oved’s sabich (the best in the universe) teaches you how to order your sabich!
vocabulary list, translated:
to hummus
to eggplant
to egg
to salad
to tehina
to onion
to parsley
ah, the richness of the (invented parts of) the hebrew language.
and, of course, when properly ordering a sabich, you don’t really need this vocabulary — you just need to say “hacol” (everything)!
i thought my first few months in israel were surprisingly easy — besides from a few things at my bank (an unusually terrible bank, even by israeli standards), everything in terms of the government and my absorption in general went exactly as it should have, or even better. i had to make only one trip to the office of absorption, got a really well priced cell phone plan, found a job without too much fuss, and have adapted pretty well to hebrew. (people now ask me only after a few minutes where my accent is from, instead of pegging me as an american right off the bat. one of my kids at the after-school even told me my accent was beautiful. really, though?)
so, when i heard horror stories about difficulties during the absorption process, i thought that for some reason, i just wasn’t going to have to deal with any of the typical “olim problems.” i have recently learned that this was, indeed, a rare moment of optimism for me, and that i have to suffer the same amount of red tape as everyone else.
i realized a few months ago that i couldn’t keep relying on busses. my commute was taking around two and a half hours a day for only four hours of work. what’s worse is that the city i work in is insanely close to justify such a commute, about 20 minutes by car. i decided that the only real solution was to buy a scooter. (need justification? you can park them just about anywhere, they’re incredibly fuel efficient, you sit in less traffic as you can ride between stopped cars, and they’re cheap, relatively speaking.)
this was around 3 months ago. i still do not have a scooter. this is why.
first i had to pick the scooter i wanted and find somewhere to buy it. this turned out to actually not be so difficult, as there are only two big companies that export scooters here, and there’s only one store for each brand. it came down to two options, and the scooter i eventually chose came with the clause that the scooter license was included in the cost. the catch was that the lessons had to be done with a specific teacher in holon. i, for some reason, decided that this didn’t sound sketchy or annoying, and paid the deposit.
it turned out that, like everywhere, it takes a really long time to get to holon. and that the teacher i was with didn’t actually do much teaching. the first day went something like this:
“here’s your helmet and vest. here’s a scooter. this is how you turn it on. go!”
i thought this might be some kind of daring sink-or-swim teaching method, but it turns out the guy is just lazy and expects you to more or less teach yourself. this was problematic because i obviously know less about driving in israel than the average israeli, so everything i learned, i learned through trial and error.
for example, it turns out that you have to ride on a certain side of the street depending on the turn you have just made or are about to make, and depending if the street is one- or two-way. all in all there are about seven different turning situations, and i guess you’re either expected to just intuit them or have them memorized before your lessons; you’re never formally taught. instead, when i made a wide turn onto the right side of a road (as opposed to a tight one, onto the left) it was followed by the teacher riding over to me and yelling at me in slang-filled, mizrachi-tinged hebrew. needless to say, i understood maybe every other word. maybe less. (an aside: it occurs to me that this might be how my kids at the after-school feel when i yell at them in english. duly noted.) if i said i didn’t understand, sometimes he would explain more clearly, sometimes he didn’t have the patience. one time i really almost got run over by a taxi — and yes, it was the taxi’s fault — and got yelled at for swerving out of the way. it’s frustrating to not be able to explain myself quickly.
additionally this guy was absolutely crazy, even according to other people. i really don’t understand why he had so many students; if i could have switched to a different teacher, i definitely would have. besides being terrible at his job, he is a total asshole and has no problem telling me, “you should go back to ulpan, your hebrew sucks” or asking “how is that an american is dating a russian?”
after i started the scooter lessons, i went through the process of car driver’s license conversion, a process that i thought would (and eventually, did) shorten the whole scooter licensing process. it marked my third(?) time at the licensing office, this terrible terrible place in holon that seems to be packed with people at all hours. there are literally something like six hours of the week and one location for license conversion, for everyone living in the central district. surprisingly, every time i find myself in the licensing office, someone is always nice enough to give me their number for the spot in line. (government offices here work the way deli counters work in america, very advanced stuff.)
to these mysterious israelis: thank you. i owe you one.
while you’re waiting in line to have the paperwork done, a hoard of driving instructors creepily mingle with the olim waiting in line, making small talk, confirming that you understand hebrew, and then throwing in, “oh hey, by the way, i do driving lessons so here’s my card.”
to convert your license, you only need to take one lesson and then a test. relatively speaking, the conversion process is UNBELIEVABLY easier and cheaper than getting an israeli license without conversion. after the paperwork was done, i did a lesson with one of these instructors (who was actually very helpful and sympathetic and even drew me pictures when i didn’t understand what he was saying), and then passed the driving test, which was unspeakably easy. i didn’t even have to park!
the whole process — even though i had only one lesson(!) cost around 1,000 shekels. i can’t believe people agree to pay this much for such a simple thing! but then, there’s no way around it.
