Aliyah Diary 3: Moving in to our House

Miss the first entries?
See Part 1: Preparation for departure over here.
See Part 2: First Few Days

Ode to Concrete

“My Wifi signal is not great. You’ll need a mesh router with wired connection between the floors.” Nonsense – I have a super duper fancy gaming WiFi 6 router that even gives me a strong signal outside. You have an older WiFi 5 router. That’s the problem. Haha. No. Lower frequency and slower WiFi actually passes through the walls better. It’s to the point where if I close a door between a router and my laptop, the speed drops five fold.

I guess when you live in woodlands, you build your house with wood. The walls are sheet-rock and the floors have ‘give’ to them and creek like any good Edgar Allen Poe story says it should. In Israel when you have sand, you build houses out of concrete. The floors have no ‘give’ to them whatsoever. Everything is SOLID. I mean, the dining room table is solid and completely level – couldn’t say that in New Jersey … though the table I had might have something to do with it. The railings are solid around here – they don’t move when you push them – it’s just everything feels stronger here. Even in synagogue there are cellular dead spots! Woe is me.

“Incoming!”

A downside to concrete, however … when you do “incoming!” it’s LOUD. A grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs is probably not the best for this either. Oh, I forgot to tell you what I’m talking about.

You see, we have this rule – well, I have this rule. You can throw anything down from the stairs as long as you yell “incoming!” to warn those below. I actually did this in a sixth grade class I taught … girls class where throwing needs encouragement. Boys class …

“What, I didn’t do anything?”
“Dude, I was standing right behind you. I just watched you stand up and throw it at him!”
“Okay, maybe that time I did it.”
“Maybe.”

Digression from another class:

“He knocked over my water bottle!”
“Well, you put it next to his seat. Put it next to your seat.”
“Then I might knock it over!”

Houses aren’t as wide over here in Israel where land is at a premium. Instead, our new house is narrower with more floors. That’s fine because when my kids blast music I only hear it at 70 db instead 100 db when at the other side of the house. (It’s a double edged sword because if they played it at normal volume, I’d have to go up three flights of stairs to know if they were home.)

Back to “Incoming! – When you have two floors and the floor below has wood with some give … “Incoming!” is amusing. When you’re throwing from the third floor to the first on to concrete … SMASH. Ugh. At least it drowned out my kid’s music with continuing benefits because tinnitus acts up.

I’m also rethinking putting the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs. Yes, wood breaks up the fall and the sound – let’s leave it at that.

The Russian worker came to install our washing machine (new machine with stains on the top because – apparently that okay here) – and wasn’t too thrilled with passing through our ‘box gauntlet’ outside – he had one of those orthopedic boots on one of his feet and I carried his bag into the house for him because it’s just like a big ball pit. We should invite the neighborhood kids over. How did I make this guy smile? He wanted to dispose of the washing matching box … so I showed him, “Incoming!” In my broken Hebrew (Ulpan – Hebrew classes – haven’t yet started), “Tain zeh c’zeh, yzaraik la’mater, avel ata tzarich l’amar v kol ram, ‘Incoming!'” Imagine an old Russian guy who speaks no English, yelling “Incoming!” again and again, in English, followed by large chuckles.

Noises Outside

In New Jersey we lived on a large park with ice cream trucks. Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer, When the Saints Come Marching In, and other delicacies were regular fare from the ice cream trucks. One guy used to park parallel to our house and play Frank Sinatra all Shabbos. Once on Shavous he decided to play Jewish songs and probably has no idea why no Jews bought ice cream from him. I mean, it was a holiday where we eat dairy, right?

In my new house in Israel – well, the walls are concrete. I don’t hear anything from outside, Baruch Hashem. However, when I go out for Minchah the Muslims, bless them, blast their call to prayer. The sweet, sweet sound of the muzzan (Arabic for chazzan) . . . used to bother me when I previously lived in Israel. Now, wow – I’ll take that any day over 8-bit La Cucaracha and London Bridges.

Finally, our Lift Comes.

Our lift with all our stuff from New Jersey came less than a week after we arrived. It came very on time, actually. We told them we were arriving a few days earlier than we were so there’s that. They say that if it arrives before you are hear to sign the paperwork (which only you can sign) then it goes into storage for $100/day.

A few things I learned – a) we should have thrown more stuff out in America; b) unless it’s a couch or table they don’t take things out of boxes and put things together for you; c) the workers in America speak Spanish and the workers here speak Amharic, Portuguese, Hebrew, and sometimes English. Two of the guys came to Minchah with me and we’re chatting … that’s not something that happens in America. It’s also normal to see African Americans with yarmulkes on around here. Wait, that can’t be right. African … Israels? Jews of non-fair complexions?

Most workers were excellent and others . . . could be better. I’ve never once had a worker in America, shall we say, “mouth off”. Cultural difference.

