We are back! (not that we've gone anywhere in six months)

Where to even start? At the very beginning perhaps? Like back when the world was open for travel and even for exciting things like shopping at the supermarket?

So, this blog was started in March: 

So it's more of a historical blog at this point. 

Hebrew hilarity (only what I can remember, there has definitely been more)

Boss: Arielle, can you find "some Hebrew word?"
Me: what, I didn't hear you (code for please say that again because I literally have no clue what we are discussing)
Boss: Arielle, can you find "some Hebrew word?"
Me, "of course, just tell me what that is." ( I always try to be agreeable)
Boss and coworker now laughing. " It's not a thing it's the name of a person.
Me: yeah, no problem (thankful that mask hides red face)

Followed a few days later by some slight confusion between the head doctor and myself between the words disconnect and clean. Ummmmm, it all ended well. I promise that I am professional, just I cannot understand a lot with the masks. Luckily for me my most recent shift was full of native Russian speakers. So they spoke Russian most of the time and no one expected me to understand anything. I did ask them to at least teach me some Russian. So far, no improvement.

(I will add an update. I can now understand almost everyone with their masks, so I'm guessing when we can remove the masks, I'll basically be a language expert)

Corona, because that's what on everyone's mind.

But first, let's go back in time.  I was lucky enough to request and receive a few days off from work in mid February, before Corona got out of control.  Obviously I decided to run off to London with the hubby. He worked and I had me some fun!

What did I do, you might ask?

 Well first, I spoke in English to everyone for three full days and it was glorious...

We saw a show, the Prince of Egypt, which was amazing. It wasn't officially out yet but I highly recommend seeing it.

I went shopping

Strolled over the London bridge twice

Went to the Florence Nightingale museum

Went to my first ever martini bar

Stayed in a super cool fancy hotel, complete with doormen with bowler hats

Spoke some more in English

Then back to regular life and the world has now shut down to travel.  We actually spent a lovely few months all at home together. Let me start by saying that we were some of the lucky ones who kept our jobs. My job as a nurse continued on much the same, just lots of new rules. And my husband transitioned to work from home. Our kids sort of had school from home but not exactly. I wasn't too worried. They have experience about how to manage themselves from when I homeschooled them a few years back. Also, you can't really micromanage teenagers because that will just slap you in the face. I remind myself of this every time I try and micromanage my teenagers...

_______

Okay, skip ahead like four months...... (Or I'll never finish this)

Teens are bored

I spend all of my money on food

I'm working more than ever

I have a collection of masks because obviously I need them to coordinate with my clothing/activity

I have learned how to cook many new dishes

I have also learned to make some simple cocktails

Also I spend a lot of time googling cocktails

Teens are bored

We bought a ping pong table

Fire pit gets lots of use

I buy a lot of marshmallows

Work stuff:

I finished my course. Or okay it's not totally finished. But the classroom portion is done. I passed my first set of exams. Now I am in the midst of my internship of sorts. (Well now I'm done because I was slow on the blog). Basically I have to work in a different NICU for ten shifts, with a clinical instructor. I was sent to the other Hadassah hospital. Obviously I was super nervous to start for totally weird reasons. 

#1 I have parking issues

#2 I get lost a lot

#3 how will I know where the bathroom is

#4 what if I forget Hebrew in a new place

#5 what if I forget to bring shoes

#6 can I get out of my parking space

I wasn't worried about the actual internship part. Because that would be too normal. And good news. Parking at this Hadassah is way easier.  And I get to park for free because I work at Hadassah. I leave my house thirty minutes early in case I get lost. Usually this results in me snagging my new favorite parking spot and no, I won't reveal it's place. They showed me where the bathrooms are located. I keep my shoes in my car. And apparently I can still speak Hebrew in a new place. And my clinical instructor is an English speaker in case I forget something. 

What else is new here?

Eldest leaves (already left) for a pre-army prep mechina program soon

Other high school kids aren't really sure what will be with school. (Well, we have a schedule and now they have started but it's still not totally clear). I'm assuming we will get a final answer like two days before. So basically I assume they'll be home? At least most of the time. 