i thought i was at the end of the road with the scooter license, now that i had my israeli car license to smooth the process. turns out that i’m terrible at driving the scooter and following traffic laws and so i had to do an unexpected 13 lessons. in the middle of this whole stretch, there were about two weeks of holidays and a week of rain, during which i couldn’t do lessons. last week, the teacher finally agreed to let me do a test, and i passed, miraculously! (i account this success not to my driving skills, but to the fact that my teacher worked the system for me and had me do my test with the easiest tester, and one who is sympathetic to olim hadashim. win!)
my scooter is on its way and i should have it in about a week or so. pictures are forthcoming! i’m a little tentative to say that these licensing problems are in the past — who knows what can still go wrong? however, right now i’m glad that all the lessons and tests are behind me, and i’m looking forward to being really mobile now. goodbye, busses!
one of the greatest perks of living in israel is that, unlike in america, you don’t have to observe both national/government holidays as well as religious ones. here, jewish holidays are official holidays. this means that instead of having time off for christmas and easter, we have time off for sukkot and pesach.
sukkot is a long holiday, but only its first two and last two days are considered important enough that nearly no one works. this year, this meant that i had three days of work, four days off, repeat. plenty of time for holiday adventures! because fall has finally arrived and the heat is now bearable (as opposed to the summer weather, more suitably described as boiling; insufferable) we took the opportunity to do some hiking in the north, near haifa.
in the first hike, we left from haifa near the bay, walked all the way to the university, and then entered the carmel forest and crossed it before making our way to the beach and then walking south along it.
it was a really beautiful hike, characterized by a lot of different beautiful landscapes. it was also a great opportunity to really see and explore haifa, as i’ve never been there for any significant amount of time before. it was a city with a lot of character that (despite the fact that its built onto the face of a giant mountain) was very accessible and had a distinct mountain charm of its own. if tel aviv is israel’s miami, haifa is its san francisco. (also, i recently saw some graffiti that claimed that lod is israel’s chicago. thoughts?)
the most impressive part of the hike was an area called “little switzerland.” can you tell why?
the next few days were filled with excitement in the country, leading up to and following gilad shalit’s release. honestly, when i heard about even the possibility of and exchange of gilad schalit for over 1,000 arab prisoners, i didn’t believe it. regardless of the significance of gilad as a jewish, israeli soldier and as a zionist symbol, the practical ramifications of such an exchange are potentially terrifying. even though most of the prisoners were released overseas, many were not — and we know that while israel’s security is extremely strong, its impossible to close every security gap. not every store or restaurant has a guard and a metal detector at the entrance. just from living in israel this long, i know that checks of my bag upon entering transportation hubs, malls, and stores are anything but thorough.
perhaps the scariest part of this exchange was that negotiations with terrorists happened at all. now that hamas knows that israel will pay such a huge price for the return of one soldier, why wouldn’t they try a similar move again? and now that netanyahu has set the precedent of such a trade, wouldn’t the israeli public demand another prisoner exchange?
regardless, it was great to see gilad come home. even though i was working on the day of his release, i was able to sneak peaks at the tv that was playing before a good-sized audience in the lobby of the country club that i work at. my objection to the exchange aside, no one can not be touched by gilad’s homecoming. i’m interested to see his first interviews with the israeli media as soon as he recovers and is able to appear publicly.
on simchat torah max and i went on another hike. we decided to pick a section of the israel trail to hike, mostly because it is well marked and easily adjustable, as you can add different sections together to create a longer hike. we picked a section in the same area as we hiked in the previous week, starting further south and crossing the carmel from east to west. we saw a lot of the destruction from the giant forest fire last december — its encouraging to see that even though there are whole sections of forest filled with burned trees, that new life is growing on the forest floor.
there were also a lot of parts of the hike that were unaffected by the fire (despite signs that said “entrance forbidden” due to the burned trees) and the mountain provided a lot of scenic lookout spots as well as some typical fall, foresty spots.
now we’re back home and enjoying one of the last summery weekends before it starts to become something like the northeastern fall i’m used to. even though the holidays were fun, i’m glad to start getting back to to the routine of non-chag life.
Immigration to Israel increased by 19 percent over the last twelve months, the Jewish Agency announced this week. During the Jewish year of 5771, which ends next Wednesday, about 21,300 Jews moved to Israel, up from 17,883 new immigrants in 5770.
its almost rosh hashanah (new year) and every municipality, company, and organization has taken it upon itself to wish each and every person a happy new year.
max and i went to the supermarket today to stock up before the holiday and noticed that at the bottom of our receipt it was noted that we were entitled to receive a “lone apple” (תפוח בודד) as a gift. thanks, mega!
it rained three times in the last three days! thankfully i was only caught outside in the rain once.
the weather is strange here — even when it seems to be a nice day, rain suddenly breaks out seemingly randomly. from what i can tell, there’s a half-an-hourish warning (characterized by ominous-looking clouds and cold wind), followed by a short but intense rainfall. on the plus side, the sun always returns… its never a rainy day, just a rainy hour or so.