Boxes, boxes, boxes, and things up to three floors from where you want them. (I’m used to things no more than one floor away.) Last time I moved I owned about 1/10th of what I do now … and we left a lot of it behind!

Different size house meant our right angle playroom couch couldn’t get downstairs so now it’s in the living room in two pieces creating a color scheme faux pas – I’m told. We have a carpet to make the room “come together.” What does that even mean? It’s concrete!

Thermostat Wars

In America, two zone system and it covers the whole house. We leave it on and the house is a consistent temperature throughout. I even had the fan turn on every 6 minutes out of every hour to keep the air circulating. As the bill payor versus recipients of my kindness, it was a battle to keep the thermostat at the “right” temperature. That’s what a phone app is for timers and the ability to clandestinely change the temperature on them from anywhere. It was a good system – for me.

Nighttime lighting wars are nothing in comparison to air conditioner wars over here. There are individual infrared remote controls for each air unit here – and the units beep! My WiFi can’t extend between floors yet the blasted beep – yet my wife can hear that beep from anywhere! I need to figure out how to up my game for Israel.

At least the bidet’s over here don’t beep. Nothing like the king’s coronation every time you sit down on bidet in America. Worse, it was the first note of 8-bit “Home on the Range” which was stuck in my head.

Electricity

The American power splitter? Gone. Didn’t notice the little on/off switch on the side until the “pop” – I found the circuit breaker.

The inverter? You can’t destroy those things – they’re meant to change the voltage. Gone!

Turns out there’s a 110/220 switch on the back and that took out not one – it took out two circuits.

Preparing for the Amazon-apocolypse

Ever see Death Becomes Her? Don’t. Unless it’s the Fifth Element where Bruce Willis plays himself, skip his movies. I’ll describe a scene for you … two dead woman are ‘alive’ in the sense that they’re walking around though they’re bodies can be destroyed (e.g. cannonball hole through the stomach going in the front and out the back) though they can cover it with makeup and whatnot. There’s a living guy who helps them do this though he’s moving away and ut oh, how will they make themselves look pretty / whole without him? They need to get everything done now!

That’s what moving to Israel is like … you buy inverters (two of them because you just killed one of them – why would you have a 110v setting when the output is 110v with American outlets anyway?), speakers, computers, cat food, cellular phones, and ink cartridges. (One of those things doesn’t belong, one is not like the other …).

No Costco? No Amazon? The truth is … it’s better because we make due with “less”. Do we need a box of 12 toothpastes and cases of toilet paper? Yes.

Still – better without it … I think. Ask me in a month when our Costco supplies that we brought on the lift run out.

Decking Out My Computer

So in line with the preparation for the electronics-olypse, I bought all the stuff I kind of wanted to get in America and never did … my computer now has three monitors, a quality webcam and microphone, and good speakers. Listening to music like I haven’t since college – and I’d like to say my music is revenge on my kids though I’m in the basement below three floors of concrete.

Further, my computer stays on New Jersey time because I work American hours. It’s like starting your day twice every day. My Israel day starts at around 7am and my America day starts at about 3pm. Hope I don’t age twice as fast.

When I’m in my office – which is now lined with our extra mattresses because, dang, do concrete walls echo – I’m in America-ville on America time talking to clients though I haven’t yet perfected answers to questions like, “I’m in America in September – can I see you in person?” Umm … “I’m actually out of the country at that time.” Otherwise, as we live in our heads I just live in my American office … with better sound.

Internet Musings

Turns out you can have “Whatsapp” with your Israel number and “Whatsapp business” with your American number on the same phone. Recommended.

Sometimes my phone gives me weather reports for Ramallah and speed tests to a server in Tulkarm. It’s funny because my perception of non-Israeli Arabs around here is that they’re angry and backward. Now my perception is that they’re angry and backward with high speed internet. (This is a joke – don’t suicide bomb me. I live close to an Arab village which is actually good because when Arabs launch missiles at us they won’t want to aim near other Arabs. Except – actually, they’ve killed Arabs in Beer Sheva and the Golan Heights so maybe they’ll hit the Arabs here with double-bad aim and hit us.)

Government services

You can bring up to three lifts in your first five years here. Huh? Why not more, I asked. You can – they tax them. Oh. Taxes here. Right.

You get government payments to you up to one year which cuts off if you leave the country. You get unemployment benefits for six months and if you still need it, another six months. Rent subsidy is about $250/month. Mortgage assistance from a bank up to 15 years. Have to go to something like the “country seat” to get all that done because, sure, another place is the Israel scavenger hunt for new olam services. Also – Lod is not Ramle. Waze, Google Maps, and my taxi driver send you to the wrong city.

There are free courses for job training purposes – first five years they are only in Hebrew. After that, apparently they’ve given up on year and you can take courses in English for the next five years.

Cereal boxes around here are stuffed to the top. Yay.

Go the Next Entry …
See Part 4: First Day of School