Aliyah Diary 11: Packages. (חבילות.)

Previous diary entries:

Part 1: Preparation for departure over here.
Part 2: First Few Days
Part 3: Moving In
Part 4: First Day of School
Part 5: Two Weeks In . . .
Part 6: Getting Comfortable
Part 7: Ready for Guests and Yom Tov
Part 8: Visiting Jerusalem – Kotel and Concert
Part 9: Nasrallahed All over the Floor
Part 10: Driver’s License

Havilot in America

Hey, I’ve been here long enough that I put a Hebrew word in the title of the diary entry. “Havilot” means “packages”. Why does that get its own diary entry? Sigh.

Something like this actually happened to me on more than one occasion in the America . . .

“What’s this thing blocking my front door at 7am? Wait, the toothpaste? I only thought about ordering that last night before bed. Did I click the ‘buy now’ button and fall asleep?”

Not as extraordinary though more frequent, “another Amazon package … I can’t remember what I ordered two days ago … three times a week. To much to keep track of.”

Now, an actual Israel experience.

“I like this laptop on this Israeli computer store website – I can pick it up from their location about a 10 minute drive from here. Great!”

Next day: “Oh, this is the shopping center – I know this place. No computer store here … none here … none here …” I call the number on the receipt … Ring ring … [in Hebrew], “I am sorry that I speak only some Hebrew, I want to ask where …” … he responds already in English (I really wish Israelis would let me finish a sentence) … “Ah, I tried to call you. It’s not there. The computer will be ready to be picked up in three days at a place called Zol Stock’.”

I get a text when its ready for pickup. Great!

I drive to “Zol Stock.” Drive out of my neighborhood, listening to Google Maps speak English and give distances in kilometers while Waze speaks Hebrew and gives directions in miles, go down the hill, through the single lane construction, right onto the empty three line highway, through the pine forest, driving 90 km/hr on a road with traffic lights and no traffic with the windows open, past some Maccabi caves, noting the airport control tower on the left, down a long straight away into nowhere, and then … a shopping center. Where is Zol Stock?

My daughter sees it. We walk into a place with hanging plastic decorations, basketballs, wrapping paper – doesn’t look like a computer store.

Oh shoot. Not this Zol Stock. There’s one where I went the first time to pick up the laptop.

I walk away from the wrapping paper, the basketballs, and the hanging plastic decorations, drive out of the shppping center which was after a long straight away into nowhere, note the airport control tower on the right, pass the same Maccabi caves, drive down the road with no traffic and traffic lights driving 110 km/hr, through the pine forest, onto the empty three lane highway, drive through the single lane construction, up the hill, pass my neighborhood and into … into … now where is Zol Stock?

My daughter sees it. We walk into a place with hanging plastic decorations, basketballs, wrapping paper – doesn’t look like a computer store.

Cashier sees me and somehow knows I already am here to pick up a havilah and not buy wrapping paper. She sends me to the back. We walk to the back and – just aisles of wrapping paper and fru fru hanging things made from hydrocarbons.

Back to the cashier and she walks me to an unlabeled, non-descript room not actually at the back – it’s back-ish … with the door facing to the front … and there’s a kid in a large room of brown packages. We pickup our laptop.

On the way out curious and helpful locals are ready to lend a hand to the new yokel and so, sure, why not … where can I find sukkah beams … no, not schach, the stuff under it … you know … dekel, I’m asked? (palm fronds)? No, no. Beams… ugh… I learned this in the Gemora … what’s the word? Come on Google Translate … devash? No! Not “bees” … I want beams!” Korot eitz! That’s it!

The woman doesn’t know so she flags down the nearest male … he tells me there’s a place, however, it doesn’t have an address. It wouldn’t help much anyway – they’re optional here. It’s not as bad as some of my clients’ addresses in India with things like, “near the old hospital” or “behind the rat patch” … he gives the “address” of … “go around that circle, then down that one, and then when you see a bus stop, loop around and there’s a guy selling wood on the street.”

