תקס on 15.04.2010 at 20:00

Good day!

I was walking home yesterday on Rochel Imeinu, the main road that leads from the German Colony to my home in Katamon. In passing, I glanced at a sign on a bus shelter and quickly assimilated the following information:

תקס ליום הזכרון
15.04.2010, 20:00
רחוב הפלמח

It was then I knew:
I am well on my way to becoming a full fledged Israeli.

Q. How did I know this?
A. Because such a sign would have baffled me just a few short months ago. I knew what יום הזכרון was - Israel's National Memorial Day for the Fallen and the Victims of Terror.

But I never would have known that:

• תקס = Ceremony
• 15.04.2010 = April 15, 2010
• 20:00 = 8:00pm
• Where the heck רחוב הפלמח (Palmach Road) is. Answer: In the Katamon neighborhood, a street away from my house

Plus, I never could have typed many of the words above in Hebrew. (First because my computer didnt have the capacity, and once it did, because I psychologically couldn't deal with trying to figure out where the letters were.)

So I'm really coming along! I'm glad to see it since I feared, deep in my heart, that I could never hope to master the European metric system, military time or Israeli keyboard (all equally inexplicable and terrifying).

Can I get a what what??

In honor of all those died sacrificing themselves for the nation of Israel

Addendum: Great Crash (not of 1929)

To continue with the saga of the Great Piture Smash of 2010: After I spent some time feeling sorry for myself and cleaned up the glass, I had a little time to think things over. I also spoke to a wise friend or two. It's all about how you look at things, so I'm going to take this as a good sign - since my home is now complete, glass smashing is a 'mazal tov'!

So may I conclude: Thank you G-d, for causing my picture to fall and showing me that I am embarking on a successful path!

In that spirit, I wish you all tons of hatzlacha and happiness on the eve of Pesach, our Festival of Freedom. May the personal chains that bind you be broken and may your spirit be free to soar. Seize the day and do what you love!

xoxoxoxo

I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK....With a List

Hello friends, countrymen, bank clerks and taxi drivers.

I am finally back.

It has been EONS since I last posted and although I know you have been devastated, no one has felt the absence of my blogging more keenly than I.

I have so wanted to post my observations, anecdotes and brilliant ideas on a regular basis. In fact, I have thought about nothing else (except cute boys, food, the great weather, buying furniture, Pesach and remembering to call George, my electrician who hails from Cypress and usually needs to do a service call at the reasonable hour of 7am). Nothing else.

However, I was derailed for over a month by:

• My move to a beautiful but completely empty apartment;
• Starting full-time work and balancing that with ulpan; and
• Of course, a girl needs to eat.

So there has been little time for you, my lovelies. Thankfully, my exile has ended and your Good Girl is back to being Tov, instead of חסרה

What's that? You don't recognize those letters? Why, they're Hebrew! And being the crafty girl that I am, I inserted them in an ever-so-blase manner. Yes, I finally overcame my mental block and have begun the long, bitter struggle to learn to type in Hebrew. (And that Hebrew word means 'absent' if you didn't know.)

Okay, enough of this showy display of re-introducing myself! On to the real stuff!

Well, there's no better way to say this but to be blunt: The party's over, people. I am way off my aliyah high and am in the thick of the daily drudgery of acclimating to the Middle Eastern culture, as well as my new apartment, friends, job and the change in fashion (about which one can never say enough times: "Horrors!").

Yes, I've visited Israel many times before and know the language but let me tell you, it is NOTHING like living here. I must admit that I've burst into tears a number of times. Don't worry, I'm okay. It's all part of it, which I know and so I've been told.

Still, I'm going to give you the harsh reality: It's not easy at all. But nothing easy is ever worth doing, right? (Or so we've been lied to our whole lives, ha ha.)

In any case, I am committed to living here for the long haul, so I am just getting on with it and taking it day-by-day (or "l'aat l'aat" as they say here - it's too much work to type that in Hebrew). But blogging can be a wonderful outlet for feelings. So to give you a full picture of what's been going on, here is a conservatively numbered list of things about Israeli culture that I am not, shall we say, wild about.