Hubby continues to work from home thankfully.  He is amazing at blocking out all distractions and just working from the middle of the hallway. (This reminds me of when we had twin babies sleeping in our bedroom and he never heard them cry. Side note: they cried basically all of the time for four months).

I continue to learn more and more about life here and about the different types of people. But I'll save that for a talk I'm supposed to give for a Hadassah group. (Already gave this talk and didn't really discuss this much).  Let's just say that two days ago (three weeks ago) at work,my shift (not in my own unit, I was sent to work in a Covid-19 unit) the staff was as follows: 

Russian immigrant

American immigrant (that's me)

Jewish Ashkenazi Israeli

Jewish Yemenite Israeli

Muslim Arab Israeli, son of a mukhtar

We had some interesting discussions in the middle of the night about our various communities and religions. This is the real Israel and this is what happens when we all sit together. (Whether by choice or because they threw a bunch of random nurses together)

I can now say that the son of a mukhtar bought me coffee and if that isn't a new experience for this American, I don't know what is. 

Also, coffee at 1am is amazing!

Okay okay, this blog is already outdated but if I don't publish it then I never will. 

Next blog will probably focus on my exciting life of: work, house, work, house, supermarket, house, work, house, work.... Stay tuned.....

Work hard, study hard, play hard....

My kids have informed me that it's been a while since my last blog post and that I'm slacking. So here we go.

What's new?

Well, as usual I have decided that my life here isn't confusing enough and that I should agree to go back to school for a special certification course for nursing. Why, you may ask? Well, because I am unable to say no to anything basically. (Except last week my kids sent me pictures of puppies and said we should get another one. That was a hard no!)

Anyway, the course began a few weeks ago.  I won't say it's not hard but it is more manageable than I had imagined. I'm only a few weeks into it so we shall see what happens in a few weeks.

Obviously funny things have already happened in the class.

I sit in the first row so that I won't be distracted and can catch as much Hebrew as possible. Which basically means I stare at the lecturers. Like seriously stare. Hopefully they don't think I'm just weird 😂

One lecture (at least) also isn't a native Israeli. But has been here probably 20+ years. He is a doctor, lectures totally in Hebrew but the randomly stops to check his grammar. Like hmmm should this word be masculine or feminine. And all I am thinking is oh crap, if he is still unsure, I have zero chance.

Since I've started this blog, another few weeks have flown by. I passed my first exam in the class, I feel less scared during lectures, and I  even ask questions occasionally when I'm not busy staring. However, the WhatsApp train of messages that goes on still hurts my brain. I can't keep up without a lot of effort.

Vacation:

Making aliyah (okay fine and having older kids, but mostly making aliyah) has been amazing for my vacationing life!! Part of it is that the food is kosher so I can travel anywhere within Israel that I want easily. Also, we aren't paying Jewish day school tuition. Also, the hubby isn't using the majority of his (always generous) vacation days, in order to take off for the Jewish holidays. Here those are just days off.  I mean, not for me because I'm a nurse but for most people.

We had been planning to go away for a few days of Pesach (Passover) and I have reservations at a field school up north. But with my job I won't know if I have the days off until a week or two before, because I can't take official vacation during any holidays but I can work three days in a row in order to have a few days off. If the stars align as they did last year, I could be off but there is no way to tell now.

Well, two weeks or so ago, we got our new schedule (we receive two weeks at a time) and I saw that I was off from Thursday at 3pm all the way through the end of shabbat. So I asked off for Sunday in the following schedule and booked a last minute family trip to Eilat.

If you know me, you know that I am a planner and this was out of character.

If you're not familiar with Eilat, picture Ocean City, NJ but mainly kosher food. And even more hotels. And fancier hotels. Also you can see three countries from Eilat, so sort of the same...

I won't bore you with the details. But I will say. If you want a fabulous quick family vacation with four teenagers (may you all be so blessed) I can't recommend Eilat and my hotel enough. We chose an all inclusive hotel because I like to know my costs up front. And with four teens, food costs can get a bit insane.  We basically had four days of family fun. Board games, meals, walking on the boardwalk, visiting the Coral Beach, meals, cocktails (just me), ice skating, board games, and just general fun. Oh, also the hotel room had a rain shower. Huge highlight! We are easy to please.

