Weeks Two and Three

After all the excitement of the first week, the next few weeks have been much easier. The kids went to new olim camp in Efrat and they took a whole bunch of exciting field trips.  We found the parks in our neighborhood and the kids are enjoying being able to go to the park by themselves!

We spent our first Shabbat in Efrat.  We were hosted by two super nice families.  One is fairly new in Israel like us and are finally getting acclimated. They have a few little tiny kids.  Very nice.  The second family has been in Israel for over 20 years and all the kids were born here.  They have kids my kids ages, which is amazing. Rivka has become a great friend with their daughter.  She even had a sleepover last night.  Rivka and Chava basically hang out together everyday after school.

The kids got to go to a science museum in Beersheva, Ir David in Yerushalayim, a bee farm, and so many other places.  Even though there were some complaints (especially in the mornings), they had a great time overall.  Yesterday was their last day of camp and they made a little show.   

Our first Shabbat in Efrat, Rivka went to Bnei Akiva with her friend Chava.  It's in the next neighborhood from us, called Tamar.  She had a nice time and we got to meet the leader who signed me up for all the whatsapps for Rivka and Sima.  Of course, they are all in Hebrew so I have no idea what's going on.  Well, earlier this week, he texted me to tell me about an event they were doing on Thursday for the girls going into 7th grade.  They all were getting together...So Sima went with some cookies and nail polish (he told me she should bring some girl stuff, but since he didn't have sisters he wasn't sure what she should bring).  She had a great time!  Even though there was only one other English speaker.  The girls gave her their numbers and she got added to the Whatsapp group! I'm so happy that she is finding friends.  Now she is even more excited to learn Hebrew so she knows what they are saying :)

Since the kids started camp, it left our mornings free to get other stuff done. We were able to:

1. Buy a car.  It is a little Ford Focus (that's a  mid-sized car in Israel!!) 
   
2. Buy some shelves - There is an Ace in Yerushalayim, which is very similar to an Ace in America.  They were helpful and friendly and they have sales! 
   
3. Get the kitchen set up, got the gas turned on, and bought a hot water maker!
   
4. Get to the misrad haklita and get our paperwork finished.  Yay!
5. We finally got checks from the bank (after she forgot to order them when we opened the account).  She only ordered one pack, even though we requested 3...oh well.  Eventually I am sure that will all work out.
6. Buy a printer and got it set up
7. Get my desk all set up.
   
8. Daniel went to the Misrad Hachinuch a few times.  They need to approve and validate all his degrees so he can get a job.  They are only open on Monday and Wednesday...Bureaucracy is complicated here.
9. Get all the kids registered for school, for the buses, bought their school supplies, and most of their books.
10. Get signed up for health insurance and the supplemental insurance. 
11. Buy new candlesticks, since our broke on the plane (don't worry...not the nice silver ones, a cheap leichter I bought about 5 years ago).  The new one is beautiful and everyone here uses colored lamp oil. 
    

Also, I started working again.  Technically, that was at the end of our first week, but so far it is going well.  I work US hours (so about 3PM to 11:30PM).  That gives me the morning to get stuff done, which is nice, but it does leave me a bit tired :)...It's worth it though.

Hopefully, I will be starting ulpan in a couple weeks. That is definitely going to leave me exhausted, since I'll have to leave my house around 7:15 AM learn for 4 hours, come back around 2, then start working at 3...The next five months are going to be tough, but I really want to learn Hebrew. I am sick of feeling illiterate and having to rely on other people to translate everything for me.

Oh, also in the past two weeks, Aryeh has decided to become an Israeli. He wears shorts on Shabbat and even bought himself a pair of sandals!  The horror!!!!

The best thing that happened in the past two weeks is that the Eisens came back to Israel!  It's so nice to have them here.  They know so much of where to go, how to get things done, and it's just so nice to have a friend nearby.

Last shabbat the Eisens had us (and other guests!!!) for both meals, even though they only arrived in Israel at about midnight a few hours before.  We had an amazing time, the food was great, of course, and the company was even better.

This shabbat we are going back to Yad Binyamin, which is making my kids very happy.  I was worried that Binyamin would not want to go, since we still haven't had a Shabbat meal in our house, but even he was excited.  I hope everyone has a Shabbat Shalom!!!  

First Week - Part 2

Shabbat, August 4

Our third day in Israel was shabbos.  We were in Yad Binayamin with some friend we hadn't seen in years.  We had such a great time, and most importantly, our kids had a great time.  They found friends that they connected with. Sima even went to B'nai Akiva.

On Shabbos afternoon (late afternoon) we went for a walk around the yishuv so we could see it and they kids could play at some parks.  We met a lot of friendly people.  One man told us a story of his colleague who was visiting Israel for work.  His colleague said,
"I grew up in Dubai and this weather really reminds me of my childhood."      
The Israeli man replied, "sure, but it was hotter there, right?".
"No, no," said the man from Dubai.  "It was just like this."
Yes, Israel is in the middle east and we did not yet have any air conditioning!!!!  Well, despite the lack of air conditioning, we did head back home after shabbos.

