Theater night at the Abba Chushi Center

This morning, Rachel texted me saying that Smadar (a women who works with new olim in Haifa) told her about some kind of concert near us that night. She said it was pretty cheap - 20 shek for both of us. Let's do it, I said.

The flyer she showed me later made some vague reference to music and art, but we really didn't know what to expect. Also, I was kind of skeptical about the address: 71 Abba Hillel Silver. Abba Hillel Silver is a street that bends both geographically and demographically away from the rest of Neve Sha'anan. During our August apartment hunt we looked at a place on this street. We were disconcerted by the way the street proceeded downhill away from the rest of the neighborhood, and seemed to only contain and endless row of huge, impersonal housing complexes. After looking at the apartment (which was kind of shabby), we passed by a group of men sitting around near the building entrance, eating pizza.

"You don't want to live here," they told us. "This neighborhood isn't for you, you should go live in Neve Sha'anan, on the other side of the hill.

Needless to say, I didn't think this was the kind of street that would house a concert venue. But I was wrong.

Tonight, we passed that apartment building and kept walking until we noticed signs for the "Abba Chushi Center", named after an early mayor of Haifa. We turned a corner and, lo and behold, there was an enormous open space with a relatively attractive looking public building in the middle. Once inside, it became clear that this is THE community center for this area of Haifa. Posters and signs and sheets were everywhere in sight, advertising countless activities and classes offered in the center. We proceeded to the auditorium.

As was to be expected at an event like this in Haifa, the crowd was noticeably a) old and b) Russian. These observations served to further amplify the bizarre hilarity of the performances that were to ensue.

It was a pretty big auditorium, and our seats were right in front, second row (score!). In the lobby, we met up with Rachel's ulpan friend, who had brought her boyfriend along, and they too sat in our row. Just before the performance, a whole crowd of young ulpan students also showed up, and as the MC gave his opening remarks, it became clear that the evening was specifically targeted at olim (hence the ulpan connection), and that all the performers were also olim themselves.

So I've set the stage: auditorium mostly full of old Russians, but two rows of young internationals in the front. The stage has got serious sound and lighting equipment, and a serious looking guy is sitting ready behind a serious looking computer screen. A 40-something blonde woman (dressed like a 20-something blonde woman) is hovering around, seemingly in charge of something. The lights dim.

Here's how it all went down:

Act I: Tortured Violin Genius

A tall man stepped onto the stage carrying a violin. He was wearing a white shirt tucked into jeans. Over this, he was wearing one of those long suit jackets that only Chassidim wear. He was definitely no Chassid, though. He was clean shaven and had bangs that remind me of John Linnell. His face looked dark and mysterious.

He began to fiddle, and he was really good. But it wasn't not your usual fiddling. In the background, the sound system pumped out drum-machine drumbeats and synthesized accompaniment music. It kind of felt like a club. The lights were neon and flashing all over the place.

He played about three or four songs. I could tell which parts were hardest because he screwed his face up in concentration and I thought his head was going to explode but then he collected himself. He looked like some kind of supervillain that is going to be thwarted one day by James Bond.

As the last song came to an end, the lights began flashing like crazy. Somehow they made the room look like it was shaking back and forth and I thought I was going to have a seizure. Also, a fog machine started spewing fog in the back of the stage. All this with a guy fiddling for his life. It was pretty trippy.

Act II: Pre-Teen Ballroom Dancers

As the two couples glided onto the stage, my first thought was "man, these people are really small". But after a couple seconds I realized that they were children.

Let me explain the confusion. They were very young (announced as 12, later corrected to 14), but they were dressed like adult dancers. That is to say, the boys were wearing fancy suit pants, one was wearing a vest and bow tie and the other was wearing a tie with some black dress shirt. The girls were wearing these weird dresses/costumes with crazy sleeves and skirts - all revealing way more skin than 14 year olds should be revealing.

Then they started to dance. Holy moly! These teeny boppers could dance! The pairs were waltzing and tango-ing and doing all kinds of moves I don't have words for. There was much fancy footwork, emotional head movements and dramatic gesticulation. These kids were shooting for "Dancing with the Stars". Or ice dancing.

They would dance to a song playing over the stereo, but the song would randomly fade out in the middle, and they would just stop dancing, and the crowd would applause. This usually resulted in some SERIOUS gesticulation, in the form of arms spread wide by the girls, as if to say "Yes! I am wonderful!" and one-arm gesturing, combined with an unsettling stare/smile by the boys, pointing to the girls as if to say "Get a load of THIS".

Somehow, the overall effect of really young kids dancing, dressing, moving, and gesticulating like adults was both unnerving and mesmerizing.

Act III: French Guy

First, they set up his props, which included a cafe table with a bottle of wine, two glasses, roses, and chairs, and a five foot tall model of the Eiffel Tower with a hat on top of it.

The guy himself was an Israeli who had lived in Paris for a while and is now a returning citizen. He was wearing a sparkly gold skinny tie over a mother-of-pearl shirt. He had curly long hair, and to be honest he looked a lot like Weird Al (thin version).

His act consisted of talking about different French musicians and then singing their songs. In French. I'm not sure why he thought anyone would be able to understand him, but that didn't stop him from singing his songs, and singing a lot of them.

Some of the songs were silly and some were sad. He was very committed to miming the emotions as he sang the song, as if to compensate for the fact that they were all in French, and no one could understand him (oh, except this one girl in the front row who we saw mouthing the words along with him).

Sometimes he used props, and for one or two songs he had some old guy in a cap and red sunglasses play accordion to accompany him. At another point he invited a couple from the audience (he took two of the young ulpan folk) to sit at his cafe table. He poured them glasses of wine and then took a swig directly from the bottle, and they stayed there for a little while while he sang more songs.

One of his songs, he said, he was going to sing in French, Russian, and English. For the record, we couldn't understand the English part. I think the song was about Moscow.

French guy took about 10 times longer than all the other acts. He would go on about French musicians to no end. The expression on his face showed that he was so happy because he knew how much you appreciated French music. Finally he was done.

Act IV: Return of the Pre-Teen Ballroom Dancers

This time, the girls were disturbingly skimpy dresses, and the boys were wearing black shirts with a thin v neck that went down to their navels. And the dancing involved a lot more hip movement and butt shaking from both genders.

The truth is, the whole act sort of made sense for the girls, but not for the boys. Girls do things like ballet and dance and figure skating and cheerleading and all that, so if you're a 14 year old girl it's not the craziest thing in the world to put on a dress and dance like that.

