Blogs from Haifa District, Israel, Middle East - page 15

11 AM I am a worrier. At home I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and start mulling over things—work or finances usually—and can’t get back to sleep. I thought it would be different here. A few bumps getting settled and then we’re essentially on a year-long vacation, right? What’s to worry about? Early on, Betsy and I decided that we were going to homeschool Zach. Why not public school? Well, naturally, there was the language problem: Zach doesn’t know Hebrew. But more important, we had heard horror stories about the Israeli public school system. Expatriates reported that discipline is lax and the culture is extremely violent. Students are disrespectful and won’t listen to teachers. Bullying is common and tolerated—both of students and teachers! Students even assault teachers in the classroom. (We’d heard ... read more

.שנהֹ טובהֹ וחגֹ סמח Shanah tovah v’hag sameach! to all our Jewish friends and family. It is Rosh Hashanah, but we got here so shortly before the holiday that we haven’t yet found a synagogue at which to attend services. So we are spending a quiet Rosh Hashanah together in our apartment. We will find a synagogue before Yom Kippur so we can attend services on that holiday. We are also looking forward to Sukkot; there are many city activities that take place during that week. There is a film festival with early showings for kids’ films and later ones for adults. Our apartment is becoming home. As Stewart wrote earlier, we had some confusion with the appliances, but now we know which buttons to push to make happen what we want (even if the symbols ... read more

I’d forgotten how really good the food is in Israel. Our first meal: hummus, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, pita, and g’vinah lavanah (a yogurt-like cheese with the texture and richness of sour cream but without the sour taste and only 5% fat). Granted we ate it on our second day here, right after we got home from the store. Up to then, we’d been subsisting on rice crackers and icky-sweet protein shakes. So, it’s really no surprise that I stopped after every bite and remarked how superb the food tasted. But it really is great. The cucumbers and cheese especially. When we were in ulpan (Hebrew language class) in Jerusalem, an Israeli Arab classmate who had recently returned from the US remarked on how you just can’t get a good tasting cucumber in the States. She's right. ... read more

Boy, it's been a rollercoaster here. Until today, I've been afraid this was one big 11-month mistake. Here we are in a strange country, we don't speak the language, and we don't know anybody. I felt very isolated. My despondency increased when Betsy relayed the experience of an American who came to Haifa for a year of study on a Fulbright scholarship. The woman reported in her blog that it took her 3 months to feel comfortable here. The only thing that kept her in Israel was that her return flight—already purchased—was a year out. And she came alone, which made things much worse. I can't imagine it. (By the end of her stay, of course, she didn't want to leave. I skipped that part of the story.) I started this morning with my usual ritual. ... read more

We left Seattle on Thursday, September 6, at 6:40 pm. We arrived in Haifa on Saturday, September 8, at about 9 am. Here's the story of our trip... We had a long, but fun, trip here to Haifa, Israel. We were able to go see some of London. We rode the "tube" (=subway) into central London, walked all around and back to a little sandwich shop in Picadilly Circus, and then rode the tube back to the airport. We walked a little more than Zach wanted to, and we were carrying/rolling our carry-on bags with us (repacked as 4 for foot-travel), but we had a good time. We walked past Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, the Thames river, the Eye over London (but didn't ride on it), several street ... read more