Greetings from the Holy Land. I’ve been advised that instead of emailing you insanely long emails, I need a better vehicle for my ramblings. “Blogging Chaim”, they said, “It’s the future”. Bit like Garlic Bread I suppose. Oooh, taste sensation! That should separate the Peter Kay fans among you, from the regular hoi paloy! Anyhow, I’ve drifted (you should be used to it by now).
So here I am wondering if I’ve really just made Aliyah or am actually on some weird holiday! Let’s cut to the ‘brass tacks’ as they say (I don’t know who they are either). Wednesday was very emotional. It’s hard to say goodbye to everything and everyone I’ve known and loved. However I see it as L’Hitraot, more than goodbye. Please G-d, I will see you all either here or back there, and so I’ll forgo the finality. Right, serious-ish stuff over, let’s go back to where I was. Flight was good, and it felt strange to be wandering around Ben Gurion after midnight, and do official processing stuff with Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN, if I refer to them again from here on out). Once we’d got all the processing out the way, done what we need to do, and picked up our cases (bend with you knees, bend with you knees!!!), we went through departures, where Saranne’s brothers, Julia, and Tami G (here on an extended holiday) were there to great us. Well not the whole plane, I mean that would be silly. Hmmm, maybe…Anyhows, it was really nice, and Saranne’s bros had made T-Shirts for themselves and her to wear, and Julia and Tami had made us nice glittery signs, which was really, really sweet (Thanks guys!). Saranne went off with her brothers to head to Modiin, and I went off to get my (free) taxi ride. Now you have to picture the scene. There are loads of people standing around waiting for their ride. I rock up give them my slip for the free ride, but also wonder if i can give Julia, Tami, and Julia's friend, Danni, a lift at least to my destination. However I'm thinking what does this look like. I've arrived in Israel and the first thing I do is pick up 3 pretty girls and take them to a hotel in Jerusalem! Long and short, they didn't have enough room, so I went in a free sherut, which dropped a few other olim heading to J-Town. However this was no ordinary sherut. No my first real taste of Israeli bureaucractia arrived when they wouldn't let the driver leave the airport complex until he'd paid his airport tax. To do this he had to head all the way back to the terminal, pay, get a slip and then drive back again. All this at 2 in the morning! Having gone through this the driver proceeds to tell us that we would pass a spring set into a hill side where you can go and fill your bottle with the purest waters in Israel. Yep, you guessed it. Cue another stop! I eventually got to the hotel about 3.15 in the morning, and basically checked in and flopped out. Over the first few days at the hotel, I took the opportunity to do a bit of the initial admin stuff, so I went with Saranne on the Thursday and opened a bank account (only after having been told in the morning that our Teudot numbers weren't yet on the system!).
For Shabbat I went to my sister's best friend, Sharon Blumberg, who lives in Modiin with her husband, Roi. Cue another story. Sharon told me that the main bus to Modiin left at either 3 or 4. I of course, didn't move quick enough for the 3 o'clock bus and so go to find the 4 o'clock one. Long and short, i was pointed to the wrong stop, and missed it. This meant that in the end Sharon and Roi had to come and pick up their Shabbat guest! (Thanks again Sharon).
Sunday, I checked into the Ulpan, which as is becoming obvious with Israeli bureaucracy, took the best part of the day before I got my room. I'm sharing with two English guys called David Brummer and Alex Zyslbalt in a room not much bigger then my one back in London!
Ulpan, in terms of lessons, didn't really start until Tuesday, so Sunday and Monday was spent doing more bureaucracy, medical insurance, doctor, etc etc.
Yesterday (Tuesday), lessons began and it's scary how much of my Ivrit I've lost. Please G-d, it will return soon!
So that's me done for the mo. I'll try and blog again soon. Hope you're all ok, and L'Hitraot, I'll see you all soon.
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