*Please note: If you consider this complaining - don't read it! (This disclaimer is quite demonstrative of my acculturation to Israeli norms - I am now incredibly blunt.)

ANYHOO:

Random Things That Do Not Cause Me To Burst Into Song & See Rainbows:

1. Customer service is non-existent: The customer is always wrong. The way I see it, you just need to learn the simple fact that if you ask for assistance from someone who is being paid to help you (and not to converse with their co-workers, drink coffee, talk on the phone or do their nails - to name a few activities), their automatic answer will be LO! NO! (It's just a shift in the way of thinking really - the 'no' stands in for the 'yes' you would get elsewhere.)

2. Less Boundaries: Sample conversation:

Random person (RP): "How much is your rent?"
Me: (laughs nervously): "Oh, enough."
RP: "So nu, how much is it?"
Me: "It's what it should cost, given the size and neighborhood."
RP: "SO???? WHAT IS IT???"
Me: (runs away)

(Okay, I exaggerated. But only slightly.)

3. Bizarre apartment norms: Appliances such as refrigerators and stoves are not automatically included in rentals. You have to be lucky to get them as part of the lease. (I did.) Otherwise, you will have a gaping hole where the stuff you normally expect to be there...is not.

4. Beauty school dropouts: The beauty industry in this country is scary. My eyebrows have been made into straight lines, my hair bleached Donatella Versace blond and I have been inspired to buy shiny, Pepto pink nail polish.

5. Bizarre shish kebab: Just the thought of eating kidneys on a skewer makes me sick. But thanks for offering.

Okay, enough complaining. I'm going to take a nap. I'll wake up on the right side of the bed, don't worry. Until then, mon amies...

Thou Shalt Not Lie...Except to Israeli Customer Service

Let's dispense with the shaloms, shall we? Suffice is to say that yesterday will not go down as a top day in the Shining Pantheon of My Life.

It all started when I was late for the bus to ulpan, again. This time there was no way around it and I had to take a cab. Uch, I hate wasting money so much!! I also have been feeling very out of control in terms of my finances because I have not been logging all of my spending on the usual Excel spreadsheet.

Truly, most of my daily routines have gone out the window with aliyah.

The cab ride was very stressful because some truck drivers decided that rush hour was the opportune time to BLOCK THE ENTIRE ROAD in order to hook up some dumping contraption. I opened my car window and shrieked at them to "ZUZ!" (MOVE!) but of course that didn't help. It just made me feel better.

I did make it to ulpan on time but had to explain why I had missed the prior day. The truth is that I still consider Saturday night the 'woo hoo, time to go out' night, even though Sunday is really a working day here. So I did not get enough sleep and just could not drag my sorry carcass to ulpan that day. Of course I didn't tell the teacher that - white lie #1.

I also had a pressing appointment in Netanya, to meet some co-workers at my new PR job. In order to be there on time, I had to leave ulpan early. This did not please my teacher and I assured her this would not be the norm, explaining that "Pussycat, it hurts me more than it hurts you." (Okay, I didn't use those exact words, but you get the nekudah/point.)

So, I rushed off to catch the bus to Bnei Brak, where I would be meeting a connecting shuttle that would take me to Netanya. I've already complained about the rude bus drivers here, but this dude will go down in the Hall of Fame of Disgruntled Nahagim. When I asked him about the right stop, he grunted at me to ask my fellow passengers.

As if!! After much screaming by me (it's a necessity to get what you need here) I finally figured out where I had to get off. A nice young girl who probably thought I was some ridiculous tourist pointed me to the exact stop, and I rushed off the bus.

About half a minute later I realized that I was no longer in possession of one of my two tote bags (call me a bag lady if you must). And guess what was in that tote? Not my passports, thank G-d, but all of my ulpan materials. Clearly, I am not a position to ace this course, especially considering that we have a test on Wednesday. How my Israeli grammar is going to suffer.

