Long over due update

A Long One: Since this is a long one, I included a Table of Contents for your easy viewing:

1. Sukkot at Ein Hashofet
2. Eilat= E-ilat of Fun
3. New Apartment
4. New Friends
5. Hebrew Word of the Blog
6. Oren Report

1. Sukkot at Ein Hashofet

For Sukkot we rented a car and headed north to Kibbutz Ein Hashofet. This is where Oren’s mom grew up. What a beautiful place!!! This is one of the only fully functioning Kibbutz’s left. By fully functioning, I mean that it still operates under the philosophy that the kibbutz was established. For example: Everyone on the kibbutz has a particular job that they are responsible for during the work week, you can eat at the cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner, holiday celebrations are open the to the community and there is a swimming pool, tennis courts, grocery store and a general store. It is a very friendly place. The type that would be perfect to raise a family! (Although, the strollers they use are hideous, but functional. It is like a playpen on wheels).

We spent time with Oren’s grandfather who is 93 years old. He is one of the founding members of the Kibbutz from 1937. He loved visiting with Oren and talking about the Kibbutz. Bracha is in town for the month of October. He also loves his time with her twice a day!!!

During our visit to Ein Hashofet we stayed with Bracha in a hotel like room. It had 2 beds and an extra mattress, a bathroom and a small kitchenette. It is sufficient for a short stay.

The highlight of Sukkot was the community dinner at the cafeteria. We were joined by Uncle Lenny, Aunt Daniela and Cousin Ofer (was off from the army for the holiday). It was GREAT getting to know them better! After dinner the kibbutz had a dessert party with plenty of yummy pastries, coffee and tea. Following the dessert party we went to a musical show. Different talents from the kibbutz sang songs and did skits. The theme of the night seemed to be the Lebanon War. They cracked a lot of jokes about the Bomb Shelters. A poem that had people in hysterics was about the lonely bomb shelter that was calling a Hezbollah bomb shelter because he was not used enough. They videotaped the preschool kids while asking them questions about the war. The responses were hilarious (even when translated by Oren). Israeli’s take the war seriously, but they also know how to live their lives. Part of living with uncertainty is easing and/or expressing your concern with jokes!

The following day, Saturday, we went to a Druze market in Dalyita Carmel with Bracha. This is the happening place, because so many places are closed on Saturday’s. Oren and I found solid wood end tables and a coffee table that we bought. It only cost us $140. What a bargain compared to buying imitation wood tables that cost just as much! Even more impressive is the fact that we were able to stuff them in our rental car! After a tiring morning of walking up and down hill we drove to Haifa. In Haifa we walked around the ocean pier. Another beautiful site! Oren and I are hoping to spend more time there during the year.

2. Eilat= E-ilat of Fun

During Sukkot many Israeli’s travel! Whatever the Israeli’s do, Oren and I have to try! OK, it was just an excuse to vacation. Anyway, we spent 3 nights and 4 days in Eilat. Eilat is a resort town, for those of you who do not know. It is known for the coral reefs. We found an awesome internet deal for the Red Mountain Hotel. It turned out to be a nice hotel (Actually, anything was a luxury compared to Beit Shithole) including an Israeli breakfast each morning.

The highlight of our visit was snorkeling. It was INCREDIBLE! We saw the most colorful fish and coral. We went snorkeling in Cozumel on our Honeymoon and it was nothing compared to this. If we ever get our pictures posted you can see some of the fish we saw. If you have read the book Rainbow Fish, we saw a ton of fish that looked like that. There were also sword fish, zebra fish, Nemo fish and much more (Caution: these aren’t the scientific names of the fish). Other highlights include the Aquarium, swimming with the dolphins, eating at a Brazilian Steak house (similar to Fogo de Chow) and eating at an Asian Fusion Restaurant named Giraffe.. Overall, Eilat is a tourist town. We would go back again for the snorkeling, but if we want to go to a beach we will stick to Tel Aviv.

In Eilat, I met more of Oren’s cousins. Ronni, Ami and baby Yoniton. We spent a couple of hours with them at a local park. I hope that we will get to know them better. They are very nice!

The bus ride to and form Eilat is very scenic. During the drive we passed Bedouin Tents, Masada and the Dead Sea. The entire ride was through the desert.

3. New Apartment

We are finally out of Beit Shithole! The last straw is when you can't even go to the bathroom without water leaking on you. Oren joked that I should bring an umbrella in with me! Luckily, I don’t have to deal with that anymore. We are very happy to be in our new apartment! The first couple days were a bit rough. The dust level from remodeling was horrific. It took 3 days to clean out the apartment. Now I have a cold! Lucky me!!! Besides that, things are coming together nicely. We bought a Sopapa (couch/bed), mattress, TV, Refrigerator, Table Oven, 2 burner stove and other odds and ends. Tonight we even had our first home cooked meal: vegetable soup. One of these days we will get our pictures posted! Don’t hold your breath too long, but we are working on it! Supposedly, our internet is being installed next week. If they are not on Israeli time, it will be up and running by Oct. 24. That means we will have our vonage set up!

4. New Friends

Oren and I finally met people! Rachel set us up with her friend Yael. She was so nice and invited us for Simcha Torah! Oren and I tried out a Carelbach service. This is a type of Orthodox service that is very accepting and has a lot of singing and dancing. Many aspects of it we liked, but there were also many that we are uncertain of. It was definitely a good experience. Following services we had dinner at Yael’s apartment. There were 14 of us. We met a lot of Americans and felt very accepted. It was a great Shabbat evening with eating, meeting people and lots of laughs. We are looking forward to going on a double date with Yael and her boyfriend Yossef. Oren even found a group of people that love to hike, rock climb and rappel. I will follow them a long with my first aid kit.

5. Hebrew Word of the Blog

Whenever you get directions from people they say Yashar, Yashar, Yashar. Yashar means straight. For some reason they feel that they must say Yashar 3 or more times, even when you are walking less than a meter.

6. Oren report…

I am tired. From trying to figure which bus to take, to negotiating prices for a can opener at the market, to carrying groceries and laundry ½ a mile, to putting together furniture, to translating for Suzy, and figuring out what something says in Hebrew. All this has made me tired, my back hurts and my mind is melting. Did I mention my second Accounting Masters class started online last week? With all this said, I am enjoying our experience and I am happy here with Suzy. I think we have another 10 days of settling in and figuring some things out. Then all my focus can be on the job hunt and improving my Hebrew.

Interesting things about Israel – Almost everything financial for the ordinary person is done through their bank. Credit cards are first received through your bank. Its seems almost anything above 200 shekels or so can be bought with tashlumim, payments (200 NIS is just under $50 right now and NIS means “New Israeli Shekel”). You go to the grocery store and spend enough, so they ask if you want to pay it out right or tashlumim. I think it’s crazy that you can spread out your grocery bill into payments. Some places give you a discount when paying it all at once or within a few payments vs. 6-12 payments. So how do you pay this and how does it get charged? First, your credit card bill gets deducted from your bank account each month on some specified date (there is a choice). If you choose tashlumim for something, then each month its shows up on the credit and then deducted from your bank account. Either no interest or the interest is seen in the fact that you could get a discount when paid in full at the time of purchase. Then next issue is…what if you cannot pay off your balance with the money in your bank account? Your bank fronts you the money and you are then in minus, or negative. I am not sure yet how that works but I believe there is some sort of interest rate. Also, some recent changes in the law have capped how far people are allowed to go into minus. I cannot get a credit card here until I have a regular income. As far as Israeli banks are concerned, my perfect credit and rental property in the US mean nothing to them (seeing as I could cut and run).