But the guys... how do these guys not get beaten up at school? Ok, maybe they do, who knows, but you'd expect boys that age to be just a LITTLE self conscious about doing the tango with a skimpy dressed girl while wearing an outfit reminiscent of Chris Kattan's "Mango" character on SNL.

But if these boys were embarrassed, it sure didn't show. Their faces were serious, only to be broken by a huge grin of pride and self-satisfaction. They looked liked the characters on Glee.

As I said, disturbing and mesmerizing.

Act V: Drums

This was a pretty normal act. Two guys came in playing large African drums. Then they switch to darbukas. Then they pulled out this big wall/net where they had hung up lots of buckets and pots and pans.

"These look like ordinary items," they said, "but we are going to show you how they can be turned into percussion instruments."

Wait, let me guess: by hitting them with drumsticks? Correct!

So they did a whole percussion piece with the stuff on the wall and it was amazingly awesome.

For the last bit, they called for volunteers, basically to bang on lots of stuff they had with lots of drumsticks. One parent sent up their cute 5 year old son and the guys were like awww. This, apparently, was the cue for all the REST of the parents to send up their kids as well and all of a sudden the guys were like wait, we need some adults for this to work also.

Ultimately one of the guys kind of forced a few ulpan people to come up and participate and then everyone banged on a bunch of stuff, but it sounded good because the guys were drumming cool rhythms over everyone.

Act VI: Finale

At some point during the end of the percussion, French Guy showed up out of nowhere and started banging some of the pots. Most of us in the audience felt that he was kind of hogging the stage, and were dismayed when, after the drum guys cleared off, he came back to the microphone, apparently ready to sing another song. Didn't he already get a turn?

This song turned out to be "גשר צר מאד", which he sang to end the performance on some kind of Jewish, Israeli note. To further the hackneyed Israeli quotient, he sang "הבאנו שלום עליכם", and then pushed it over the edge with "הנה מה טוב ומה נעים".

Scientific English, Jewish Hebrew

I was sitting in class today and thinking about the fact that there is so much English in my science classes. One professor writes all her slides in English, but even the classes whose slides are in Hebrew nonetheless require a high level of English knowledge.

Indeed, it's safe to say that an Israeli who is either studying or working in the sciences can be assumed to have a decent understanding, though perhaps not a verbal mastery of, English.

I was struck by the similarity to the knowledge of and familiarity with Hebrew that comes with learning Judaic subjects. Technically, you can study Judaism (be it Torah, Jewish law, Jewish thought, or whatever) without a strict knowledge of Hebrew. An etrog could be a citron, an eiruv a communal partition, and mikva a reservoir. But for reasons, partially ideology and partially convenience, we use the terms and phrases already provided for us in Hebrew.

In the case of Hebrew and science, the reasons are mostly convenience and probably not ideological. After all, I doubt that speakers of French, German or Russian feel much ideological need to learn science in English (tuh!). But as someone who has a lot of experience observing the Hebrew of English speakers in a Torah setting, there is a certain reverse-familiarity when observing the English of Hebrew speakers in a science setting.

Banks!

The fundamental problem with blogging about things that happened weeks ago is that I don't remember the details. As such, the story of how we chose a bank will be brief, and lacking in the depth and detail of our shipping story, the irony being that the choice of bank will probably have a greater impact over the long run.

The three main banks we've seen around Haifa are Leumi, HaPoalim and Discount (or, as I pronounce it in my head when I just read the Hebrew - DiscoNet). There are plenty more out there too, it's not like health care where there are four big names and that's it. There's zillions.

There is a Leumi branch literally next to our house, and there's a HaPoalim branch in Ziv, the nearest commercial intersection. We first checked out HaPoalim, and then checked out Leumi. We were kind of hoping we'd like Leumi better, since it was so close.

However, we liked HaPoalim. People advised us to not get too bogged down trying to choose a bank based on who gives you the better deal, down to the shekel. Rather, they said, look for a bank that has good hours and service. Although the hours were more or less the same, the HaPoalim branch is a large building with many people working. There is an orderly number system, and you get to see someone quickly. Our lady was very nice, and answered all our questions. She had a very clear pamphlet that outlined all of the costs for various transactions at the bank.

Leumi, on the other hand, was a small branch. There were only two people working, and the guy we spoke to was kind of tired and impatient. There was no system for getting a number that we could see. So we went with HaPoalim.

The accounts themselves were pretty much the same at both places. Because I am a student, both Rachel and I were able to get student bank accounts. We were told in both places that the benefits for students are much better than the benefits for עולים חדשים.

As for the fees.... so far there haven't really been any. We heard stories about Israeli banks charging fees for every little transaction, but we haven't felt it. The student bank account lets you perform most normal transactions without any fees, and you can always do things like go online to check your account, and things like that for free. You have to pay for a checkbook, but so far the only time we ever write checks is paying the rent, so if we have to pay 8 shkalim for every 25 checks we write, we don't really care.

Supposedly the fees come out when you start doing things like transferring money from the US into your account here, or vice versa. We haven't done much of that, and there are ways around it.

As a nice bonus, we each got two gifts from Bank HaPoalim - a backpack and a spiral notebook whose front cover is a red leather-enclosed calculator. How cool!

...לא יקרא עוד שמך יונתן

As you may recall, the first time we tried to get our תעדות זהות, we forgot to bring our documents. We went back the following Sunday with all our documents. We showed up early again, waited in line again, and declared our purpose to the lady in the booth again, who said "weren't you guys here last week?"

Our turn came pretty quickly, and a nice lady began filling out the forms. There isn't much to the process, so it didn't take long. She did tell us one thing we'd never heard before: that we have some sort of three month grace period, during which we can "change our mind". I'm still not sure what that means exactly. Maybe it means if you leave Israel within the first three months, you've essentially aborted your aliyah, and maybe your kids aren't considered Israeli, or something. It was kind of a surprise.

Our main concern was Rachel's name. If a couple makes aliyah after they get married, but before the woman changes her name in America, she can do so pretty easily by just telling the מסרד הפנים what name she wants on her תעודת זהות. Rachel wanted her name to be Rachel Levinson, but she also wanted it to say "Horwitz" on the bottom part (there are two cards that make up a תעודת זהות, a top and bottom card). That way we will avoid confusion and/or suspicion at airports, mostly. Rachel has already been suspected once already!

