10 things we miss most about US

I hear that some of you started packing your bags to come here after reading my previous post about 10 things we really like in Israel.  It is indeed a fascinating country that is also very pleasant for a visit or stay. So, please come!

However, I am trying to paint an honest picture of our adventurous immigration.  With the excitement of the new life there is obviously a nostalgia for the old one. Here are 10 things that we miss most about US right now, six months after the move.

1. Friends. We all try to stay in touch via email, skype and phone but with a 7-hour difference and a shifted weekend (Friday-Saturday in Israel and Saturday-Sunday in the US) is it hard.  New friendships are slow to appear. People are warm and welcoming. However, here in Israel everyone is surrounded by a large and a tight family circle. Then, there are friends one grew up with - school, army, university. Who needs additional friendships when the weekends are so short? We were surprised to find that most people around are not interested to cross the boundary between acquaintanceship and friendship.
   
   
2. Boston's sports frenzy.  We still are part of the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics Nation. We feel the pain of the Patriot's Super Bowl loss but have no shoulder to cry it on. We watch games deep into the night, wear T-shirts, read Boston Globe and pack our emotions into emails to our Bostonian friends.   Israeli sports scene is also contentious and engaging but it will probably take us years to get hooked.  
   
   
   2011 Bruins' victory
3. Naor misses winter, especially the sunny Boston snow days when he could play outside with the friends bundled in a snowsuit building snow forts, fighting snowballs, sledding from the high-school slopes. 
   
   
4. Kids miss quiet and discipline at school and frequently come home tired from the noise. Large classes (27-40 kids) and non-strict rules lead to teachers spending 1/3 of the lesson time screaming for silence. Yes, screaming for silence...
5. We (parents) miss longer school day and more homework.
6. Not worrying for our survival. In the US you worry about keeping your job, lose your sleep thinking about your mortgage, or stress over saving enough for summer vacation, afterschool activities or college. All these worries are valid here as well, but can be obscured by a helpless worry of a potential war. Is Israel serious about bombing Iran? Is Iran serious about sending rockets to Tel Aviv? Where will these rockets fall? Unfortunately, the only things we can do is finding where the nearest bomb shelter is and ordering gas masks from the town hall. Fortunately, we are slowly getting used to living in uncertainty and this doesn't affect our daily mood.
   
   Gas masks for adult, youth and baby...
7. Better hospital conditions. While the professionalism of doctors and nurses is comparable with the US, the luck of resources in government-ran socialistic medicine is felt everywhere - number of people per hospital room, ratio of patients per nurse and therefore attention that every patient gets, hospital food and equipment. 
8. Trader Joe's - there is nothing like it in Israel. I believe that Trader Joe's is the working parents' friend allowing to spend minimum time serving delicious, rather healthy, not expensive, kids-friendly and interesting meals.   Without it I find myself constantly busy with feeding a picky family of five from raw ingredients.
9. Variety and simplicity of online shopping. In the recent years in Boston I almost stopped going to stores altogether (except Marshalls, TJMax and Filene's Basement). Why spend 60+ min driving, parking and browsing through Toys-R-Us, Mac Cosmetics, or West Elm when you can order anything online in 5 mins? Surprisingly in such high-tech country like Israel online shopping is in the embryonic stage. Every little purchase is an hour-long project.  One of the problems is that postal workers do not come with a car and do not carry any packages. There is also a heavy taxation on the US-ordered stuff. 
10. US Holiday Spirit. We did try celebrating Thanksgiving this year. Since no one in Israel is usually buying a whole giant turkey,  I had to order it from a supermarket a few days in advance. The turkey did not look at all like a fat American bird, it was an anorexic dead creature with a long neck. My husband's mistake of asking the butcher to remove the bird's skin turned it into a horror picture. We did cook it and ate it but I am still asking turkey's forgiveness for these deeds.  Move here did earn us Jewish holidays with the family that we have been longing for for so many years. But we still miss the other holidays - the sweet anticipation of Halloween, Thanksgiving flavours, the Christmas cheer on the streets and shops, an Independence Day with a parade, 5K run and fireworks in our town. These are part of the traditions our kids were born into and we all enjoyed for so many years.  
    

10 things we like in Israel (more than in the US)

1. Food. As everywhere around the Mediterranean, food  in Israel is a top priority and investment. It is elaborate, flavorful, and usually spicy. It is also pretty much the only thing that unite everyone in the region: Arabs, Jews, Christians, Druzes; secular and religious people; political right and political left.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Friday rituals. For the secular crowds in Israel, Friday became a sacred day, much more special than Shabbat.  Most of the adults do not work.  Kids are in schools or day-care till around noon. The adults enjoy these few hours of freedom by relaxing in coffee shops with partners or friends, then stopping at the neighborhood markets to buy Shabat hallah, weekend newspaper, flowers, pastry and other last-minute food.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   The majority of shopping is usually done in advance. Then, there is cooking for expansive Shabat dinner or anticipation of going over to the parents' house, Galei  Zahal radio in the background. Those who do not cook, enjoy a sweet rest in the afternoon. And at night, everyone puts on festive clothes and goes over to meet the rest of their families for large, noisy, late and delicious dinner. For young adults this all is just an prelude to continuing the night by going out with their friends. They get back home only around 2-4am and sleep till noon on Shabbat.
3. Public display of affection.  Parents are openly "devouring" they kids on the school steps or playgrounds, while kids comfortably enjoy it and giggle. Relatives express love for each other openly in person or on the phone. Even our kids started saying "I love you" to us a few times daily. Adult men can greet each other with a kiss without any embarrassment. Lovers behave like there is no one around, sparking the air with affection and sexuality.
   
   
   
   Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.
4. Warm clean sea and fantastic beaches. 
5. Passion for life. It may be the warm and passionate Mediterranean blood, an antidote to the daily political stress, or something else, but Israelis live to the fullest.  Even on the weekdays, even those with kids, all eat, drink, laugh and party till late. Fun opportunities are never missed for the sake of sleep. Tel Aviv is rightly advertises itself as a city that never stops.
6. Flower bloom instead of snowstorms in February.
   
   
   
   Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.
7. Relationships: warmth, hospitality and easy-going. Anyone and anywhere you are visiting, you can expert to be seated and fed anything from a coffee-and-cake to a full meal. If you run out of eggs, salt or sugar - feel free to knock on your neighbors door. Pregnant or visibly sick, everyone - garbage men, market sellers, bank employees, or supermarket bag packer - will be wishing you a safe and healthy delivery and a quick recovery.
8. Strong women. They work (even with 3-5 kids), they manage kids-school-babysitter-activities logistics, they cook (very well), they do most of the housework, they dress well and look great, and they mostly spoil their husbands. They are smart and opinionated leaders.
9. Playground gyms - sportex.  Someone somewhere got an ingenious idea that in a country like Israel with mostly sunny and warm weather gyms should not necessarily be indoors. Now you can find adult gym equipment corners in every park. Why not build some strength,  while your kids are playing at the playground?   Why not work on the muscles after finishing your morning jog or on the way to work?
   
   
   
10. Abundance of exotic fruits and vegetables. Brown tomatoes, spherical zucchini, sabres, papaya, kiwi,  guava, anona, persimmon, pomelo etc. And if you, like me, do not know what to do with them, any shop seller or fellow shoppers will gladly offer you a few recipe suggestions.
    
    
    
    
    
    Image from Flickr, distributed under CCL.

Next to come - 10 things we miss most about US