Pesach and beyond...

Before we hit the next set of holidays, I had better report on Passover /Pesach here in Israel. Okay, so this isn't my first time here for Pesach. I was here many years ago during my gap year between high school and University (see how my new international friends are influencing my English?) But this was the first time I had to "make" Pesach in Israel. You would think that food  shopping here would be easier than in the USA. And in some ways it was. But in other ways, it was surprisingly harder.

#1 I still find food shopping a challenging adventure
#2 Are you familiar with the word kitniot?
#3 If you weren't familiar before, you will be soon
#4 Can I be Sephardic?
#5 One seder is the absolute best, especially when friends invite you
#6 Buying a new BBQ right before pesach is a smart move

Okay. Food shopping for Pesach is quite the adventure.  One the one hand, the whole supermarket is becoming kosher for Pesach, so yay! I will have so many choices. But wait, why don't I actually have that many choices? Oh yes. It is because we are Ashkenazi and we do not eat kitniot. Those varied foods such as corn, rice, beans, etc... on Pesach. So after the initial, wow, so many choices, my cart ended up with the exact same foods I  always buy for pesach :

Vegetables
Fruits
Enough meat for like two months
Matza meal
Matza
Yogurt
Chocolate chips
Spices
Marshmallows
Potatoes
Tuna
10 dozen eggs

Voila. Pesach in Israel!!!

Okay, it wasn't exactly that dramatic. But let's just say that the Pesach food selection  is certainly heavy on the kitniot side; at least packaged foods. I've been waiting for many years to become Sephardic, so I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Fast forward. The house is all ready (not at the last minute or anything) and we head to our friends who graciously invited us for the seder. They live on the other side of town. Luckily, all train tracks between us are underground.

We had a really lovely seder. I got to see and taste soft matza for the first time, hear some of my kids read from the haggadah in Hebrew, and always my favorite part, singing Chad GadYa, because by that point, no one can keep the words straight. Thanks to our brave friends for hosting my gang.

I was worried about the walk home but it actually went really well. 50 minutes, lots of streets and 310 stairs later, we made it home. We passed plenty of other families doing the same thing (although we were the only nuts on the stairs) and it was a perfect night. Fun seder, great weather, and we all made it home alive.

Chol Hamoed was very nice. We didn't do too much (saving vacation time for an Eilat trip)  but we did host our camp friends for a BBQ on our new BBQ. Our first Israeli charcoal BBQ experience.  We only needed help from a few people. :-)

We spent one freezing morning at the beach during vacation. The kids and the hubby had a blast in the water. I sat huddled under a towel with my book, just waiting to go home.  Shabbat meals with friends and more matza jumble cookies than you can imagine, filled out our holiday. A family showing of "The Frisco Kid" rounded out the fun.


Oh yes, how could I forget. One day we unpacked the sewing machine and I finally finally finished the blanket I was making for one child. This has been a work in progress for a year. Okay, nine of the months it was packed away. But still. I'm glad to have this literal monkey off of my back.

Back to normal life after pesach meant me spending days doing laundry. Which is basically my regular life. Post Pesach we had more friends over who braved the heat wave to come over.  And then, just like that, vacation ended.

Okay, now I'll finish this off because the ideas for my next blog are already swirling around in my head.

I shall leave you with this out of order picture of today's breakfast, because I'm still obsessed with breakfast. I guess Aroma doesn't yet have their Yom HaAtzmaut chocolate out so I'll have to go back next week.

Celebrations everywhere!

Some event highlights of the past few weeks.

As many of you know, Eli was one of the recipients of the Outstanding Oleh award. Basically he was one of a handful (or two handfuls) of kids who were recognized for how they have adjusted and integrated into life in Israel. I can't promise that's actually the description of the award, but that's the best that I can do. So I won't go on about him too much because I might have done a Facebook brag. But he was recognized for his integration both socially and musically. Or something like that. Nachas!! And, we made it into the newspaper again.

Then we shall move to the two weeks of non stop celebrations. I am quite sure that everyone was trying to get their Simcha in before the Omer. (as one friend said, thank goodness the omer is coming, so we can all rest :-))

We had:

#1 wedding in Jerusalem. Went the wrong way and drove through a neighborhood that we've been to before and didn't want to go back to. Well, waze had a different plan. Imagine one lane streets that barely fit one car. But they take two way traffic. Fun times.

#2 Oleh awards

#3 wedding. Did not get lost! Beautiful wedding of our neighbor's son. I just love all of the outdoor venues here in Israel!

#4 Bar Mitzvah of an ulpan friend's son. I won't post the photos, but my ulpan teacher was there. I kept making the same grammatical mistake with the same word, and we got the mother of the Bar Mitzvah boy to have a few drinks.  Even funner times!