Sunday, August 5

The next day was Sunday.  Remember, in Israel, Sunday is the start of the week.  Everyone works.  It is not like America.  The air conditioning guy was supposed to come on Sunday, so we sat around most of the day waiting for him.  In the end, he called me around 6 and said he couldn't come until the next day.  That was sad, but what can you do.

Well that night, once we knew he wasn't going to make it, we decided to take a trip to Ikea.  Ikea in Israel is amazing.  It is JUST LIKE in America, except the signs are in Hebrew.  Well, and there are a few other differences.  They sell kosher wine!  All the snacks are kosher.  And the food is kosher.  They have hotdogs and falafel at the fleishig food counter.  And they have a separate dairy cafeteria that I didn't get to see.  They even had soft serve ice cream, and it was only 2 shekels.

Ikea is packed full of large, religious families and we think that it is partially just to be able to feed your family for under 50 shekels.  The hotdogs and the falafel were only 5 NIS. Pretty cool. We ended up getting all sorts of stuff to organize our house.  Since this is a new house, there aren't any towel racks, or toilet paper holders, or mirrors!  The lack of mirrors has made me resort to putting on my makeup using a web cam.  It's pretty hilarious.

Ikea is in Rishon L'tzion, which is near Tel Aviv.  It is certainly much more crowded in the center than here in Efrat.  It is also MUCH more humid. We are so lucky that the weather cools down here at night.

Monday, August 6

Monday was a super productive day for us.  Daniel went into the city to visit the misrad hachinuch to try to get his diplomas recognized.  They, of course, wanted some form from the midrad hapanim, so he had to go back again another day. And they only take walk ins on Monday and Wednesday.  OK.

While Daniel was in the city, I took  the kids to our local 'mall' to get RavKavs (bus passes) and Israeli Sim cards.  This shopping center is like a mall, in that they have several stores. It is also where the grocery store is, so that is also a thing.

Anyway, we went upstairs to the RavKav booth. The lady there is very nice and speaks no English. Despite the fact that we could not communicate in any way, I was able to get bus passes for me and all the kids with our pictures on them!  Yay for us.

Next door to the RavKav place is a store called Hello.  They sell cell phones, plans, and accessories.  That is the only reason that they exist. So, I go in and tell them I want to get 5 sim cards. He asked to see the phones.  I only had a couple of the phones with me, but he needed to know the size of sim cards we needed.  Then he told me the bad news, he only had 2 sim cards...the rest would come the next day.  Well, OK...I guess that's fine. So I left with no SIM cards.

After that fun, we decided to go into another part of the mall (that is inaccessible from the part we were just in and from the grocery store...) The main part of the mall has a couple restaurants, a store called Fox and Fox Home (clothes and home goods) and a judaica store and a couple other small stores.  I bought a couple clothing items at Fox and then the kids and I went to try the sushi restaurant called Japan Japan.

Now, when I say "sushi restaurant" don't worry, it's still a Jewish restaurant that has to serve other stuff.  But unlike in the US, where that other stuff might be mexican food, or pizza, or some completely random cuisine, at this restaurant everything is Asian.  I got a delicious thai style soup, we got some super yummy schnitzel (like chicken katsu) and we got some sushi.

Everything was super yummy and we all had a great time!

Monday afternoon, we went to Tzomet haGush (another shopping area) and looked for appliances. When Daniel was in the city, he looked at appliances at a large, well known appliance store, so we would have something to compare against.  The prices at the Gush appliance store were almost exactly the same as in Jerusalem and best of all, they were able to deliver the refrigerator that night!  Yay.  We bought a refrigerator, 2 ovens, and a washer and dryer.  Another great part was the ovens each came with a 1000 NIS gift card for Fox Home.  So we also have money to get extra stuff that we need.

The refrigerator got delivered around 8:00 PM that night.

While we were buying appliances, I walked across the parking lot to a store called iGush. Happily, it was another cell phone store. The man who owned the store was SO helpful.  He had SIM cards (luckily) and he was able to get us numbers that matched our US numbers.  In the US, my phone number  was 720-878-5980.  In Israel, it is 058-678-5980.  Sima and Rivka got numbers just like  mine, but 5981 and 5982.  Daniel and Aryeh got numbers that were just like their US numbers.  So at least we can remember those!

I'll continue later...

You can hear about our adventure getting the appliances installed.  Spoiler Alert:  we still don't have an oven!!!!

First Week in Israel

Wow...it has been a crazy week!  I haven't had time to blog so I'm going to do a quick rundown of each of the first 7 days that we have been here

Day 1

The flight from LA was long, but the kids were amazing on the  the flight.  Yaakov went a little crazy after about 9 hours on the flight and he finally fell asleep on the floor of the plane in front of his seat.  The food on the flight was good.  The kids got some yummy chicken and noodles and the adults got chicken and rice. For breakfast, everyone got eggs and a cinnamon roll.

