"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!