Google Maps in Israel

This is really neat! Google Maps finally made it to Israel. Oh the days of waiting for emaps to load up are done.

But wait!

Although Google is much faster to load and the directions come back in an instant, I think Emaps does have something over Google. The emaps dynamic city/street drops downs are an incredible help (though probably also the reason it's so slow), especially for those of us olim chadashim, who still can't figure out if there is some sort of standard English spelling for the Hebrew names (which I don't think there is).

For example, I tried googling from my apartment (pictured above) to Geula. I didn't bother trying to type in Geula...

(Quickly looking it up - behold, the results - though not what I was looking for. They sent me to Kikar Geula Galaktion, though Kikar Shabbat does get me where I want to go, but not without numerous misspellings).

However, it was easier to just find Malchei Yisroel (Malkei Yisrael?) Street on the map on click to go there. However, with emap, they make it somewhat better with their drop downs.

Though all of this does not negate the Israeli way of directions. When I asked my friend how to get to the Air Force museum yesterday. He told me get to Be'er Sheva, and then ask someone.

I followed his instructions, and when we got to Be'er Sheva yesterday, I stopped at someplace to ask for directions. The wildest thing, was that the person I stopped actually worked at the museum and was able to direct us there!

Now I'm not sure if it's b/c Be'er Sheva is pretty small, but it's all hasgacha pratis over here!

Updated links for directions (Apparently Blogger doesn't like when you past in single quotes in their add a link button)