#5 Sheva Brachot hosted by the street for the wedding a few days prior. This was beautiful and was held in the amazing garden of  one neighbor.

#6 Voca People. If you haven't seen them  you need to buy tickets. It was fabulous, aside from a few uncomfortable moments of 90s songs that weren't exactly appropriate for all of the kids. Of course, we listened to them as kids. Best part was when they did a rendition of "We are the World."  Epic, as my kids would say.

#7 Bar Mitzvah of a neighbor's son. Apparently the neighbors write a song and then perform it.. It's perfect when you're short because I just stood behind a few people and tried to keep up.

That is it (I think) for the celebrations. It's so nice to be here and to be taken in by our new neighbors and new (and some old) friends and invited everywhere.

And now, we move onto the weeks of trips for my children. My children are living the good life here for sure.

All of my kids are in the Israeli scouts. So they all had a chance to go camping this past week. 3/4 took advantage of that. Despite my mild disappointment that we didn't have one night when all four were away (please work on that scouts, I need a vacation for adults!!!) everything ended up working out.

Sunday-Monday
#4 goes camping with the scouts. I am not exactly sure where they went but I think it was the Jerusalem area. He went hiking and camping, slept in a tent, got rained on, came home dirty and had a blast. Can't really ask for more than that.  #1 child also went on this trip, to learn a bit about being a leader for next year.

Tuesday - Thursday
#3 leaves for camping at the bright hour of 5:30am. Eek!!! I'm sure I looked fabulous when I dropped her off. She went camping up north I think. Truthfully, I do my best to keep up with the emails and texts and stick to the info that I need to know. Otherwise, I'm trusting 18 year old to look out for them. They seem fairly responsible.

She also had a blast. Between the campfires, the learning to cook while camping, making salads outside and the hiking, she couldn't have come home happier. Or dirtier.

Tuesday - Friday
#1 goes on the special camping thing. Basically a much more intense hiking and camping. It's his last year (and first year) as a kid in scouts, so this is their big trip. They all had to pack an exact list of items and then take their bags to be weighed.

He also came home filthier than I could have imagined but smiling his face off. They had a great time. He loves hiking and camping. And luckily, I'm married to an eagle scout and we moved here with all of our gear. So he was all set for the hike.

And finally, child #2. She did not go camping because she had a Taekwondo competition that conflicted. If you are on Facebook, then you've already read about it. In America, we never did a competition. Shabbat conflicts. But here, this child attends taekwondo once per week and a special sparring class once per week. So she sort of knew what she was in for, but I did not.

It's basically an arena with four sections and sparring matches are going on in each section. Pretty wild. The competitors are divided by weight class. Oh yes, the week before she had to go to Jerusalem just to be officially weighed.

Long story short. She had one match. She lost (but looked to me like she did well). But somehow she came in 2nd place. So I still have no idea if there were only two girls in the 37 kilo weight class or what??? But anyway, it was a good experience. She told me that she wants to continue and so I guess for the near future this will be my life? I guess we shall see. So many new experiences here. And yes, during the matches, child #4 was whispering quotes from Karate Kid. Pretty amusing.

It was actually so interesting to see the cross section of Israelis at this event. You have Ashkenazi, Sepharadi, secular, religious, long peyos, skirts, head coverings, shorts, different languages, just so many different types of Jews all coming together. And of course, coming together to knock someone else down, but let's ignore that for now and just enjoy the camaraderie.

And in case you are curious: When they speak Hebrew over a PA system it sounds just like the NYC subway system. You can't understand a word!

And now, back to my pesach cleaning.  Or at least pretending that I'm cleaning. Don't forget, only one seder here, and we got invited out for it! Make aliyah and you too can enjoy one seder. You can also enjoy the spirit of the holidays in the air. Or if not in the air, at least in the elbows out, melee of the supermarket. Ahhhhh, Israel!

And one more bonus to living here. It seems standard for your company to give you a little holiday bonus. They even have special gift cards for pesach. Love!!!!

Buses, trains and automobiles... And new beginnings

I shall begin this blog with an ode to Israeli public transportation.  That will lead into a fascinating look into my new professional ulpan course. Control your excitement.

As an aside, since beginning my new commute and course, I've become very familiar with the Cofix by my ulpan. So familiar in fact, that I usually order two coffees each morning and they have decided I'm worthy  of my own carrying case. I save it and reuse it every day because coffee is no joke. In other news, the morning employees are all French speakers, as is about 1/3 of my class. So I can continue to remember how much French I've forgotten since high school. Which is basically all of it.

