We have a car! And other interesting stuff

But don't get too excited yet.  We are not allowed to drive it.  Because we need an Israeli license in order to buy car insurance.  The good news is,  today,  in the third try at the Israeli DMV,  I finally finally had my green paper stamped.  And not to brag,  but they didn't just stamp my paper once; they stamped it five times.  I feel extra special.

But let's back up.  We arrive at the DMV 15 minutes before they even open.  And we are greeted by a long line of about 50  people ahead of us.  Okay,  we think,  no big deal right?  We are the fiftieth people in line so how long can it take.  It can take 2h 11m after they open the doors,  that's how long it can take.

Not to worry though.  We got to spend our time speaking to a French speaking couple.  They spoke to us in English and they were waiting for the same stamp we were.  We were discussing the confusion and the balagan (chaos)  and my day was complete when the woman said  "Ooh Lala."  I mean  does it get any better than that?   And we were amused by the many arguments that broke out between the staff and the public.   And now I know that the policeman on duty today is named Moshe because he kept getting called over.  I feel like I got a full education today.  

And I'm case you missed it,  we were interviewed by the local newspaper.  They did a story on new olim and getting ready for school.  I have yet to find a link,  so here are a few pictures and some of the story in Hebrew.

How we spend our vacation days (not on vacation!)

I know, everyone is probably wondering, "what happened to getting your license?"  Well, the answer is, nothing yet!  Well, that is not exactly true.  Yesterday, we went to one important office to receive papers that say that I am an olah (immigrant).  That is what I needed in order to go the Israeli DMV and get a paper stamped, which would then allow me to take the driving test.  So, we get the paper that we need, and head to a different but closer DMV.  We sat there for an hour and a half, and were still at least a hour away from being called, when we had to leave to pick up the kids.  Foiled again!  So, next week we try again.  It all is sort of irrelevant because now the driving teacher is not answering her phone.  She is probably on vacation along with the rest of the country.

Next up - education lecture.  We are invited by the Olim department to a lecture about the Israeli education system.  Here is a basic summary of my experience last night (of the lecture, not the school system).  Opening statement (in Hebrew, followed by a French translation, followed by an English translation.)  Next statement said, then repeated in French, then in English.  So basically, I understood most of the Hebrew.  If I didn't, then I waited for the French, because apparently when my brain is trying to process Hebrew, it suddenly remembers my 4 years of high school French.  And then finally, the English translation, for anything I still missed.  By the end, the Hebrew speaker spoke, then the English translation took about twice as long and then the French translation was literally three words.  We have no idea what was going on by then.

My take away from the meeting:  Be supportive, keep speaking your native language at home, help your kids if they need help, but give them a lot of independence.  And please please please, send them a sandwich for aruchat eser (10 am snack)  because if you do not send a sandwich, the Israeli teacher might find you guilty of child neglect.  If you send chips or candy, they will call!  And also, no need to arrange play-dates, as kids just knock on each others doors here.  When they said that, Jon and I looked at each other and mouthed, "nailed it!"  Because our street is awesome and kids keep knocking on my door.

And because every day I have these great moments, I will leave you with one.  We were at the bank yesterday (twice, don't ask) and they asked me a question that I have never heard from a bank.  They asked us, how much overdraft do we want?  As if that is a normal thing?  So I said, well, I don't want any.  Which made the baker laugh and say, well, no one wants any, but seriously, how much? HAHA!  Israel!  (also, the bank is right by a bakery where you can buy a latte and three pastries for 15 shekel)  So, sure, I'll go to the\bank.

picture of back to school shopping from a few years ago.

You win some, you lose some

Okay.  If you know me, you know that I am ummm, directionally challenged?  Let me just say that on my last day in NJ, I actually got lost in my own town - again.  It felt fitting!  And that one year, many years ago, my hubby gave me a GPS for Mother's Day.  At the time, I thought it was the worst gift ever.  Now, I realize that he was a genius!  Well, today, I feel like I should win some sort of new oleh award.  I managed to take my three younger children to camp without my GPS WAZE! and to get myself back home without it either.  There was a dicey moment when I was sure that I was about to exit my town, but in the end, I had chosen the correct streets. Winner winner!!!