We told this to the lady, and although there was some initial confusion, it seemed clear that she knew what she wanted. However, when we were finished, she told us to go pick them up at the card-printing-booth. Lo and behold, Horwitz was nowhere to be seen on Rachel's. By this time, our lady had already moved on to the next customer in the queue, and we didn't have time to wait for our next go around. Rachel had to make another trip later that week just to get it fixed; now it's as it should be.

However, there was one other name change - instead of יונתן, my תעודת זהות read יהונתן. I immediately realized why: when we were processed in the airport's little מסרד הפנים, the guy behind the desk spelled my name with a ה, even though I've never spelled it that way. Didn't have his coffee yet, I guess. But clearly the mistake was carried over to the very card that is supposed to identify me. Like Rachel, I too got my named legally changed, albeit unintentionally!

My first reaction was to go with her and have mine fixed, too, in case the extra letter ever caused confusion. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that would probably happen rarely if ever. After all, who would raise an eyebrow at יהונתן vs יונתן?

Plus, I thought to myself, when it comes to Jews in Israel having a ה added to their name, I'm in pretty good company.

East-West

On the way home from מסרד הפנים we walked along רחוב הנביאים, one of the main streets in the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa. Hadar is a neighborhood where mostly Russians and Chareidim live, and it hasn't enjoyed the best reputation. However, parts of it (along with other neighborhoods in Lower Haifa) have been recently gentrifying. רחוב הנביאים, while by no means posh, appeared pretty nice with fun stores to poke one's head into.

Looking for a drink, we poked ours into a store called מזרח-מערב (East-West). Although we didn't find any drinks, we did find a surprise - the store was filled with international food products. They were mostly Asian; hence the name. The products they sold included soy sauces, chili sauces and pastes, all sorts of rice, rice noodles, nori, other sushi components (mats, pickled ginger, etc), and TONS of sushi-serving paraphernalia. We've since heard that they also carry some of the Western hot sauces we are used to, such as Goya's chili sauces made in Mexico, but we didn't notice them at the time, and I find it hard to believe that they would have escaped our view.

Although we excitedly bought some sushi rice and soy sauce, our excitement was tempered by a) the fact that, as it turns out, you can get a lot of these Asian ingredients in your average neighborhood Shupersol and b) the soy sauce was super sugary.

On that last note, make sure to look at soy sauce when you buy it in Israel. The Israeli brands will probably have sugar in them, so if you want normal soy sauce, look for a foreign brand, or check the ingredients. I can only speculate why the Israeli sauces are sweet; my guess is that soy sauce is seen as a condiment, and therefore sweet soy sauce is a tastier thing to dip food into than regular soy sauce. Indeed, most soy based dipping sauces are mixed with honey or another sweetner, and teriyaki sauce is simply sweetened soy sauce. Still, I find the sugar level of the Israeli stuff much too high, and the product overall unacceptable.

We plan to return to the East-West store. Although you can get some of their stuff locally, their selection is much larger. And maybe one day we'll get sushi platters and fancy engraved chopsticks!

For our next stop, I want to check out a store I've heard about where you can whole bean coffee or even (gasp) still-green unroasted coffee...

"זה נראה כמו טיל"

On our first Thursday after landing, Rachel and I paid our first visit to קריית הממשלה, the government building complex that houses the Haifa branches of Office of the Interior, and the Office of Absorption, among many others (such as the Student Authority, but that's another story).

Our only knowledge of the complex's location came from its online street address. We used a combination of Egged's webstie and Google Maps to try and plan a route, and we brought a map, but when we set out we still weren't 100% sure where it was.

Fortunately, as is almost always the case in the umpteen times you don't really know where you're going in Israel, someone on the bus can tell you where to get off. Our someone told us to get off when he got off, and pointed in the general downhill direction.

When we passed a security guard, we asked him where the קריית הממשלה was, and he pointed. "Look for a big building," he said, in Hebrew. "זה נראה כמו טיל". I knew that word, but couldn't remember what it meant. So we kept walking until we saw this building:

Oh yeah, טיל means "missile".

Turns out, this unmissable sight in the Haifa skyline is where all the governmental offices are. This is good, because we've gone there at least three times so far, and as long as we're headed in the right direction we can always find it, even if we get a little lost.

Our plan was twofold: to visit the מסרד הפנים to get our תעודות זהות and the מסרד הקליטה to get started on our סל קליטה payments.

The מסרד הפנים opens at 8 AM and, like at the DMV, the line outside starts forming earlier than that. We got there around quarter-to, and there was already a line of 10 to 15 people. Israel's a pretty bureaucratic place, and there's always someone who needs to visit some kind of office for some reason, and a lot of them were in this one building. Once they opened the doors (at 8 and not a second earlier... even the DMV has more compassion than that!) it was pretty quick getting through, though.

Before entering the מסרד הפנים waiting room we had to state our purpose to a lady in a booth. We told her we were there to get our תעודות זהות. Ok, she said. You brought all your original documents, right?

Shoot. We didn't bring that stuff. If had occurred to us, we probably would have, but it didn't. Maybe becuase we thought we would need that stuff at the מסרד הקליטה in the airport, and we didn't need them in the end.

We told her we had them, of course, and got a number to wait. But when we got to the waiting room we'd have to wait at least an hour or so, and we didn't want to waste our time if it turned out the documents were really necessary. Instead, we went upstairs to the מסרד הקליטה to try our luck there.

Upstairs, there was no line, and we saw a nice man right away. He didn't take a lot of time, and got us set up with our סל קליטה right away. What he does is take your bank account information, and sets up a direct deposit for you to get your shekels. He gave us some information about ulpanim for Rachel, too.

And that was it. Not too painful! Although we didn't actually have to wait at מסרד הפנים, or deal with anyone there, we could see right away that it wasn't nearly as bad as some people describe. The lines were there, but the waits were manageable. Everyone was chilled out and polite. Maybe things are different in Haifa, but we were pleasantly surprised.

And on the way home, we took the Carmelit!

That was weird

[My mp3 player (I know, so 2000's of me) is called the iRiver SPINN]

The cord that connects my SPINN to my computer has two ends, one USB and one proprietary end that only fits into the SPINN. As if that wasn't bad enough, today I tried charging the thing and accidentally tried plugging the proprietary end into my USB port; they kind of look the same.

It didn't fit, but as soon as the metal touched, there was this faint crackling sound and the computer shut off.

Yet another reason not to but the SPINN. There are several others. Its uni-wheel navigation system is annoying, and its touch screen doesn't work well. And its black background is impossible to see in daylight. And, unlike the old iRivers, you can't add music to it by dragging and dropping via a normal Windows window. You have to use their clumsy, slow, software.

