Travelling Borodin style
We arrived late Tuesday night at our apartment and were please to find out that we were only one block away from a 24 hours variety store and from a very popular ice cream shop that was happy to serve us gelato at 1 am (even though they officially close at 11:30 pm).
We’ve been busy trying to get unpacked and get set up and figure out where to get what we need (still figuring out where to buy hangers). We tried the Israeli system of getting our groceries delivered and had it on the 4 pm delivery route and when I asked when to expect the groceries, was told before midnight. We’re hoping the driver was joking but so far no groceries (though it has only been two hours). The driver was mad at the cashier for how the groceries were packed so hoping we were not a victim of their internal fight. We live on the top floor (which is the 4th floor in the US or 3rd in Israel) and there is no elevator so we are very grateful for the delivery option (and the lovely neighbor who helped us lug our suitcases up the flights of stairs).
The girls and I are now all registered for our programs/school and the girls had a chance today to meet and chat with their main teachers and met another girl from 8th grade yesterday and popular tv shows, school cell phone rules (the teachers holds them) and other important teen questions. Their teachers were super nice and very helpful and had lots of warm energy and have texted the girls their numbers for any questions. There are two 8th grade classes and Naomi and Alexandra will be in different classes and they have one main teacher for about half their classes. The main teachers stay with the class for two grades so had the kids last year in 7th grade too. It seems we are their third set of twins in 8th grade and there are supposed to be many other students who live near us. We live about a 20-5 min walk from the school. We also got a honk from their english teacher this afternoon (whom we met earlier) whizzing by her motorcycle right by our apartment.
We also succeeded in getting bus passes – which was harder than one might have thought. I was determined to get naomi and alexandra the youth pass (which is for under 18) but there was disagreement whether we could get them as we are not israeli citizens so needed to get an additional letter from their school and muster some israeli gusto, but now after two days in line at the bus pass store (which wins prizes for inefficiency), we are victorious. Next challenge: figuring out the textbooks for school and getting them lockers (which I started to do today) but is apparently much harder than you think as it is through an outside company that will only accept locker orders if you have a teudat zeut (israeli identity number) which we don’t have. So the locker fun begins.
And not surprisingly the food has been great. More info to come on that soon but thought it was nice to hear about something other than food. But to make sure there is atleast a food mention in this post, our hebrew word of this blog post is snowbar – pinenuts. We highly recommend the humous with pinenuts (humous im snobarim). And enjoying another classic israeli dish: shoko b’sakit, chocolate milk in a bag.
And our groceries arrived (which only one spilled item). And so nice not to shlep it up four flights of stairs – not sure how the delivery guy did it.