A few highlights/discoveries:
One of my daughters apparently loves watching National Geographic on television. We don't have TV at home per se (just Netflix)  but apparently she loves it.  And she likes weird stuff. I watched several hours with her about mysterious plane crashes, wars, drug smuggling, etc... I had no clue she was so ummm interesting...

Did I mention the hotel was all inclusive? This includes wine beer and cocktails in addition to juices and soft drinks. Well, the dining room has two beer taps which are conveniently places near the soft drinks.

So one of my sons (the younger in case you're curious) wanted some juice with breakfast but instead took beer. He came to the table and handed it to me. Then a man looks over at him and says, "so, do you always drink beer with your breakfast?" Haha!! You can bet we didn't let that joke go for the whole vacation.

I learned that my other daughter would 💯 want to go on some scary boardwalk rides. I nixed that because they freak me out. I also learned that if I drink two cocktails before playing board games with her, it does not increase my chances of winning.  She almost always wins.

And that leaves me only with my eldest. As you know he is very tall, especially compared to me. When we checked into the hotel, they give you bracelets for the all inclusive. One color for adults and another for kids.  The man at reception wanted to give him adult bracelet. I said umm he is 17 he is just tall. He looked super skeptical.

Then as we left Eilat and were going through security at the airport, the security guy is asking me who everyone is. Then asks, are all of these your children (while staring at the big one). I said, yeah, he is just tall, but he is still my baby!  Of course I followed that up by pinching his cheek. My kid, not the cute security guy.

All in all, as close to a perfect family vacation as we have ever had. Relaxing, bonding, eating. I think everyone was happy about it except maybe my personal trainer. Maybe I'll just bring him next time.

One last thought:
I feel like the my absorption into Israeli society is evolving in a positive direction. We had a staff meeting this week and not only did I understand almost everything, but I even jumped into the fray to ask questions and give my opinion. I mean okay, my opinion was fairly quiet but a year ago I would never ever had said a word at a staff meeting.

Okay, I'll end this blog before I get busy again. I'll leave you with the following thoughts.

#1 I love my name
#2 originally it was a boy's name
#3 now it's popular for girls
#4 anyone my age with my name is a boy
#5 I can't say a proper 'reish'
#6 this leads to frustration
#7 it also leads to funny coffee names
#8 most of the coffee guys are actually Arab
#9 so I can't blame them really because the struggle is real!!
#10  but coffee is good and the staff is nice
#11 signing off, Arielle, Aryeh and Areel

Living the life

Another month (or two or four) has passed us by and as usual, many days have been normal and just a few where weird and unusual stuff has occurred.

Let's begin:

So, hubby now has to travel more for work.  While I am happy that he is getting to do new and exciting things for work, I also hate when he travels.  So to help soften the blow I have decided to visit him when I can, AKA travel to his destination and shop and tour while he works and then see him at night.  The first of adventures occurred in September.

So I buy a ticket that includes carry on luggage only.  Because the hubby gets two free checked bags, I don't need any.  He can be my shlepper.  I arrive at the airport via train (which is super convenient from where i live)  I find my line at the airport and as I am about to get into it, I suddenly get swept up in the middle of a big family.  So I wander along with them.  I am literally in the middle of a whole family.  And they are all wearing hijabs.  Plus me.  I mean, obviously I fit right in.  Finally, halfway through the line they offer to let me go ahead of them.  Cool.

Then the security line is backing up, so some security staff start walking through the line, asking who is alone, who is a group, etc.. So after being part of this Muslim family for a bit, a security officer walks up to me and starts speaking to me in Russian.  Not Hebrew, not English, Russian.  Geesh.  This was a day where I apparently didn't fit in anywhere.