Now for the not as fun news.  We were just about to purchase a used car here in Israel.  We hired a broker to find the car and deal with the car dealer (because seriously, I am not going to deal with an Israeli car dealer), we saw the car, test drove it, and wired all of our money to Israel.  Then, we tried to get car insurance.  Well, let me give a word of warning.  You CANNOT get Israeli car insurance if you do not have an Israeli driver's license.  Sure, you can rent a car ad drive it for a year with your foreign license,  But you cannot insure a car you have purchased.  So, that put the brakes (punny) on our purchase.  That was Thursday.  Which meant I spent the rest of Thursday finding a driving instructor, calling hubby to come home a bit earlier because we needed an eye exam.  Then I had to brave the healthcare website in Hebrew.  I sort of clicked around and eventually made myself a doctor's appt.  Because steps 1-3 of the 27 part process to get a license require me to have an eye exam, see a doctor, and visit every office and post office that I see along the way.  Oh, and have driving lessons and take a road test.  Friday I saw the doctor, who told me that my heart beat is very nice.  Because well, I guess it is.  Who am I to argue with her?  I only had to pay her 106 shekels to tell me that! (and to sign my form)

Sunday, hubby takes off from work so that we can drive to Jerusalem to visit the DMV.  But first, a stop for blood work because my nice doctor told me to.  Getting blood work when the nurse speaks only a tiny bit of English and you do not know any medical terms in Hebrew yet, is actually hilariously fun.  And where else can I have the person taking blood tell me Mazal Tov on my aliyah and tell me that life is better here for the children?  Because everyone here understands the term Olim Chaashim (new immigrants) and as soon as you say that, they seem to calm down a bit and become more patient.  I might be imagining it, but let em have my dream please.

Back to Jerusalem.  We arrive there in record time, find parking in about  20 minutes, and hike to the DMV in the sweltering heat.  Whoever said it is cooler in Jerusalem lied yesterday.  Anyway, we arrive to the DMV, pass the security check, and are encountered with a long jostling line.  Apparently when you get to the front of line #1, there is a machine that can display all of your choices in both Hebrew and Arabic.  My Arabic from college has faded so hubby chose some Hebrew stuff and we said a little prayer that we pushed the correct choices.  We then sit for 45 minutes (not bad) in the chairs with everyone else until our number is called.  I will spare you the details, but hubby was able to get the paper he needed but I was not.  Because despite the fact that I brought all of my drivers licenses from age 16 and on, plus my eye exam form, MD form, and every other paper I own (why doesn't anyone want to see my old report cards?) I did not have the one paper that we are waiting for.  Our appointment for that paper is Wednesday.  Oh well.

Hike back to the car, which is parked in a mall parking lot.  Stop in the mall for coffee and get some beautiful coffee, as seen in this photo.  Guess my coffee was telling me, all you need is love (and also, I need a missing paper) That helped my mood.

We thought the day was over then.  Hubby was going to go into work to at least salvage a half day.  But nope.  We are getting calls from the car rental place asking when we are returning our car.  We are renting a small sedan that doesn't actually fit our family.  But the sedan costs a lot, so you can imagine what the 7 seater was costing.  So we try to get a better deal on a different sedan.  After hubby spoke to 7 agents at the car rental place, he gets the number for a "guy" who can get us a better deal.  So,we head back to the airport to switch cars.  Several phone calls, cups of water, and about an hour or so, we leave with a much cheaper, but even smaller sedan.  No joke, we are driving a tictac.  I am not a tall person and I feel like I need to fold myself to get in.  Now, we are getting to be more Israeli with our car size!  Just another day of living the dream!

Changes

People can change right?  

