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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Banking on it

I do hate to sound ungrateful, and, really, it was very nice of Bank HaPoalim to sponsor – for the fifth (sixth?) year in a row – a whole slew of major tourist attractions during Chol Hamo’ed Pesach.

After all, free admission to dozens of sites across the country is nothing to sneeze at.

But one suspects that TPTB (=the powers that be) over at Bank HaPoalim may not have fully considered the Law of Unintended Consequences.

To wit:

I. Our investment

As you may recall, back in the summer, we became members of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

Since then, we not only recouped our initial investment but also saved significant amounts of money with each subsequent trip to a different one of Israel’s beautiful national parks.

But Bank HaPoalim’s largesse put a damper on our plans to maximize our profits.

Because, you see, many of these parks are included in the program, and thus, on Pesach, membership no longer has its privileges…

smile_teeth

II. The crowds

Needless to say, free admission draws overwhelming crowds.

Fortunately, however, there are two solutions to this problem:

  1. Arrive as soon as the site opens.
  2. Stick to the duller and more unpopular attractions.

In previous years, we’ve successfully used the former method, but this year, due to circumstances beyond our control, we were forced to rely on the latter.

And so we visited the Bible Lands Museum.

But you don’t have to feel bad for us.

Because there was a definite silver lining. Two, in fact.

First, the adults and the younger children in our party all agreed that the museum was actually very interesting.

And second, good parents that we are, we’re always looking for new and creative ways to raise the KQ. (That’s the Kvetching Quotient – a measurement which applies, as I’m sure you know, only to the adolescent set.)

I mean, when one is the parent of teenagers, one’s main purpose in life is to make their lives miserable. Or so they claim.

And, so, you’ll no doubt be glad to hear that the Bible Lands Museum took the KQ up to a whole other level…

smile_teeth

4 comments:

  1. When I saw the title of this post, I thought maybe you'd gone where my husband and kids went - to Bank Yisrael, for a tour. If you haven't gone, it's a good option - my kids had a fantastic time (way better than I expected), and it's still relatively unpopular/unknown...

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  2. Our friends were just telling us when they went to Israel last summer, they visited one museum. For some reason, they went to the Bible Lands Museum. Their only child, a bright 7-year-old girl, announced boredom after 5 minutes. Oh, well. It sounds very adult. For certain adults.

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  3. Toby - No, we've haven't had a chance to go there yet, but it's on our list of things to do. Friends of ours went recently and highly recommended it.

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  4. Leora - Fortunately, it's a small museum, and they had some special activities for the kids in honor of Chol Hamo'ed. But if I was picking only one museum in Israel to visit, well, let's just say that this would not be my first choice...
    :-)

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