So I arrive in London, after enjoying a lovely flight with usual cocktail on the plane (yay for free booze when flying internationally) and eventually figure out how to take the trains to the hotel.  I then proceed to have a whirlwind 60 hour London vacation.  Basically shopping, touring and seeing a show,  And having my first ever pint of beer in like a pint glass.  I felt so British,  Or Irish.  Or whoever is famous for that.  Basically, if you travel alone it is super weird but fun.  I hit all of the shops recommended to me by British friends, and discovered that they have TjMaxx in London, except they call is TKMaxx.  Odd what you find fun when it is not available to you normally.

I got to check out my hubby's super cool building in London and do a sampling of their coffees and snacks.  I got to walk 9 zillion steps each day because I thought it would be faster than the subway. Sometimes it was and sometimes, not so much.  I wanted to buy show tickets so I was 2nd or 3rd in line for same day tickets. Scored some "Book of Mormon" tickets.  Let me tell you, I almost decided not to go to a show because I was so tired, but I am so glad that we did.  This show was hilarious and I forgot that I really enjoy musicals.

Basically, the trip was a huge success for me.  I assume it was also good for my husband professionally.  And we managed to leave our kids and they survived.  Some friends stepped in and drove them one night when they had a far away activity (I mean in the same town just kind of far to walk at night on the kind of abandoned path).  I am now busy planning my next getaway, obviously.

What else has been going on?
We had all of the chagim.  You know that whirlwind month of Jewish holidays where we cook, eat, see friends, go to synagogue/shul, repeat.  And if you have my job you work on the majority of those days.  When you arent working, you are apparently eating cake.  It is a hard month health wise!  But lots of fun to see friends and such.

This year my parents came out for the tail end of the holidays.  Since most of you readers are friends with them I am sure you have seen their facebook postings.  We all had a really nice time together and got to have some new experiences.  They even got to have a beach day at the tail end of October, actaully the last day of the year that our favoritre beach was open.  And we even had ice cream on the beach.  Because our weather here is awesome.

Now because I've basically forgotten what has happened in the months it has taken me to write this might as well skip right ahead.

November is the month where tzofim (scouts) ruled this house. Practice every night until really odd hours, tons of plans and meetings, etc.. it all culminates in the Pesti which is where we go and sit outside, freeze our buns off and cheer. So this year I went in full winter gear, gloves, thermos of tea. And it ended up being like 60 degrees 😂 but I was ready!! My younger son's group won again, probably because of his sweet dance moves! Overall, a fun time. I love seeing all of the events that are run totally by teenagers. They motivate and serve as role models for the younger kids and it's just some good fun. Also I get to hang out with my friends.

Next year:
Our eldest is in 12th grade (odd considering my age) and now he is trying to figure out what to do next year. The army runs a number of different gap year programs, like a year of volunteering, a year of studying, learning, lots of different things. But you have to decide what you want, visit apply, get accepted and then have the army defer your draft date. In classic Israeli style this is all done in a super short period of time.

So a few weeks ago, my eldest and his friends got together and went all the way up North to visit a possible choice. He is still very undecided but it seems like they had fun. Aside from the crazy long bus ride. But they got there and back safely and seemed to enjoy themselves.

And then last week I sat at a school meeting about these boys and their options. I sat with my friend of 20+ years who I met on our own gap year.

Sunrise sunset.....


And because this blog has been taking me months, let's just skip to the now.

Hubby and I did a last minute escape vacation. Another perk of living here is never having to worry about finding kosher food. We went to Mizpe Ramon, stayed at a fancy hotel that I've wanted to stay at for a  while and just had a great time. They have a pillow menu where you can order your own pillow. I mean, come on...

I meant aside from when I had the brilliant idea to do this endless hike where I felt like I was walking across Mars with no end in sight. Or that I was part of the movie Spaceballs. Aside from that it was amazing. But the other hikes were fun. Also I didn't plunge to my death which is always my big fear while hiking. So score one for me.

And now I leave you my latest Hebrew blunder. It's not even a new one, but apparently I don't learn...

At work:
what I meant to say:  I recommend using the green needle, not the pink one to pierce the rubber top on a medicine vial, so you don't get little pieces in the bottle.