One of the things I was worried about (still am of course) with moving here was, would we be able to handle so many changes at once?  We moved from a large home to a smaller one (but bigger than we thought it would be) we would be buying all European/Israeli appliances (which are smaller, work differently) we would be leaving our friends and our kids would be leaving their friends, we would have new foods, different weather, and on and on.  Mostly, I was worried about the kids.  How would they adjust?  What would they miss?  Would they be moping around, pining away for the large washing machine we left behind?  (okay, that one was me)

Now, we have only been here for two weeks, but so far, none of that has come to fruition.  Please don't remind me that school is starting soon, since I know that is when the real challenges will begin.  But for now, let me enjoy myself.  Let me start with the good.  

Child #1 ---My eldest child likes baseball, but has probably played soccer and basketball only a handful of times.  Well, soccer and basketball are the things here.  Anyway, last night he was out at minyan on our corner (have I mentioned that they daven right here on the corner???)  Anyway, he was invited by some neighbors to play soccer.  We saw him drive away in the car with this HUGE smile plastered on his face.  He returned about two hours later disgusting and sweaty and happy.  He said they were teaching him and they promised to go easy on him for a month while he is learning and then they will expect him to play.  Other miracle?  Our car only seats 5 people and we were trying to go to the market and deciding who would come and who would stay.  Well, since one was playing soccer, we could fit everyone else in the car!

Child #1---If you knew that he did not love soccer, you probably also knew about his obsession with guitar and rock and roll.  So, I am browsing through the list of activities for kids.  I am looking for a guitar teacher, and I see that there is one who lives within walking distance.  I send a WhatsApp (because how else do you communicate these days?) and within two hours, we are at the guitar teacher's house, and my child is having his first lesson, and I am receiving a full Hebrew lesson from the teacher's wife.  My brain hurt after that, but I think I caught about 90% of what she said.  So, all of the changes have been good for this kid so far.

Child #4--- We will skip the girls for today, and move onto the little guy.  I might have mentioned that he has already been adopted by the other kids on this block.  On Shabbat he disappeared for most of the day and we occasionally saw him and his new friends when they were thirsty.  He is also making new friends at camp and hopefully learning some Hebrew.  But the highlight of yesterday for this guy?  Buying sunflower seeds at the supermarket.  I mean, it is not like they didn't sell them in NJ, but maybe they were not as prominent or fresh as they are here.  Because buying this guy a bag of sunflower seeds really made his day.  And today when he went to pack snack for camp, he packed them, along with his chocolate sandwich.  Very Israeli!  

Now, back to my small washing machine.  I am sure that it will be fine.  It is actually the dryer that confuses me.  Before I can do a load, I need to empty the lint (okay, fine, I've been doing that for 30 years) but then I have to check this water compartment/condenser thing.  It fills up with water basically every 5 minutes, so I need to empty it.  I do not understand the mechanics at all, so if my laundry is still wet, I empty it and say a little prayer.  Lucky for me, my washer and dryer are on an outdoor porch and there happens to be a drain, so I just dump it.  So if any of my neighbors are getting rained on, please tell me.

Community Jackpot part 1

As promised,  I have a post about the new community we have joined.  But first  let's back up.  We came to Israel from a fabulous community in NJ.  It was a smallish community where we all knew each other,  helped each other and welcomed anyone who was new.  At least that is how we felt about it.  The one thing we felt was lacking in our community were more children.  We tried to do our part in populating the community and shul,  but there just were not tons and tons of kids for our children.  They each made wonderful friends there,  but we always bemoaned the lack of more kids and families. We lived there for 12 years and we're welcomed in immediately.  We left a lot of good friends and memories behind.

One of the many reasons that we made aliyah was that we wanted our kids to have some of the experiences that we had as children.  Namely,  having tons of kids in walking distance and being able to just go out and keep themselves busy. We wanted them to be able to walk places,  ride their bikes around,  etc....  Basically,  have more freedom.

Back to our new community.  It seems like we hit the jackpot on this one.  When we decided to move to Modiin,  we then had to choose a neighborhood.  From my understanding,  most Anglos (someone from an English speaking country)  move to one neighborhood.  We did not want that neighborhood.  Then we heard about another great neighborhood.  But it seems like everyone there only has younger kids.  So in the end we decided that wouldn't be right either.

