Week #4

This week brought many amusing experiences.

First of all - I finally found an obstetrician/genecologist that can see me without a very advance reservation (I am now at the 7th months of pregnancy). Through the slit of the door we saw an athletic bold man in his 40th with two earrings in his left ear, jeans and a button-down shirt tucked into a fashionable belt. In the office I noticed a miniature motorcycle model that was holding business cards on his desk. This very much reminded me of Adam Gopnik's description of their ob/gyn encounter in Paris in his great book "Paris to the moon." Unlike the French doctor in the book, my doctor didn't ask me about the day of conception and his shirt was not half way open revealing a burst of black hair. But my doctor relaxingly rested his hand on my thigh while performing external ultrasound that struck me as very non-American behavior. My Cambridge ob/gyn also liked earrings but she was a woman, always wore long white robes and was very careful to wear gloves and apologize every time she touched my body. I should admit that despite the unorthodox appearance and small informalities, my new Israeli doctor seemed professional, knowledgeable and reliable.

I stopped by a random haircut salon to trim and shape up my hair. After shampooing, the haircut master, Itzik, told me that instead of a light trim he would like to suggest a perfect haircut for me. My straight thin hair will look great in a short-back, long front combination, he said. Although this bold offer took me by surprise, I just loved it. This is exactly what I have missed in those 17 years in US. Somebody taking my hair under his/her expertise and offering me some befitting options instead of waiting for my order of what to do or following pictures that I printed from the Internet.

I feel very Tel Avivian with this new stylish haircut:


It seems that the average technological level of the population is exceptionaly high. People are trusted to figure things out. Here is a waiting room monitor at the neighborhood medical center's blood laboratory. You pick a number at the computerized station at the entrance, you know exactly how many people are before you in line, when your turn is coming and what technician you should go to.

Even 60-year old people are communicating by texting each other.
Large percentage of 8-year-olds have a Facebook account.

Today is the first day when temperatures are below 90F (it is 86F). My mom took the kids to the pool in her building and was worried that it may be too cold. I reminded her that they happily swam in the outdoor pool next to the windy Atlantic Ocean in Vancouver when it was below 70F.

Speaking of the heat, a candle that I lazily left outside while unpacking, melted into a wax puddle.

From my preliminary communication with the parents of kids from the school it looks like there are quite a few divorced couples with 2 or 3 kids. I do not recollect any woman I know in the US that is divorced + 3. Do you think Israeli women are more independent and less tolerant than American? Is it related to their mandatory Army service or to the fact that almost all of them have to work for living? Even mothers of 3 and 4 have a career and enjoy a strong sense of self-confidence that such fulfilling life brings. It seems that this desire for respet and independence had spread to the senior people as well. Moshe's 85 year old grandparents are talking about divorce.

Almost everyone here (women and men) is a great cook and usually very modest about it. Weekend newspapers publish excellent recepies.

We went to the museum called Mini-Israel and were surprised to find how large it is. It contains miniatures of the most significant places and buildings in Israel giving amazing overview of the multicultural history of this land, rich architectural traditions, geographical attractions from the Red Sea to the Hermon mountain. We took a bunch of snapshots to create our tourist map of the places to visit. This is a great first stop for any Israeli tourist. Pick and mix your list of attractions.



The evening circus show at this museum turned out to be devoted to Gilad Shalit (Israeli soldier held in captivity by Hamas since 2006) and as today was his birthday started with a very sad Happy Birthday song and candle on the cake blowing with audience wishing for his return. I am not sure how to explain this properly to the kids without scaring them... When Naor saw on TV an exploded bus headed for a popular resort town of Eilat, he pleaded to immediately move back to Boston. Were we right to come here endangering our kids? I don't know yet.

Moving in

After 3 weeks in Israel we have finally settled into our new home. The house that looked small and clumsy at the beginning now feels cosy and spacious. The square footage is significantly smaller than what we had in Needham, no garage and basement, but the ceilings are much taller giving it a royal breeze. Almost every relative contributed something to help us settle in - assembling the chairs, unpacking 400+ boxes, babysitting or making food for us. We only have 20 or so boxes to go but no more space to fit stuff in.

While we are trying to get rid of the stuff here (and it is much easier than in Needham as trash is picked twice a week!), Nadia who goes to a circus camp is trying to convince us to buy her stilts.

The actual process of receiving our shipment was rather tragic-comical. The container that was supposed to arrive to our doorstep at 8am was first pushed to 2pm and then to 6pm. The enormous brown ZIM crate was too large to fit on our tiny street, so a giant track brought our ZIM crate to one of the nearest parking lots. A crew of 4 Georgian, 1 Arab and 1 Ethiopian men unloaded our boxes in batches from the crate into a regular size moving track, drove to our street and then pulled these boxes on their backs three-at-a-time uphill to our home (30 meters). They slowly brought in all 400+ boxes, some of which they had to haul along the swivel steps to the second floor. All this in a 80 degrees evening heat. They finished at 2am. They were sweaty to the bones, dirty, exhausted, hungry, still planning to wake up at 7am for the next job they had yet they kept their sence of humor and courtesy. Learning that we are relocating after 17 years in US and want to try living here, one of the Georgian men told us that he has travelled a bit around the world and couldn't find a better country than Israel to live in. Quite a surprising statememt from someone who attended a Moscow University and ended with such a tough and low-paid occupation! I guess this is a thing about Israel - you love it not "becuase of" but "despite of".