Back to the transportation story from Hell. I had missed my connecting shuttle and ran frantically into some stores in Bnei Brak, where a nice greengrocer looked in the phone book and helped me find another shuttle (at a high price). It was worth it in the end and I'll tell you why.

I called the bus company to explain that I literally had just gotten off the bus and knew the identifying numbers for both the driver and the bus (which were on my ticket). The representative, in what I am told is typical Israeli fashion, told me that the bus company does not, as a practice, keep the private phone numbers of their individual bus drivers.

This mystified me - how the heck do you run a company without knowing the numbers of your bus drivers?? The rep insisted she could not call the bus driver and said I would have to be satisfied with leaving my contact information with her, and she would call me if something was found.

Usually I joke about these matters, but I was really appalled by her baffling lack of sympathy. Having reached my breaking point, I launched into a tirade for the benefit of my driver whereby I screeched that I was an Olah Chadasha and just could not understand why people are so mean. I didn't get why people invited us to come to the country and then treated us like crap over the most mundane matters???

I guess the driver alternately pitied me and was terrified of my wrath, because he voluntarily called the Bus Company of Idiocy back and pretended that I was his friend and had left my passports and other extremely sensitive materials in the bag. Could they check with the driver? Suddenly they could!!

What a miracle - the bus driver's number appeared out of thin air!!All because we obeyed the commandment, "Thous Shalt Lie to Israeli Customer Service."

Today, the lovely driver also picked up the bag in Tel Aviv, so I need to take a bus (shudder) back there tonight to finally get the bag back in my possession, and give the driver a nice little reward. You can bet I am not letting that dang bag out of my sight - those ulpan materials are irreplaceable.

When I told my Dad the story, he remarked that I keep losing things, and he is right: My change purse (didn't blog about that but got it back after going to the bar I had been at the night before), of course the errant belt, and now this.

What it boils down to is that aliyah has made me lose my mind. But not my appetite.

So: I got out my complaints, and you can expect your normal, cheerful narrator back any day now. In the meantime, I'm going to eat some chocolate - it's the only cure.

Lists of the Bad and the Tov

Enjoy my personal lists about the ins and outs of Israeli society (based on my oh-so-astute observations).

Top things that will take a very long time to adjust to:

• Metric system - Meters? Grams? Jigga what?
• Celsius vs. Fahrenheit - Could be counted as part of the metric system but deserves its own line. So if 0 degrees C is 32 degrees F (i.e. freezing), how the heck do I convert the rest?
• Thinking in Shekels vs. Dollars - Along the same mathematic route, the $ is worth what now? 3.7 sheks? How can I make a snap decision about buying 80 cotton balls if I don't know if they're $2.52 or $3.01??
•  No Heinz ketchup - Yes, Osem has gotten way more awesome in that department, but still cannot measure up (measure up!! get it???).
• Bus drivers here - I'm from New York, so I'm used to attitude, but this is over the top. Don't get me started on how I have to hold on for dear life each time the bus RAMS out of the station and gravity shifts.
• Fashion - Just do not get the style here, which I have diagnosed as a mixture of earth mother/moshav hippie, biker chick and casual jeans and a tee. So there is nowhere to wear my fabulous collection of dresses. I did wear my silky leopard dress over Shabbos, and I believe the people of Jerusalem liked it (if their quizzical stares were any indication).
• Shopping - Nope. Nope. American Apparel is here and apparently H&M is coming, so there is a ray of light, but they are both way more expensive than NY prices and anyway, I brought enough clothes with me to get through the next 30 years, easy.
• Wimpy imitation Q-tips
• Lack of accessible and affordable manicures - Shlomi was unavailable on Friday to groom me
• Learning to type on an Israeli keyboard - I have just entered 7th grade hell (when I learned to type in English)
• Potential to become a heffa - the food is just toooo good

Speaking of good food, this brings me to my positive list.