What I actually said: I recommend using the green needle, not the pink one to pierce the rubber top on a medicine vial, so you don't get little hot guys in the bottle 😂

And that my friends is how you do it.

Semblance of normalcy

Wow, time is flying and apparently I haven't been using that time to blog.

So I think I will start off with this.  I am not involved politically and am always way behind on the news.  But I do know this.  Where I work, we treat all patients and their families the same.  It doesn't matter if we can communicate in Hebrew, Arabic, English or something else.  (Anyway I speak to the babies in English.  And Arabic is next on my list of languages to learn) ) Here is  sampling of photos I have taken. I am guessing that you cannot guess who is Jewish, who is Muslim etc...
This is Israel.

Summer happened:

So I think that I did actually write about summer stuff.  Basically, summer was exactly the same for the adults and I needed a personal asistant basically, to keep track of the kids whereabouts.  There were camping trips, hacker camp, jobs, running a summer camp for a week for little kids, hacker camp again, camping again, art camp, and did I mention camping?

Lots of people were visiting Israel:

So one of the great things about living here is that it seems like most of our friends and family eventually visit Israel for a trip.  So we still get to see them.  This summer was a lot of fun getting to see some of our close friends who were visiting.  Come back soon and if you havent yet come , then come already  And we will meet you for a coffee or dinner or whatever.  Just dont ask me to meet you to go ziplining because just NO!

We moved:

So while our kids were on one of these camping trips, we moved,  Down the street. Because as I mentioned, we are crazy.  Like not even really down the street but like five houses away.  We love our neighborhood and did not want to go far.  After a month we are finally 95% unpacked.  Now if only the dog could figure out that the dogs on this side of street don't need her to bark at them every time they bark.

One bonus of the house that we did not even know about?  We have an amazing view out to the hills of Jerusalem.  I can sit on my front porch type thing and see the hills.  Its awesome.

I discovered that I hoard weird stuff:

Moving stinks but packing and unpacking are excellent ways to clean out stuff that you dont need.  It is also a way into self discovery as you try and figure out why you own certain things.

Odd things that I found:
*Resume paper, from 2000 when I graduated college.  I mean, who sends a paper resume these days and why do I still have this?  And why when I posted it online did several people want it?

*Small notebooks.  Apparently I have purchased about 20 surplus small school notebooks for the kids since we have moved here.  And they no longer even use that size yet I still have them.  Why??

*Siddurim (prayer books)  Okay so maybe this isn't so much hoarding but the amount that we own is not normal.  I think that we can open our own shul in the house and host a minyan for both nusach Ashkenaz and Sepahard.  Because in NJ we used Ashkenaz and here we almost always use Sephard so obviously we need to own double.

Along those same lines.  I have enough copies of the Tanach to open my own school.  Which sort of makes sense because I did used to homeschool but my enrollment capped out at four students.

I attempted shopping with teens:

Actually I don't even want to blog about it. We lived and they aren't naked. End of story.


Boys had a day of adventure:

Since I took the girls with me to Vancouver for my niece's bat mitzvah a few months ago, the boys were supposed to go on an adventure this summer.  But due to everyone's busy summer, it didnt happen until the very last week of the summer.  But apparently it was worth waiting for! The hubby and the boys drove all the way up North and went to a ropes course, a zipline, ice skating, go karting, and some other stuff. Oh, paintballing. And ate manly foods like pizza and ice cream and other healthy choices!


School started:

I know what you're thinking. I'm too young to have such big kids. It's true! But it's all part of my big plan to be young and wealthy when they all move out.  At least the youngish part is working so far.

Activities started:
Scouts
Scouts
Scouts
Scouts
Taekwondo
Taekwondo
Netball
Guitar
Art
Tricking

Hallelujah for public transportation!!


My dog is a jerk:

She spent a week barking in the middle of the night after we moved. I spent a week telling her if she didn't stop I was selling her. At least she is cute and fluffy.

Post office adventures:

It's been a while since I've had a good Israel story so here ya go.