We don't have any family in Israel,  but we do have some good friends.  And some of those friends live here in Modiin (you know who you are!)  so in the end  we focused on moving to their neighborhood.  Rentals are in high demand,  and the choices were few and far between for a rental in this neighborhood,  especially if we wanted more than three bedrooms.  Eventually,  we found a place,  not  knowing much about the street aside from the fact that it is close to our friends.

Not to skip to the end,  but I realize  that this has gotten very long.  Before we even moved in,  hubby met all of the neighbors who were having a block party to say goodbye to the family who was vacating the house we are renting.  And as soon as we moved in,  we were welcomed immediately.  People left us welcome cards,  baked us  cakes,  invited us to wonderful meals,  cooked us food,  stopped in to say

hello,  helped us break down our boxes,  and on and on.  And we have only been living here for a week.

And the best part.  Our new street  has it's own WhatsApp group.  That's right.  The neighbors WhatsApp each other.  It's awesome and funny and novel.  And so far,  we love it here.

Getting settled

Wow.  We have been in Israel for about 12 days now.  And in our new home for about 5 days.   At first I was afraid to go anywhere without Jon because well,  his Hebrew is better than mine.  But then after he asked a cashier for the time,  rather than asking her to repeat why she had just said: well,  I figured it's okay for me to go out and make a few mistakes.

Like today,  I am pretty sure I ordered coffee for myself as well as paying for my kids ice cream.   But somehow the coffee never appeared and the line got long again.  I decided that my Hebrew skills were not ready to go back at it again.  So I gave up on that today.  I'll be back at it again soon.

Anyway,  back to what is really going on.  The three younger kids are attending a camp  for olim (immigrants).  It runs for three weeks and is run by Modiin.  We are one week into it and it has been amazing.  The kids are learning Hebrew,  making friends,  and keeping themselves busy.  The big one has been slowly finding things to do.  Today he went to minyan alone,  then went on a walk alone and then later went to buy pizza for everyone for lunch.  Hopefully he will eventually hang out with the four other boys his age on this street.  Then again  we just got WiFi today so it could be a while.

Stay tuned for my post on how awesome our street is.  Seriously.

It's the little things

It's the little things in Israel that I love.  And the small victories.  Like yesterday.  I've been relying on the hubby a lot because his Hebrew is  better than  mine.  But he also has this little thing called a job,  which means I need to rely on myself a bit more. So I was determined to go to the supermarket alone.  And I did.  First miracle of the day,  I found a parking spot.  Next miracle,  my cart was already unlocked which was good,  because I didn't have a 5 Shekel piece to unlock it.

I managed the whole shopping trip and no one even stopped me to ask me questions.  I must look friendly,  because everyone keeps asking me stuff.  When that happens,  I'm like,  ummm,  I understood about 1/4 of what you just said.  I made it all the way to the cashier until she started asking me stuff.  I know she asked me if I was in the "club"  which I'm not yet.  And then ashe asked me something else.  I'm hoping she asked if me credit card was regular or debit,  because if not,  my answer really didn't make sense.  But in the end,  I left the store with my things and felt pretty proud of myself.

Actually,  I was so proud that I  decided I should stop for coffee at my new obsession, Coffix.  I then proceeded to order coffee and some food,  all in Hebrew.  And I think I even received what I ordered.  Did I mention that everything at Coffix is 5 Shekel??  Goodbye Starbucks lattes,  Hello Coffix cafe hafuch!

And about the little things.  I could ramble on about how amazing it is to be wished shabbat shalom by every single person.  But I won't,  because I'll just tell you,  it's awesome.  When the guy at the hardware store says it to you,  it's just great.

Welcome Home

As a mom,  one of my many jobs is being the family coordinator.  We have a saying in our house.  Hubby is the CFO and I am the CEO.  So while planning for our Aliyah,  which happened in a very short period of time,  I was all caught up in making sure everything got done that needed to be done.  I didn't have time to dwell on my feelings about aliyah,  why this is the best,  etc....  I mean,  I know why.  It's just that I  didn't have time to shout it to the world.