I have a ton of real posts to write (i.e. about Israel), as soon as I figure out how to compress photos on my netbook (another post, too).

Vowels

This is a transcript of an online chat I had with a customer service representative from HOT, a cable internet provider. The humor in this chat comes from the fact that she was using the word ספק, or sapak, which in Hebrew means ISP, but I thought she was saying safek.

שרי - נציגת מכירות: שלום

יונתן לוינסון: שלום

שרי - נציגת מכירות: וברכה

שרי - נציגת מכירות: במה אני יכולה לעניין אותך?

יונתן לוינסון: אני עברתי לדירה חדשה, ורוצה להתקשר באנטרנט

יונתן לוינסון: אני גם עולה חדש

שרי - נציגת מכירות: בשמחה

שרי - נציגת מכירות: לאיזו מהירות?

יונתן לוינסון: מהם האופציות?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: תשתית 2.5 59 שח התחייבות שנה התקנה חד פעמית 49שח

שרי - נציגת מכירות: תשתית 5 מגה 79 שח התחייבות שנה התקנה חד פעמית 49שח

שרי - נציגת מכירות: תשתית 7מגה 99 שח התחייבות שנה התקנה חד פעמית 49שח

שרי - נציגת מכירות: תשתית 12 מגה 119 שח התחייבות שנה התקנה חד פעמית 100שח

שרי - נציגת מכירות: מה דעתך?

יונתן לוינסון: אני חושב או 7 או 12

שרי - נציגת מכירות: זאת אותה עלות, גם אצל הספק

יונתן לוינסון: אני לא יודע איך להשוות למה שהיה לי בארה"ב

שרי - נציגת מכירות: בארה"ב המהירויות שונות, הם גם כוללות כבר את הספק

יונתן לוינסון: האים אני יכול לתאם תאריך שבו יבוא מישהו להתקין את המודם, ובינתיים להחליט איזה מהירות?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: אפשרי

שרי - נציגת מכירות: אתה מעוניין ש 012 יחזרו אליך בכדי לתאם ספק

שרי - נציגת מכירות: שנעשה הזמנה?

יונתן לוינסון: את שואלת אם אני רוצה שמישהו יתקשר איתי בטלפון?

יונתן לוינסון: או שנקבוע את הביקור עכשו

שרי - נציגת מכירות: אתה רוצה שנפתח לך הזמנה לאינטרנט 12 מגה עם ספק? העלות לשניהם יחד היא 160ש"ח לחודש, התחייבות לשנה

יונתן לוינסון: (אני מצטער על הקשיות בעברית)

שרי - נציגת מכירות: זה בסדר :)

יונתן לוינסון: למה 160? אמרת שתשתית 7 היא 99 ושתשתית 12 היא 119

שרי - נציגת מכירות: ללא ספק העלות היא 99ש"ח

יונתן לוינסון: אז זה יותר בדי להחליט לעזמי, ואז לתאם

יונתן לוינסון: *כדי

שרי - נציגת מכירות: אתה מעוניין בהזמנה?

יונתן לוינסון: הזמנה, כמובן לקבוע תאריך שבו מישהו יבא לדירתי?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: כן

יונתן לוינסון: רק אם אני יכול להחליט בינתיים בלי לשלם נוסף

יונתן לוינסון: מה המספר טלפון

יונתן לוינסון: אולי אתקשר ואעשה הזמנה כשמחרתי את התוכנית

יונתן לוינסון: *בחרתי

שרי - נציגת מכירות: 7 מגה או 12 מגה באותה עלות

יונתן לוינסון: את אומרת לי שאם אני אומר לך "אני בספק ולא יודע אם אני רוצה 7 או 12"

יונתן לוינסון: אז אני משלם 160 לחודש

יונתן לוינסון: כי אני משלם נוסף כי מי שבא לביתי לא יודע איזה להתקין - 7 או 12

יונתן לוינסון: או האים את אומרת שאני יכול לבל 12 צגה ב99 ש"ח לחודש?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: אני ממליצה לך להירשם ל 12 מגה, כי זאת אותה עלות

יונתן לוינסון: ומהיא העלות

יונתן לוינסון: 99?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: 49ש"ח חד פעמי

יונתן לוינסון: ואז לחודש?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: 160ש"ח כולל ספק

יונתן לוינסון: כשאת אומרת ספק

יונתן לוינסון: המובן doubt

יונתן לוינסון: או המובן distributor

יונתן לוינסון: ?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: Content Provider

שרי - נציגת מכירות: מה דעתך?

יונתן לוינסון: עכשו הבנתי

יונתן לוינסון: מה עלות 2.5 עם הספק

שרי - נציגת מכירות: 85.9ש"ח לחודש

שרי - נציגת מכירות: 85.9ש"ח לחודש

יונתן לוינסון: אם אני בוחר ב2.5 האים אני יכול להעלות ל5 או 7 במשך השנה?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: כן, אפשרי תמיד

יונתן לוינסון: וכמה זה עולה לשנות מ2.5 למשהו יותר גביה

שרי - נציגת מכירות: כ120ש"ח ל 5 מגה יחד עם ספק

יונתן לוינסון: אבל אין השלמות חד-פעמיות בעבור ההחלפה נכון?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: לא, אין

יונתן לוינסון: טוב

יונתן לוינסון: אז אני רוצה לעשות הזמנה

יונתן לוינסון: ל2.5

יונתן לוינסון: יש הנחה לעולים חדשים?

שרי - נציגת מכירות: על שם מי עושים את ההזמנה?

יונתן לוינסון: יונתן לוינסון

אינך משוחח כעת עם נציג האתר

Shipping #5 - summary of total door-to-door costs

[One thing I forgot to mention earlier was insurance. Dolphin only had one insurance option - you write out a list of your stuff, declare how much it's worth and pay 2.5% of that. Sonigo had more complex options, and I don't know about Aliyah Lift.

For the stuff we were actually worried about (such as china), we declared their real value. For everything else, we declared the value to be much less than what it actually was, so we wouldn't have to pay as much. Of course, had that stuff actually been ruined we'd only get that small amount back from the insurance company. But it worked out ok.]

So here's what it all cost in the end. I hope I'm not leaving anything out.

(Yeah I did a printscreen on this one... don't know how to put tables in blogger...)

So all in all, we paid a bunch, but we got our money's worth.

Shipping #4 - on the Israeli side

The last leg of our shipping process involved 5 steps.

