and I grinned. Dustin was staring at her relatively nonplussed but nevertheless at a height and frame that was double most Israelis. Dominique was assuredly giving her a French expression that was as inoffensive as it was helpful.

We all waited for a brief moment. She looked down again and then stared back at us with a look of indifference.

"Shelosh."

Oh, for the love of Yahweh! We all sighed in utter frustration and marched back out of the second level ward. The inanity, physical exhaustion, and mental fatigue all seemed to hit us at once as we stepped back on the elevator, with delirium taking the helm.

The return to the third floor was marked by cackling laughter at our inability to do the simplest of tasks as well as commentary on what the Israelis must have been thinking about us.

As we entered into the actual dalet ward on the third floor, I pulled out my phone and called Chris. At the exact moment Chris was asking around for where he was, Ryan was being denied entrance to the right side of the ward, and a doctor was waving for us to go back outside as a woman was wheeled past us on a gurney. She had a balloon tied to the rails and appeared somewhat sweaty.

Oh good, we had found the maternity ward. Check.

"Dude, no one seems to know where I am. I think I'm on the fourth floor," Chris said over the phone.

"Well so far we've succeeded at offending everyone on the first three floors, so one more isn't gonna make a difference," I responded.

"Wait, can you see down a long hallway?" Chris asked.

"Yea, but I...wait a second, I see you. Nice pajamas."

We finally found Chris in the main hallway wearing a pair of light blue pajama pants with the Star of David scattered all over them. He was grinning and didn't seem as pallid as he had the day before. The news was that the doctors wanted to keep him around for another day to do some tests on his liver. They didn't think anything major was wrong with him. Apparently he had passed a gall stone and that had been what had caused the excrutiating pain in his abdominal area and thrown his kidney functions off.

"I feel great today, but they won't let me go home. I'd invite you guys back to my room but I haven't had a chance to clean up. It's a bit embarrassing."

"How considerate."

"I did save you some jars of fresh lemonade though."

"Yep. He's definitely feeling better."

We went back down to the cafeteria and got some food and water and talked for a while about everything. Between the five of us, the conversation leapt from Chris' hilarious take on his hospital experience (which is unfortunately too long to recount here) to religion to movies to Iran to Israeli society to medicine. After about an hour and a half, we had to part ways and wished Chris the best in curing his boredom.

We boarded the bus back to Ramat Aviv and joked a little about Israeli traffic manners. During the middle of the conversation, several passengers were watching and eavesdropping on us. They were clearly entertained by our appearance or our discussion; perhaps both.

And for the hundredth time since we arrived here, Dustin's farmboy sense of wanderlust got the better of him, causing him to state the obvious:

"We're on a bus in Tel Aviv right now."

That we are. And we're a long ways from home.

Or are we...?