Things I've noticed about Israel. Some good, some not so good, some just different.
- Sunday = Monday, Saturday = Sunday, and Friday afternoon = Saturday. Confused? So were we.
- It's dusty. We sweep the floor every day and this is the rainy season. I'm hoping in the summer that the breeze will blow from the sea at least...
- Everything is small. The country is small, and most of the cities and towns are very compact. Nearly everyone has small cars (my corolla would look big here), but I guess you have to in order to drive and park on the narrow streets. At the grocery store, they seem to only have yogurt in single-serving containers (hummus on the other hand comes in huge tubs). Flour comes in 1 kg packages, that is all. It's the same for sugar. For someone who is used to buying 10 lbs of flour at a time, this will take some getting used to - even though I wouldn't want to have to lug a 10 lb bag of flour on the bus!
- The produce is awesome! Almost every fruit and vegetable you buy is grown in Israel and it's cheap. I bought delicious melons the other day for less than 50 cents per pound. You can only get things in season - the melons showed up a few weeks ago. I'm looking forward to mango season and hoping lemon season is year-round!
- You can't get good cheddar. The soft cheese and feta is great, but the hard cheeses like cheddar are difficult to find, expensive and all imported. Dear Cabot, there's a market here for good cheddar (and I know yours is kosher). I am more than willing to be your PR person if you want to expand to Israel.
- Recycling. There are huge recycling bins for plastic everywhere they are usually next to the dumpster and every street has several of them. However, paper recycling bins are few and far between. Jason sometimes takes our paper recycling to school rather than try to find one of the scarce bins. There is no glass recycling. You can apparently return certain kinds of bottles to the store, but we haven't figured this out and don't go through enough glass bottles to worry. Again, the university has glass recycling bins so Jason has brought a couple of bags with him.
- You have to use a key to lock the door from both the outside and the inside. Our door has 2 locked settings. Locked, and REALLY locked. The same key locks the door and basically turns that same lock into a deadbolt. This means you can't really lock yourself out, which is helpful.
- Cars have passwords. Many cars that we've been in require a code to be punched into a keypad on the dash before starting the car. I'm assuming it's an anti-theft measure, but I haven't actually asked...
- Hot water comes from the sun. This is great in theory because you don't have to use electricity to heat the water, but when it is cloudy and rains for 2 weeks, it would be nice not to have to remember to turn on the electric heater and wait a good half hour or more before you can take a hot shower. Also, it's not great if you are a shower-in-the-morning person since the water is not very hot in the morning even if it was sunny the day before.
- People can be very pushy. You really have to stand your ground in line, at the shuk, on the bus, etc.
- People can also be very nice. We were invited to several Seders when Pesach was still over a month away. We were also invited for coffee by a very nice couple in the park on Purim. Many people have helped make us feel at home and we appreciate them all!
- Lunch is the main meal. Except on Fridays when most people eat a big dinner, lunch is the main affair. Even after getting used to the idea of lunch being the biggest meal, there is no way I could eat as much as most Israelis do. Jason and I usually split a portion and sometimes have trouble finishing that.
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| Typical lunch - we split this. Most Israelis would eat the whole thing! |
These are just a few of my observations. We will be sure to share more of these as we go.
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