We arrived at Ben Gurion on Thursday, August 2 at about 1:30 in the afternoon. We were taken to a special area to be processed.  There were about 40 people on our flight and only two other families.  Happily, there was a kids play area, which made my kids really happy. 

They also had coffee and icees and snacks.  The kids even got some huge bags of candy!

The processing took about 3 hours.  Amazingly, Daniel received his teudah zehut (his identity card) even though they said he would have to go to the misrad hapanim for that.  Aryeh also got his TZ since he turned 16 a few days before the flight.  Yay!

After the processing was complete we were taken back to the main terminal where we retrieved our luggage...so many bags. 
They did manage to get us all into a van and all the bags into the van. I was amazed. 

They got us to Efrat at about 6:30.  And we were so happy to see our friends Hyiam and Carolyn Rieffman.  They made aliyah a week before we did.  They met us at our house with pizza(!), toilet paper (!!!) and all the other little things you don't think about when you first arrive to a house. They were true life savers!

The night we arrived, Jolie had arranged for us to have dinner with a neighbor, which was so amazing. We went to dinner at Kiki's house.  She and her husband moved here about 6 months ago from Crown Heights and are trying to bring some Chabad energy into Efrat. 
They were so warm and welcoming.  Such a nice first place to stop. They also let us borrow a converter so we could blow up air mattresses and go to sleep.  They also let us borrow a bed!

We all slept pretty well that first night, but Daniel and I were both up at around 4AM.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2

Friday morning was the first day we woke up in Israel.  We were super lucky that some neighbors had dropped off some cookies and our landlord sent us a fruit platter.  That kept us from being too hungry first thing in the morning.  After we ate and tried to organize a little, we went over to Jolie's house. She is so kind and let us use her refrigerator and her washing machine (amazing) and let us borrow her car (even more amazing!).  Friday at about 11 we went into Jerusalem.  The kids had never been to the kotel, so we really wanted to visit there as soon as possible.

We got on the bus from Efrat to Jerusalem.

Then we got on the 1 (those of you who have been to Jerusalem know what I am talking about).  It was a mad house.  After the first stop, someone got on the bus to check that everyone paid!  It was really dramatic.  I thought he was going to kick people off the bus!  Daniel had paid for all of us, so we didn't have Rav Kav cards to show the guy.  Plus, the driver had taken Daniel's Rav Kav (bus pass).  Well the guy made Daniel go talk to the driver and they worked it all out.

Going to Jerusalem on a Friday is insane!  Everything was so busy, riding the bus through Geula was an exciting experience.  Once we got to the kotel and were about to go through security, who should we bump into but the Reiffmans again!  Amazing.  You are always runing into people you know at the kotel.

We all davened there a little then we walked back toward the center of town to get the bus home.  We had some delicious bourekas.  It was SOOOO hot!  We were all dying by the time we got onto the bus.  Of course, Waze gave us some iffy directions, so we ended up on the slow bus through Efrat, but we did eventually get back home.

Once we got home, we had to rush to shower and change for Shabbos.  Of course. we didn't have any hot water yet (or AC but the hot water was the more pressing problem).  The Dud Shemesh (solar hot water heater) wasn't hooked up yet and we didn't know how to work the regular hot water.  Cold showers it was.  But since it was basically a million degrees, it wasn't such a bad thing.

We spent shabbat in Yad Binayamin with some friends from LA who made aliyah about a decade ago. They have 6 kids, a beautiful house, and made our first shabbat in Israel so special.  Walking into the house with air conditioning was amazing.  Sleeping in a real bed was fantastic, and they have kids just the right age for most of my kids.  Aryeh and Sima really made some friends, which was great.  Aryeh even got to meet a boy who will be at his school this  year.

Friday night dinner was delicious.  They had chicken soup just like Mommy and challah just like mommy and soup nuts and all the food that Binyamin likes!  Finally he actually ate!  It was amazing. All the kids stayed up super late playing with their new friends and Daniel and I got a good night's sleep.

This is getting really long...I'll continue with day 3 in the next post.

Checked in and ready to go

We'll go through security soon

On the way to the airport!

Aryeh and I are in the Uber on the way to the airport!!!! Daniel and Grandpa are in a uhaul van and Grandma is driving the kids in her car. NBN will have snacks for us and Grandpa and Grandma can hang out with us until it's time to go through security.

Good times.

One day to go

It's our last day in the US!!!  I can't believe it is really here. I woke up this morning feeling very nervous.  This is a HUGE change and it doesn't feel real.

We've been saying goodbye to friends, family, and acquaintances. We are so lucky we got to come to LA for a week before we left.

We hung out with cousins, grandparents, and friends.