Tops things about Israel that are amazing and I will luv 4evah:

• The food - The fooooooood!!! OMG!!!! It is soooo amazing!!! I knew it would be, but having the option to fress it at all times is a dream come true. The shippudim (shish kebab) on Agrippas! The borekas at the bus station! The cappuccinos in the cafes! The yogurt and milkies in the makolets! The Mongolian BBQ at the rest stops!
• How everyone is Jewish - This includes Dudi the bus driver, Yaakov the computer tech, Leah the neighborhood grocer, Ezzi the Mafioso.
• How everything reflects Judaism - From the street signs - all named after famous people in the Torah and throughout Jewish history - to the sign on the bus that quotes Pirkei Avot ("Mipnei Sayvah Takum") requesting that you give your seat up for the elderly (i.e. me)
• Having G-d in close proximity - Had a lousy day? Your favorite figs aren't on sale? Go to the Kotel. Daven at some kevarim in Tiveriah. Perhaps that papaya will go down in price.
• Random Middle East/Old World character - Bedouin tents, old school villages, haggling at the shuk. It aint always 1st world around here.
• Agriculture - Speaking again and again of food, driving by fields when transversing the country. For example, going from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, one may pass a field of peppers, or a random etrog tree in someone's backyard.
• The weather - I know this is not the most opportune time for me to mention this to my US peeps, but I, the ultimate winter hater, am loving the lack of snow, sleet and bitter cold. My white down coat, however, is not loving its lack of airtime.
• Beauty - People just look dang good.

That's it for now, my friends. Please chime in with your likes and dislikes. I want to hear what you think about kilos and tangerines.

Pilates?? Bueller??

Shavua tov, everyone. Hope you're enjoying your lazy Sundays. Here in Israel, it's the start of the work week, and...

You heard me correctly - Israelis work on Sunday!! That is such a hard thing to get used to and I have not yet wrapped my mind around it. I do have a job (and for that I thank G-d every day) but will not be starting it for a few weeks, so for me, it's the normal 'Post Shabbos/Saturday Night Revelry Recovery,' co-sponsored by Acamol/Tylenol and a huge breakfast that hopefully features an omelet.

Part of living the early oleh (new aliyah) life is trying to find an apartment, unless you are lucky enough to have a relative that lets you live in their apartment rent-free (lucky brats). I am not one of those privileged leprechauns, so I thusly have been hopping from friend to friend, feeling like a hobo with a bag on a stick (nevermind that my bag is pink, utterly feminine, completely adorable and has a huge Adidas logo). Everyone has been really nice about accomodating me but of course, I have had to adapt to their lifestyles and be as unintrusive as possible.

This morning, my friend's roomate was having a Pilates class in their living room from 8-9am. Hmm. In any case, it was important for me to be quiet for that hour and let the human pretzels do their thing. I tried, oh how valiantly I tried. I was a quiet little mouse until 9am, and at 9:12 I picked up my Pele phone and got down to business, patting myself on the back for waiting 12 extra minutes to give the roomate time to clean up.

As it turns out, the class went on longer and I was yapping so loudly into the phone the roomate had to ask me to pipe down. I can just imagine what the Pilate-ists thought of my convos. In any case, of course I lowered my voice, and then resumed my apartment hunt with new fervor.

My food intake has also been frighteningly affected by all this hopping about. Now, you all know that I need my food, and massive quantities of it, or I turn into Little Miss CrankyPants (who is a Debbie Downer at every party or random life event). For the past few days, I haven't been in one place for more than one night, and consequently, have to take it meal-by-meal. It's very hard for me not to have a refrigerator I can attack at random intervals, and this morning, I find myself in a stuation wherein it is 11am and I have not yet eaten. (Cry me a river!)

This is unheard of for me of on any day that's not a fast day, just ask any family member/friend/someone who has spoken to me for more than one minute. So I am dashing off this blog entry to you - which sadly is STILL not Part II of my aliyah (sorry Tammar) - and then I'm headed out for a huge Israeli breakfast. Which I will enjoy immensely and during which, I will not think of calories, fat grams, dietary fiber or any annoying nutritional value of the sort.

Hope you're staying warm with chestnuts roasting on an open fire and Swiss Miss hot choco warming up in your microwave.