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.

Breakthrough Engineering

Wouldn't "Breakthrough Engineering" be a great name for an engineering consulting firm?

The idea would be: get a bunch of really smart engineers together who would work on technologies that are "10 years away" and try to overcome the barriers keeping them from being scaled up.

Take superconductors, for example. If we had a national grid made out of superconductors, we'd have a much better grid. In fact, if we don't one day have such a high volume grid, we probably will start experiencing lots of problems pretty soon. More blackouts, expensive electricity.. you get the picture.

Same thing goes for ultracapacitors. If they existed, oh man. Electric cars would be the norm, and they would be cheap, too. The world would be a better place for sure.

Now why, do you ask, would it be better to have a firm full of engineers working on these problems? After all, aren't there already companies trying to do this? Aren't the people who know these technologies the ones best suited to think of solutions?

I'd say: not necessarily. In the same way that management consultants are able to often see how to run a business better than people who may have been running that business their entire lives, a team of exceptionally smart engineers might be able to see solutions that the people who have been scratching their heads for years did not.

Also, from a practicality standpoint, no technology company can afford to hire a think tank full of engineers. Each has its own team, but they have to also hire technicians, accountants, lawyers... what if they could just outsource the brains of the operation to a group of really smart people whose sole job it is to be the brains?

I wonder if this exists already, I just don't know about it.