So I finished my first ulpan back in February. Then I've been on a waiting list for a medical ulpan. I found out on a Thursday, two weeks ago, that I was off of the waiting list and that I had an exam on Sunday to see if I was qualified  (if I know enough Hebrew) to take the course.

Okay, so I make my way to Tel Aviv for the exam. Mind you, I hate cities.  Anyway, the exam is difficult but doable.  I finish the exam and leave. They said to return the next day at 9am again. I figured they would text or call if I did not pass. They had taken down all of our information.

Oh, but how wrong I was. I go into the classroom and we all wait for the teacher. She comes in and looks at her list and calls out a few names. Then looks at those people, and says, sorry, you can't be in this class, you didn't score high enough. Geesh. Harsh!!! Then they passed around the grade sheet with the results of everyone's exam. I guess we aren't quite up to studying privacy laws in medicine yet.

Moving on. I'm in the class,  so yay me! But this blog post isn't about the ulpan. It's about public transportation. The last time that I commuted to work on public transportation was in 2001. I lived in the Bronx and worked in Manhattan. I hated the commute on the subway but it was convenient. Every other job that I've had since then,  I've commuted to by car.

So day #1, I go into Tel Aviv with the hubby since he is an expert. We walk 2 minutes to the bus stop and take a bus straight into Tel Aviv. Then walk about 5-8 minutes to his office, where he makes me coffee. Lovely, right? Except I don't work in his office and my ulpan is a fifteen minute walk away. And also, I can't go to his office every day for coffee because he has this thing called a job. And every day isn't "bring your wife to work day." And also the minor detail that I can't do the reverse commute in the afternoon. The same bus doesn't return back to my town until the evening rush hours.

So, there is another woman in my class from my town. I follow her home. That entails walking to the bus. Then the bus to the train station. Then the train home. Then waiting for another bus to my actual home.

Except on the first day, I didn't know exactly where the bus from the train to my house was. So I ended up turning the wrong way out of the train station and walking towards my house, figuring I'd see a different bus stop. Well, the joke was on me because the bus doesn't go that way. Once I realized this, I was way too stubborn to give up and walk back to the train station for the correct bus. Nah, I figured I would just walk home and take the shortcut up the stairs. Have I ever mentioned that this particular shortcut is approximately 275 stairs?? Lesson learned. Be less stubborn unless you're working on your glutes.  Below are pics of the view on the way up those stairs.

The next day, I asked where the bus stop was located. Progress!!!

So this has been my daily commute, minus the hubby making me a latte.

#1 abandon my children  (actually,  they also leave for school at ~ the same time)
#2 walk to bus stop
#3 wait for bus
#4 watch Netflix on bus ride while hubby sleeps

#5 walk 25min from bus stop to ulpan
#6 learn 50 new words per day
#7 rush from ulpan to local city bus with two classmates
#8 rush to make train
#9 enjoy the very pleasant train. Seriously, it's traveling in style
#10 wait for bus to house
#11 get in more steps walking to house
#12 home again,  home again, jiggity jig

After Pesach,  I have a new plan to save me time. We shall see how it pans out. I did a test run last week.

Now, the new ulpan. I am now in a medical ulpan. It is full of people from different medical professions. We have doctors, dentists, physical therapists, speech therapists, pharmacists, etc... And one lone nurse. Yes, that's me.

The ulpan is full of people from all over the world. France, Belgium, Russia, Moldova, Turkey, Brazil, Australia, England, South Africa. And one lone American. Me.

So the short story is that I really like the ulpan. I hate the commute but the course is really good. You might recall that my previous ulpan was too easy. This one is not too difficult,  but it is full of tons of new words. So there is a lot to learn. Or as my teacher so lovingly put it (remember, this is the course where they singled out those who didn't pass the exam) as she read my paper, wow, we have stuff to work on. Well, as we say in English. "No shit, Sherlock." I wouldn't be here if I didn't have stuff to work on.

More on the new ulpan next time. For now, I shall leave you with this:

On Friday we had an ulpan party from my previous ulpan. We all went to our teacher's house (because we are totally her favorite class ever). We had a get together, she made us fancy coffee and of course, forced us to speak in Hebrew. And then at the end, she handed out our certificates of completion for her course, with grades for the oral and written exam on them.

Warning : brag ahead
You may recall that I was in a Bet (level 2) class. But in the end I took the Gimmel (level 3) oral and written exam. It's a long story, but basically, if I passed level Gimmel, then I am able to take my nursing exam in English. Backwards, but thems the rules! Below you shall see my glorious certificate of completion.

But the day before I received this, remember I was sitting in a class where the teacher told me how much I have to work on. And I had a bit of a situation at the train station where I had no idea what the guard was asking but refused to say, huh?

One step at a time.