Step 1:

We had to decide when we wanted Dolphin to ship our stuff. As I mentioned before, Dolphin uses Zim and Zim has so many boats going out each week that depending on what day we picked, Dolphin would know exactly what day it would land in Israel. Still, we were wary of unexpected delays and the last thing we wanted was for our shipment to not be there when we got there. On the other hand, we still didn't have a flight date yet, and we also didn't want the shipment sitting in the port for more than 30 days, since they would start charging us.

We decided to wait one week, and instead of shipping it out the week of Aug 22, we shipped it the week of Aug 29. It ended up arriving on Sep 19, exactly when they said it would.

Step 2:

We had to fill out some paperwork to get our shipment through the Israeli port. Dolphin gave me a few forms to fill out. They were all in Hebrew, and at first I was a little nervous about filling them out correctly. But when I called someone told me just to sign next to the arrows and they would fill in the rest.

After that, I was only in contact with a woman who works for Lidor (Dolphin's Israeli arm). I emailed her a scanned picture of my passport, and a scanned copy of the lease I'd signed on our apartment in Israel. That was it.

When Sep 19 passed, we were informed that our shipment had arrived in the port. At this point, something occurred to us: we knew that as new Olim we were exempt from custom tax. But we hadn't sent anyone any proof that we were new Olim. We were worried that we might have to send someone from Israel down to the port, or else be charged customs taxes that we knew we'd never get back.

Thankfully, though, that never happened. Instead, we just got a bill for the port fees, with the customs section blank.

Step 3:

We had to wire the money to Lidor to get our stuff through. We first tried doing this at Bank of America in Philly, but it didn't work. Lidor had given us the standard bank identification information - bank number, branch number, account number - but not enough for an international wire (you'd think that, being an international shipping company, they would have enough experience not to make this blunder...).

Instead, we had Rachel's sister wire the money to Lidor, and we essentially paid her back. This worked out fine for us, but it would have been annoying if we didn't have someone in Israel to do that for us.

Step 4

Once the money was wired, all that was left was to schedule the delivery. By this point we knew we were landing at 6:30 AM Monday, and so we asked the woman from Lidor if we could have a delivery Monday as late as possible. She said the latest she could do was around 1:30 on Monday. We knew that in theory we'd have plenty of time, but we didn't know how long the aliyah processing in the airport would take.

The final arrangement was that I would call the Lidor woman on Monday morning from the airport. If we were running late, she would cancel the Monday afternoon delivery and push if off till Tuesday. If we were on time, the Monday delivery was on.

This plan did not work. Even though our aliyah experience was smooth as silk, for some reason Lidor was not able to make the delivery happen on Monday. We slept on some borrowed mattresses, and awaited delivery on Tuesday.

Step 5

The delivery guys introduced themselves Tuesday afternoon by shouting up at my window. I went down and told them they were at the right place. To my surprise they parked their (very large) truck directly in front of the bus stop that lies just outside our front door. When I pointed this out to them, the responded with annoyed expressions and gestures; they asked me if I had a better idea of where to park the truck. I let it go, and the unpacking began. It was all going great, until they got to the sofa.

One of the guys walked up to our apartment's doorway and made a mental measurement. "The sofa won't fit" he concluded. I disagreed, and told him so. He started lecturing me about his 20 years of experience in the matter, but luckily the other two guys decided to bringing the sofa up anyway. However, it truly would not fit through.

As the guys brought in the rest of our stuff, they gave me a single option: the sofa could be brought in through the window, but it would be expensive. He seemed to be implying that he would need to get a crane or something. I asked how much, and he said he wasn't sure, but it would be 800-900 shekel.

We considered our options, but we didn't have many. We could leave the sofa on the ground, albeit wrapped up in plastic, but then what? It would have to be taken apart to fit through, and we didn't want that.

Eventually the main mover offered me a deal. He knew that we were going to tip them, so he said for 1000 shekel, they would cover tips for everyone and the hoisting of the sofa. At this point it seemed like the crane was no longer an option; I'm guessing he couldn't get it. But they could still hoist it up with ropes.

The price was obviously totally made up, and we recognized a negotiation situation. But I was tired and not confident in my Hebrew. Plus, we had about zero leverage in this situation. The sofa was on the ground and they were the only ones who could get it in. I offered him a few hundred less, and they laughed in our faces. They actually started setting up the ropes before we finally caved and said ok, just hoist the thing up.

With some flair and some drama, they hoisted up the sofa. we coughed up the cash, and they went home. We were a little shaken by the unexpected expenditure, but then sank happily into our hard-earned couch.

We were done.

Shipping #3 - on the American side

I had been in touch with several people from Dolphin. The first was the Israeli we met at the aliyah fair, whose name was Sharon. The second was Moti, the guy who came to our apartment to do the estimate. The third was Randy, some guy with a southern accent who would call me from their Israel office and try to convince me to go with them. I ended up signing through Randy, but not before I asked for a discount. Intead of the proposed $1800 for 250 cubic feet and $5.25 for every cubic foot afterwards, he gave me $1900 for 300 cubic feet and $5.25 for every cubic foot afterwards, which saved us about $150.

Randy told me that we could have our pickup on the day we wanted, Sunday Aug 22. He also said that the truck would have markings inside so that we could we could watch the movers pack up our boxes in real time and see how much volume it took up. This was good news for us, because we wanted to be able to make last minute decisions - perhaps we would decide not to pack an item that pushed the volume too high.

Keep in mind, though, that the people who actually come and pack up your stuff are not Dolphin, but rather someone contracted out by Dolphin. This means that Dolphin can promise you whatever it wants, but in reality it's some other guy doing the work.

Now came the really hard part - deciding which stuff to take to Israel, and which stuff not to take. And, perhaps more importantly, what to DO with all the stuff we weren't taking to Israel.

Rachel and I had already discussed and agreed on the major items. We were taking the sofa, and our (collapsable) wooden table and its chairs. We weren't taking lamps and other electrical appliaces. But, as in all apartments, the important stuff is the "stuff" - all the random things you couldn't name off the top of your head and don't realize you own... until you move.

Now, if neither money nor apartment size in Israel are a problem for you, I recommend just letting the movers pack it all up. But we didn't want to spend too much money, and we didn't know how big our apartment in Israel would be.