G_d had mercy on my soul this time – I’m running to do a mitzvah. Somehow his directions made sense to me and I parked illegally on the side of the road next to a sandy … not field … with lots of different size wood beams laid out across the ground and a guy with a table saw. No, for real. This is a thing.

My daughter, at this point, was keeping her distance from me while I tried to speak Hebrew to order boards of 3 meters in length. (I am a fan of meters – that’s convenient and makes sense … don’t talk to me in Celsius though … absurdity.) I tried to explain to my daughter – honey, Daddy loves you very much and this is just something he has to do to learn Hebrew. Today is actually a good day. We compromised that I can practice my Hebrew and sound like an idiot on the street though I have to stop saying, “I’m new here” every time (“ani oleh Hadash”).

I was wondering how long I could get away with that.

I buy my 3 meter wood and we’re on our way back home.

Say, where are all my packages from Amazon?

I go to my neighborhood post office.

“We’re closed today. Yeah, I know it’s Monday. You can only pick up packages tomorrow from 11am to 12pm.”
“Huh? No, for real. Quit fooling.”
“We’re not fooling. Want me to write our hours down for you?”
“Wait – how are you still keeping a straight face and why are you looking at me like I’m the one from outer space?”

I walk out like I’m holding a parking ticket I picked up off the windshield of my car, having no idea how it got there – it says come back tomorrow from 11am to 12pm:

These were my canteen hours at summer camp!

Save me, Whatsapp! The neighborhood has a Whatsapp group for everything. There’s an app for that. An app for dog walkers. An app for giving away used coffee cups. An app for perpetual motion fixers. An app for slippery slopes. … and there’s one for post office pickup. What there is not yet, and I may have spurred to get started – is a Whatsapp group listing the Whatsapp groups we have.

I join the post office Whatsapp group (yes, seriously, it’s a thing) and someone asks is anyone going to the post office tomorrow that can pick up their package? I’m a good neighbor. I want to be like Mexico to the United States under a Trump presidency … I say, “Ani.” I can pick up your package tomorrow!

Then comes breakfast and a glance back at my phone … sweet mother of – eight people have messaged me to pick up their havilot! That is how they get their packages!

I tell the first three I’ll do it and the rest… sorry … I’m new here and there’s only so much responsibility I want before I even know what I’m doing.

11am comes around … it’s post office time! It’s … literally summer camp canteen. It’s a small wooden shed with a line out the door. I wait my turn … I get there … I don’t have my package number. My address? Will that do? Oh right, addresses aren’t really a thing around here. No, I should have gotten a text with a package number. I search my emails … oh, for each Amazon delivery I had to click a link saying which post office to deliver it to … despite the fact that I gave them my delivery address when I ordered. Then and only then is a package number assigned and the package actually sent to my post office. Or … I could select a post office or pickup point in any other place like, I don’t know … this Zol Stock in this town and not that Zol Stock in that town (even if the computer store’s website said it was that one) … and they might have better hours.

Weeks ago my first Amazon order came ahead of schedule to my door. My wife’s first order from the U.K. came in three days to our door. Apparently we were being lulled into a false sense of serenity.

Also – I didn’t have the names of the people for whom I was picking up their packages. I only had their phone numbers from Whatsapp. Names are a thing at post offices. Names, not numbers.

Israeli Laptops

A few quick comments on the laptop I bought –

1) You can find name brand laptops with Linux installed on them … that saved me hours of frustration getting video drivers to work … and I wanted to teach my daughter how to install an operating system … though she already had to deal with my bumbling through Israel to find it, so … about even.

2) The laptop cost the same as in the U.S. … a little less because I didn’t have to pay for MS Windows that I wasn’t going to use … though the taxes made it cost about $100 more in the end.

3) It was worth it to pay the extra because the keys have Hebrew letters on them here, and there’s an Ethernet jack built in when they’ve disappeared in America through long time vestigial use over there . . .

Also, this hangs in my office now so I can be more certain about my disorientation of living in two time zones at once. If there’s one thing I’m certain about, it’s my indecision.