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.