And so, over the course of the week leading up to our moving date, we started going through our apartment room by room, sorting things. We asked Dolphin for moving boxes in advance, and they dropped them off promptly (again, it helped that we lived a few minutes away from their warehouse). We set up these boxes in the living room. Things that were to be brought to Israel went in the boxes - not carefully packed, but just put in there for sorting purposes. Things that were to remain in the US were piled up; and that pile grew higher each day. Some of that stuff we sold, some of it we gave away, and some of it we stuffed into my parents' car which Ashy drove out on the moving day (thanks Ashy!). The rest of it we stuffed into our Focus and drove down to Philly after the move.

As we went through this process, we had to constantly decide whether or not to bring a certain item to Israel. I can't say that we followed any hard-and-fast rule of thumb, but things that didn't make the cut included redundant wedding gifts (like extra challah boards and havdalah sets), 120 volt appliances, and large furniture that wasn't important (like an old desk and a desk chair). We brought all our dishes and kitchenware. We brought all our books; when you pay for volume instead of weight, books are a bargain. We brought our sofa, beds, a collapsible table, chairs, a folding table, three framed items (including Rachel's ketuba), and a stained-glass work that we made ourselves. In the end, everything survived the move.

Here's how it went down Sunday morning:

We were expecting the moving guys some time in the morning. We thought there might be 3 or 4 of them. I ran out to Dunkin Donuts and bought a dozen doughnuts and a box of coffee. When I returned, the guys had already arrived and the whirlwind of packing had begun. There were only two of them, one big burly guy with a Russian accent, and his helper, a little guy who only spoke Spanish. I offered them the doughnuts and coffee, but the big guy told me he was fasting. Later, I asked him why and he gave me an incredelous look and said "Ramadan!" Oh. Well at least the little guy got to eat them.

We had wanted to watch them very closely - see how they are packing things, make sure they are utilizing the volume as best as possible, etc. But this didn't really happen. We would invariably have to run down to the car or somewhere else, and they were just moving too fast anyway. We had no chance of really offering any input, but in the end they really did know best. Rachel wanted to watch them wrap up our good china, and she may have watched some of it, but at the end of the day, we put our trust in them and it worked out ok.

We did commit one oversight. All of our aliyah related documents, such as our birth certificates, our "apostille" copy of our marriage license, letters proving we were Jewish, etc. all got packed away in boxes. We meant to separate them out and have them on our person for aliyah, but we forgot. In the end, we were lucky and we didn't need them in the airport, but the moral of the story is to make sure you set aside the things you don't want them to pack up. Leave the packing to them, don't try to help out.

It turned out that the part about them having measurements in the truck was not true. So we weren't able to make any last minute decisions about what we wanted to take or not take. The main guy told us that he thought we were somewhere between 300 and 350, which wasn't too far off from what we were expecting.

And that was it. We tipped them, and they drove off. We packed up the Focus, and left Elizabeth behind.

Acronyms

I just learned the Hebrew terms for the classification of living things:

kingdom ממלכה

phylum מערכה

class מחלקה

order סידרה

family משפחה

genus סוג

species מין

Now, as long as I remember that King Phillip Came Over For Grape Soda, I'm good.

But - מממסמס"מ ?

M!

The Adventures of Flyshack +1 has surpassed 1,000 all time visitors!

Hooray!

Shipping #2 - picking a shipper

Rachel and I first decided to start checking out shippers this past June, about 4 months before our aliyah itself. The Jewish Agency was running an aliyah fair and we went, hoping to scout out a couple solid options. In the end, only one shipper was actually there at the fair - Dolphin Express. Quite coincidental, seeing as we ultimately chose them, but we didn't decide then and there, but rather decided to research some more companies.

NBN's website has an extensive list of shippers, although not all of them were relevant to us. We had to sort through the list and figure out which shippers were based out of the US, as opposed to other countries, and which ones were based out of our area. Fortunately for us, we lived in Elizabeth, NJ, whose port is where many, if not all, Israel-bound containers are loaded up on ships and sent out. Dolphin, for example, is based out of Elizabeth and has its headquarters there. I don't know about the others, but we definitely knew that we wouldn't be paying extra for geography - which would be the case if wanted to have our stuff picked up in some other East Coast city and had it shipped from Elizabeth. It's possible, for example, that there are local shippers in Baltimore that ship from the port of Baltimore, but obviously we didn't look into that.

On the NBN site there is a system for rating shippers. The idea is that if you're someone like me, you can avoid the hassle of calling up 40 different companies and just call the ones with good ratings. The problem is that only a few companies had ratings, and some had conflicting ratings. We ended up choosing to get in touch with two companies from the list - Aliyah Lift Shipping (because they had a nice looking website, and they were close to the beginning of NBN's list) and Sonigo (because a friend suggested it). We also contacted one other company, not on NBN's list, recommended by friends who were also shipping stuff that same summer - Echo Trans World.

We liked the guy we talked to from Echo Trans World, because he was pretty calm and laid back. But when we look for online reviews, they were all pretty negative, so we crossed them off the list. Sonigo and Aliyah Lift Shipping got pretty good reviews, so we decided to get quotes from them. Dolphin had a lot of reviews, probably more than any other company. Most were good, but some were bad.

Side note - shipper reviews, like restaurant reviews, have to be taken with a grain of salt. In both cases, a very good business can get a bad review from a cranky customer whose complaint is less-than justifiable. Also, those who do more business are more likely to get reviewed by some of these people. So if you see all bad reviews, beware. But, personally, when I see mostly good reviews I try and figure out if the bad reviews are legitimate, or due to crankiness.

So we started calling the three companies to get estimates. All the conversations basically went the same way. First, they tried to get an idea of how much stuff we were bringing by asking us to list the major pieces of furniture, and then to describe the rest. Sometimes they had - on their website or in a form - a list of common items with their approximate cubic footage. Based on one of these systems, they gave us a rough estimate of our volume. They also asked for information regarding the timing. We told them we wanted a pickup in August and that we were making aliyah in October and wanted our stuff then. We were generally told this wouldn't be a problem, but - as we will see later - herein lies the difference between companies, the difference that would make our decision for us.

At the end of each conversation, we wanted an estimate. Of course none of them wanted to give us numbers until they sent a guy to our apt to look over our stuff in person. Still, Dolphin and Aliyah Lift Shipping were pretty open about their rate per cubic foot. Sonigo was hesitant to give me a set rate, as if it perhaps depended on the overall deal. At the end of the day, everyone was in the ballpark of $5-$6 per cubic foot.