So the post office here is interesting.  You can read into that whatever you want but lets just say, I'd stand in line any day in my old NJ post office instead.  Here you take a number at the post office.  Here you take a number when you enter. But there are different categories for services.  So first you hope that you took a number for the correct service.  Then you wait.  The fact that the post office has many many chairs should be the first clue that you will be waiting for quite some time.  Also that they have vending machines.  Some have stamps and some have snacks.  So basically they are sayng, take a seat and buy a snack because you will be here for some time.

Why am I telling you this? Because I ordered something from England.  Most of the order came to the candy shop right near my house, so last week I walked over, and picked it up.  But one item apparently wanted to go to the main post office in my town.  So I finally decided to go and pick it up.  I went in and took a number, There were only like ten poeple there which is a small crowd.  But one little detail.  After you take a number there is a big screen that shows which number is being helped and who is next and there is also a speaker system that announces it.  But the screen was broken.  So we are all just sitting around.  Then one woman is getting annoyed so she tells them, call out the numbers.  Because apparently the screen is broken but the system is still working, they just need to hit the button for next.

So we wait and we wait, because apparently people are like taking out mortgages at the bank and earning university degrees.  Then finally, miracle of miracles, my number gets called.  But there is already a customer at the widow I am called to, so I stand behind him,  Until the postal worker say what do you need?  I said, you called me.  She is like oh sorry I pushed the button by accident.  So back to my chair I go. I few more minutes pass and yes, you guessed it.  They called the number after me, because hello, the system.  So as the guy who is number 285 walks up, I say, (in Hebrew of course) hold on, I am 284.  He says yeah they already called you.  So I respond yes but she sad she called me by accident.  The postal worker is like, just come over, we will take care of you quickly.  So thankfully I wasn't registering for citizenship or anything and just getting a package so I was actually done in about 90 seconds.  For me to walk over and intercept a guy taking his turn (which was actually my turn) means one of a few things.

I am starting to assimilate a bit
I was really hungry and wanted to be done
I was so excited to go to back to school night and didn't want to be late
I am not a frier (sucker)
I really wanted the package

Suddenly back to school night isn't so scary:

This past week was my first back to school night of this season. Each year since we've been here (can you believe we are starting our fourth school year) I have attended these events and stressed about them. One thing about having twins is that your sidekick is never there for you. As in, the parents have to split up.  And our boys are also in the same school as one another so we have to split up always.

You might remember blogs of years past where I was so stressed just about going around the room and saying our names and our child's name.  Last night I had none of that anxiety.  I wasnt even worried that I wouldnt understand things at the back to school night.  This is a huge shift for me.  I guess a year and a half of working here has made me realize that I do understand Hebrew and even if I dont catch 100% I will get enough to be able to know what to do and what I need to ask for someone to repeat.  The biggest issue was that the air conditioner was so loud in the classroom that it was hard to hear the questions that the other parents asked.

But big news.  This year, no one asked about the lockers or the microwaves.  I guess in 10th grade we start to be concerned with class size (47 kids in my kids biology class as of this blog) and volunteer hours etc...

And finally, one little work tidbit:

During the year we all attend many many days of continuing education. I used to totally stress over these but now I just stress about the parking. Last week I attended a class on the testing we do ojnall babies after birth.

Yesterday I attended a class about feeding premature babies which was actually way more interesting than it sounds.

So first victory, I understood about 99% of the lectures. It helps that most of the speakers are people that I work with so I already know how they speak. Also I was sitting on the front row and stating right at them. Sorry if they think I'm too intense with the eye contact but I have to stare at you if I want to understand you.  I even managed to ask a question in front of everyone. Probably because it was to a doctor that I work with and she always send to understand me so I was less scared.

So then we have a presentation about a new piece of equipment that we did a trial with and might start using again. The details aren't important to this blog. What is important??

This slide

Yes they call this piece a Christmas Tree. And yes it was weird to hear that during a Hebrew presentation. And yes they apparently call this a Christmas Tree in America as well. But I'm guessing when it was presented to them, no one said Christmas Tree with a nice thick Israeli accent and a nice rolling letter R.

I snapped this pic to send to fellow nurses in the USA and they got a little giggle out of it.

And that is my current update of odd things that happen here.