We visited school and were up for a big surprise. It is true that we started with the very low expectations as we were warned of 40 kids class sizes and a short school day. But school resources looked very impressive even in comparison with our US private school. This is a public elementary school for ages 6-12, in North TelAviv. They have 300 laptops for 400 students, kids have to bring headphones to many lessons. There is a special science program "Tree of Knowledge" that is practiced only in a few schools in Israel. There is one full size basketball court outside, large gym inside, a very large animal quarter with donkey, skunk, chickens and at least 10 other types of animals.

There are indeed 39 kids in Naor's class and 27 in Nadia's. Unlike in US, they do not mix kids from the same grade classes from year to year. This may make it a bit more difficult for our kids socially as most of their classmates have been together since age 6.

There is a school uniform! Various color Tshirts (and sweaters) with the school logo - we are going to buy them today. Kids can match it with any bottoms. Sounds good and easy for me.

There are school study books and workbooks - something that we didn't have at our school in US - there were only countless printouts. We purchased 500 shekels worth of books for each kid. Looks like kids' schoolbags are going to be heavy.

We managed to overcome most of the bureaucracy and now have medical insurance, cell phones. But our TV is showing only black-and-white and there is still no stable internet at home. Even iCarly looks retro. The upside is that this lack of connectivity makes us less aware of the unstable situation in the South of the country.

The cable company is urging us to buy a special transformer called Scaler that can turn our American TV signal into Israeli signal and referred us to an independent electronics seller. Suspiciously enough the "independent" electronics guy came with the logo of the cable company on his Tshirt, pulled out the white box that contained no signage or manuals, took out of it a black device that immediately turned our TV into color. But he wanted 1,200 shekels for it, couldn't quite explan what exactly this black device is doing and we felt cheated. So we are still trying to figure out the best way of action.

Everything is much more expensive. I just scheduled a pedicure appointment that suppose to cost 140 shekels = $40. In Brookline while Naor took his math class it was only $20 for the same two feet.

We now have a proper guest room with a queen size bed and look forward to welcoming you all here. We have a little yard, a grille that is still unpacked, a giant park ha-Yarkon at a 5 mins walk and always warm Mediterenean beach at a 15 min car drive.

First Days in Israel

Dear friends,

Hope you all continuing to enjoy the summer.
Just a quick update of our adventures in Israel so far.

We were greeted in Israel by our families with confetti poppers, billboards, flowers and songs. At first I thought our arrival coincided with Lady Gaga's or some other celebrity, but turned out it is all for us.

Heat here is like from an open stove and any attempt to step outside between 9am and 6pm is an act of heroism and probably a stupid one. After 6pm life is paradise: imagine a bright pink sunset above the Mediterranean and a delicious dinner of lebane with freshly baked bread, roasted eggplant, tahini and local fish at a breezy beach cafe after a dip in the warm waters of the salty sea. By the way, we were told that the owner of the cafe does not have a permission to build or sell anything on this beach territory but because he is an injured army veteran the authorities have let this slip through for 10 years.

We have visited about 10 government offices so far - interior ministry, immigration ministry, town hall etc. All have strong AC, long lines with one tail but many heads which behavior could not be described by any computer science algorithm. People appear and disappear, last become first, people fight and 30 mins later tell each other their life stories.

We are living with Moshe's parents and hope to populate our new home in a week. Just a few small problems to solve: mice in the attic, a few old air conditioners that do not work, and the fact that we have twice as much stuff arriving in the container as can fit inside our new house. Likely, it is not going to rain here for another 90 days and we can probably store our giant Ikea bookshelves in the yard.

Yes, the country is at strike. A few months ago a newspaper article about ridiculously high price of cottage ignited a wave of political activism demanding social justice: affordable housing, free medical insurance, longer school day, smaller taxes. In every green town square there are tents where protesters camp and live with their families. I am not sure they really stay in these tents during the day as there is no breeze and 100F outside but at night it all looks like a hippy commune. People eat at the long connected tables, kids play ball outside and there are even movies screenings for kids and adults on the loan. Today apparently there is planning to be a half a million people demonstration in Tel Aviv. Struck by jet lag and being a newcomers here we are still trying to figure out what side we are on. We are definitely angry to pay 100% tax on the car we have shipped but after 17 years in US we also understand that affordable housing for everyone in any place he/she wants to live is problematic.

We are slowly getting to know our little nephews that were born in the last few years and now have well-defined personalities, facial features and can talk. Kids are thrilled to have so many cousins around them but do not always manage to find common ground with them.

The amount of love and support that we got so far is unbelievable that quickly convinced even skeptics like me that the decision to try this out was the right one. We miss you all and hope to hear from you soon.

We have no phones yet and just got wireless working but in a few weeks it will all settle down and we hope to be easily accessible via skype, email and phone. Can't wait to welcome you in our new house someday soon!