At this point, I should explain that the overall cost of shipping is composed of three parts: 1. price per cubic foot, multiplied by the number of cubic feet, 2. fees on the US side and 3. fees on the Israeli side. I'm pretty sure that, no matter who you ship with, you will pay the same amount on the Israeli side (in our case about 2200 shekel). The difference lies in how much they charge for volume, and what kind of fees they have on the US side. For example, Dolphin had a fuel charge. Things like that.

Each company had its own personality in terms of customer service. Dolphin is made up mostly of Israeli men. They were nice, but slightly used-car-salesman-y. They told us they were the best in such unconvincing terms that they made us a little suspicious. Aliyah Lift Shipping is run by an American oleh. He's pretty mild mannered and nice, not pushy at all. The guy we talked to at Sonigo was also an American oleh, but he was really pushy. Personally, I didn't like it. He kept asking to know the other companies we were considering, and then tried to convince me that I shouldn't trust them, but should trust him, because he was just asked to be an expert witness in a trial in which one of these companies was being accused of ripping off customers... you get the idea.

Some people will simply decide to go with the cheapest shipper, as long as they don't have a bad reputation. That itself is hard to determine because you'll get slightly different estimates from different shippers, and you have to wait for each of them to send out a guy to do that estimate. And, of course, no shipper can give you a solid figure on the amount of money you'll be charged at the Israeli port. Still, you can do your best to do a price comparison.

For us, though, the most important thing was that our shipment come on time. Since our stuff would only fit in part of a lift, the shipping company would have to wait until the lift was full (with other people's stuff) before sending it out. That can lead to serious delays, and the lift might not be there when you get there. For some people, this isn't an issue because they might be temporarily moving to a place where they don't need all their stuff. But we were going to be moving into an empty apartment, and we needed our stuff.

So I decided to see which company could fill that lift the fastest. The truth is, it depended not on the company itself, but the shipping line they use. If they use a shipping line that does a lot of business, it stands to reason that your lift will fill up fast and get there on time. I knew that Dolphin ships with Zim, which is a huge-ungus shipping company. But neither Aliyah Lift Shipping nor Sonigo uses Zim. Aliyah Lift Shipping seemed like the smallest operation, and so I crossed them off the list first. Sonigo told me that August was definitely a busy season for them, but they couldn't guarantee anything. I felt that their worst-case scenario was pushing it too close to our expected aliyah date (although that itself ended up getting pushed off a week). Dolphin, on the other hand was unequivocal - they said they could guarantee that if our stuff was picked up on a Sunday, it could be on the ship that Wednesday if we wanted. They do that much business.

In the end, we went with Dolphin. They weren't the cheapest, and we might have saved several hundred dollars by going with Sonigo, but as long as we were spending $2,000+ already, it was worth it to throw in a little extra to make sure it got there on time.

Shipping #1 Aliyah Shipping Myth

[Shipping is a big topic, and will have to be divided into segments]

First of all, let’s dispel the great Shipping Myth that has, for some reason or another gained traction.

The free lift (lift = 20 foot shipping container)
You don’t get a free lift when you move to Israel. It is not one of your זכויות. Maybe it used to be; I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what Israel used to give new olim. Someone even told me once that new olim got a free car, which I find particularly hard to believe considering Israel’s general attitude towards car ownership - that cars are luxury items that need to be taxed far beyond their actual value... but I digress.

Another topic which, while not exactly a myth, is that of Splitting a Lift. Some people think that if they don’t have enough stuff to fill a full lift, they need to find someone to split it with. This is not true. Any shipping company will be happy to come to your place, pack up your stuff, and fit it on a lift along with other customers of theirs. They’ll just charge you for the volume (in cubic feet) that your stuff takes up, plus the other usual fees.

Some people are uneasy about their stuff being in the same shipping container as someone else’s. I’m not really sure why, since everything is either in a cardboard box, or wrapped up in tons of heavy duty plastic wrap and mounted on a wooden palette.

The one situation in which it would come in handy to share a lift is when you don’t want to wait. If you ship with a company that doesn’t do a lot of business, or if you ship during a slow shipping season, then the shipping company might have to wait for a couple weeks until the shipping container is full. We avoided this problem by shipping with a company that does a lot of business... more on that later.

Oops

In the course of dealing with formatting issues, I've been writing posts, then taking them down, then putting them up again, and doing so several times.

I thought that this doesn't affect the RSS but apparently I was wrong.

So sorry for putting superfluous RSS's in your Google Reader...

Windows 7 question

Also, remember the desktop button, which you could click and it would clear everything out of your sight? What happened to it? I want it back!

Check out my new pictures!

UPDATE: Organize --> Layout --> uncheck "nagivation pane"

Thanks, Avi Berkowitz!

Kupat Cholim

If you recall, number one on misrad haklita’s Llist of things to do was to sign up for a health insurance provider. To do this, you take a letter from the m’ haklita and take it to the post office. After waiting forever until your number is called, you show them the letter and tell them which kupa you want. You show them your teudah oleh. Then you sign something, and if you have a spouse they sign it too. Then you bring it to your local kupa and take it from there.

Rachel and I wanted to do a lot of research before we chose the best health insurance. In the end, though, we went with Maccabi not based on a rigorous comparison, but based on numerous advantages in our situation. Maccabi is very close to our apartment, and they have general physicians we can see. Although there are technically four national health insurers, people say you pretty much choose between Maccabi and Klalit, because of their size and prevalence. We heard Maccabi was good, and when we went to their office to get information, a woman in line overheard us and told us that Maccabi was great and that she had switched from Klali. That helped convince us, and we decided just to go with it.

We’ll let you know how it works out.

Booket

There is a store not far from our apartment with the puzzling name בוקט. We weren't sure what it was because it contained no description.

However, the next time we saw it we noticed a flower next to the name. It was then that we realized that בוקט was a transliteration of the word bouqet, only whoever named the store didn't realize that the t is silent.

Oh, Israel.

Israel: Day One

Our flight landed around 6:45 AM, and when we got out of the plane there was a middle aged man from the AACI waiting right after we got through the walkway that takes you out of the plane and into the airport. He was holding a hand written sign with seven names, two of which were Horwitz and Levinson. He spoke with a heavy New York accent and when we had all assembled he led the way.

His name was Shmuel, and he had made aliyah in '69 (the airport was a lot less of a fortress back then, he said). Although AACI and Nefesh B'Nefesh do essentially the same thing - make aliyah easier for Anglos - the two have different feels about them. AACI is older, and its staff/volunteers seem to hail from older generations of Anglo olim. NBN is younger. And while NBN handles the group flights, AACI is there for you when you make aliyah as an individual.