I also knew (and others pointed it out to me),  that at some point,  the enormity of making aliyah would start to hit me.  That day was today.  Actually,  it wasn't the whole day.  It was one specific event.

Tonight,  we took out eldest child to his high school,  so that we could have a meeting,  they could meet him,  etc...  The adults had already visited many high schools and this was the one that we wanted for him.

Anyway, we sit down with the teacher and with the school counselor,  and pretty much,  the first thing that was said to us was something like this.  "We want you to know that you are home.  That whatever difficulties you have,  you are home and we welcome you."

We'll,  let me tell you.  I almost burst into tears right there.  Such simple words that mean so much.  The only reason I controlled myself was because I knew that my teenage son would have been mortified if his mother cried in his school,  before he even started school.

Look,  we know that we are in for a major challenge.  We didn't arrive in Israel with four toddlers who can adapt quickly.  We came with four real children.  And school will be hard.  It will be really really hard.  But the school knows this and the first thing they said to us just put me at ease and made me feel so happy inside.  

Olim Chadashim

Today was the day of being called Olim Chadashim (new immigrants),  but all in a good way.  First  we go to get some pizza.  We are not in our permanent house yet so cooking has been a challenge.  So,  we might have had a lot of pizza already.  I mean,  40 shekels (about $10) for two pies , so can you blame us?  Anyway,  we go to the same pizza place where we went the day we landed.  On the day we landed,  we were still wearing stickers that said,  Oleh/Olah Chadash/Chadasha (new immigrants).  So at the pizza place,  the guy remembers us and asks us where the Oleh chadash is(he was specifically referring to one child who always came with us to buy said pizza) ??? So maybe we have eaten too much pizza if the pizza guy already knows us.  Or maybe it is just Israel.

Next,  Jon is at our new rental while they install appliances.  Rentals in Israel for not come with any appliances at all.   I'm not exactly sure what happened,  but apparently someone purchased a lot of warranties,  so many so,  that as a free gift,  we received a fancy coffee pot and detergent for a full year.  Ummm,  yay????

Then we had two new air conditioning units installed because the previous tenant took them with him.  The one main air conditioning unit that was already there for us had a broken remote control.  So I told Jon to ask the installers where we can buy a new one.  So he asks,  and the installer has a used one in his truck that he will sell us. But as soon as he heard that we are olim chadashim,  he just gives it to us.

And finally, the car rental.  I have heard lots of complaints about renting cars in Israel.  So far,  we have had the opposite experience.  We were using a very expensive seven seater rental.  It's high season in Israel and larger cars are hard to come by in any season,  so I won't even tell you how much this was costing.

So we went to return it and rent a smaller sedan.  (all of this required us to go to the airport,  where by the way,  we went to the food court just because we can).  Anyway,  we see the price of renting just a sedan (i.e. it still isn't cheap)  and the super sweet car rental person gives us a nicer newer car (still a sedan)  and waives the second driver fee,  and gives us the shabbat discount.  You read that correctly.  In Israel,  if you rent a car but are religious and will not drive it on shabbat,  they do not charge you for that day.  This I tell you  is  a land of miracles!

My new fancy coffee pot :-)

I have a blog

Well, here goes nothing. I know, it's so cliche. I make aliyah and I start writing a blog. But well, I have some free time in between my jet lag and trying to set up a new life, so why not?

I guess my first post should be about how amazing it is that we have fulfilled this lifelong dream. (14 years delayed) But honestly, it hasn't hit me yet at all. So I will save that post for when it hits me.

For now, we are just learning our way around.  We haven't yet moved into our rental because our shipment is held up in customs. We are renting an airbnb which as it turns out, belongs to someone I knew 20+ years ago.  That seems very Israeli that this has already happened!

I will end my first blog post with a few victories.  Today, I drove for the first time in Israel. It's possible that I got a bit lost. It's also possible that I couldn't find a parking spot so I just sort of parked, let out my three younger kids, crossed them across the street and yelled, "bye kids, have fun, make friends," as they walked into a strange building where they don't know a soul. But well, I couldn't find parking.

Okay, only one victory so far. Let's see if they like camp. Then I'll claim a second victors.