This worked out perfectly for us. We followed Shmuel to the part of the airport where you get in one of the passport lines. We went into one of the empty Israeli lines and each declared aliyah (as in, verbally declared). After that, we took a nearby elevator up to the misrad klita.

Shmuel said that any group larger than about 8 or 9 gets taken to Terminal 1, the old airport. That's because the office in the new airport is tiny, with only room for a couple people. In Terminal 1 they have a much bigger, more streamlined office. Our group was small enough, which meant we didn't have to waste an extra hour and a half just traveling to and from Terminal 1.

All that happens in the misrad haklita office is that you are given a piece of paper to sign with you mispar zehut on it. You are then given a piece of paper to take to the post office (for your health insurance) and a piece of paper to take to the bank. Shmuel very clearly labels each sheet 1, 2 and 3, and writes where to take each. Step 4 is to go to your local misrad klita and just sum up all of what you've done.

Then you go into a room where a sullen Russian guy withdraws some cash from a giant ATM and gives it to you. And like that, you are officially Israeli!

Our cab was really more like a 15 seater van for just the two of us, which was good because we had so much stuff. We left the airport around 9 AM, confident that we would get to Haifa in plenty of time to meet our shippers, who were supposed to come that afternoon around 1.

However, when we called the shippers it turned out that they had to postpone our delivery until Tuesday morning. It felt like we had wasted the whole expedited processing for nothing. Still, Tuesday wasn't so bad. Aside from some traffic, it was a pleasant ride up to Haifa.

When we arrived at our new place, our landlady had adorned the door with a handwritten ברוכים הבאים sign. She greeted us warmly, and showed us to our new kitchen table, where she had set up cold drinks for us. A few minutes later she brought out a celebratory cake in our honor. As if this wasn't enough, she showed us where to pull out mattresses from storage after hearing about the delay in our shipping. We couldn't have asked for more.

The rest of the day consisted of napping, getting a few groceries and pharmacy items (see hydrogen peroxide), and using our laptops until their batteries ran out... since we didn't have adapter plugs. But it was better that our computers forced us to resist the temptation to use them, because the sleep into which we promptly collapsed was much-needed.

Sitting in the Airport

[Note: some of these posts may be out of order, but I'll try not to confuse the reader too much]

We’re sitting in Newark International Airport, about to board El Al flight 28 to Tel Aviv; our tickets are one-way. Emotions are running high, and many tears were shed by mothers and reassuring pats delivered by fathers. But we can’t get emotional now, because we need to stay focused on the next 24 hours.

Here’s the plan:

We land at 6:30 AM in Israel. When we do, a volunteer from AACI (Association of American and Canadian Immigrants, a non-profit kind of Nefesh B’Nefesh, just slightly less well-known) is supposed to meet us along with the 6 other olim on our flight, and bring us up to the misrad haklita, where we will hopefully receive our teudat oleh, mispar zehut, some cash, and two vouchers – one for health care and a second one for a free cab to our destination: our new apartment in Haifa. When we get to Haifa, the shippers will come deliver our things from the lift, and we’ll have everything under our roof when we go to sleep Monday night.

That is, if everything goes as planned. There could potentially be several hiccups.

First of all, we don’t have original copies of our documents (birth certificates, marriage license, proof-of-Judaism letter, etc.), only photocopies. Our originals are on the lift. This means that the misrad haklita in the airport could theoretically deny us some or all of the things we need to get from them. If they do, we will have to wait until we get the documents, and then go to a misrad klita in Haifa, or possibly go back to the misrad haklita in the airport.

In theory, that means they might not give us the voucher for the free cab we need. Since we have way too much stuff to consider taking a bus or train, we’ll have to pay out of pocket for a cab if the government doesn’t.

In theory, the processing at the airport should not take very long, and we should be on our way up to Haifa at most a few hours after our 6:30 landing, plenty of time to make it there by 12-1 PM. But if, for whatever reason stuff at the misrad klita takes longer, then we have to call the shippers and tell them to postpone our delivery until Tuesday morning. Not the end of the world, but considering the fact that we also might have to redo the misrad klita stuff, and that we still have a whole laundry list of chores that we need to take care of this week.

So that’s the story. Differences of advice abound regarding the best way to deal with Israeli bureaucracy. Some say to play dumb, or even be sweet. Others suggest fighting fire with fire – if they ask you rhetorical questions (“Why don’t you have your documents, don’t you know you’re supposed to have them?”), answer back with your own (“Are we the first people to ever make aliyah?”)

We’re hoping to keep these hiccups to a minimum, but, then again, it wouldn’t really be aliyah without one or two.

UPDTATE: We’re on the plane, and it’s every El Al stereotype rolled into one. We are seated among an army of chassidish bochrim, who decided to rearrange half the plane in order to optimize their seating arrangement, while arguing with the flight attendants. The flight took off an hour later than scheduled, though the pilot assured the passengers that we’ll land on time (maybe he knows a shortcut). And, just before takeoff, as if on cue, one or two babies began screaming hysterically. Oh, how we miss US Airways.

Hydrogen Peroxide

I was in SuperPharm looking for hydrogen peroxide, but I didn't know how to say it in Hebrew and I didn't see it on any of the shelves. I asked the checkout clerk, but she didn't know what "hydrogen peroxide" was. I explained that it's a chemical and she told me to go check with the pharmacy people behind the counter in the back.

The lady in the back didn't know what hydrogen peroxide was, nor did the second lady who was called over as the English specialist. The second lady asked what is was for, and I explained that I had an operation and needed to clean out the area. She knew right away what I was looking for.

To double check, though, she wrote out on a piece of paper H2O2 and looked at me inquisitively. I laughed and replied yes. I guess it helps to know the chemical formula for something in Israel.

It's מי חמצן by the way.

+1

Although this should have probably been done last December, I have retitled this blog appropriately.

Update

I haven't posted since April 2009. Since then, I've had a lot of undocumented adventures.

I met and married an amazing and wonderful woman. I worked for the Man, moved to New Jersey, and experienced car ownership.

I even started another blog!

But I've decided to return to The Adventures. This should NOT (as I tactfully explained to Rochel) suggest that I haven't had any adventures since April 2009. On the contrary, marriage, jobs, and the rest of real life provide one with a whole new set of excellent, extraordinary adventures.

But the reason I've returned to the Adventures is that Rochel and I are moving to Israel. And moving to Israel always means lots of interesting stories which, really, is what blogging is all about.

So, for the next foreseeable future, this blog will document our Adventures in Israel.