The first week in Israel has been resetting our circadian rhythm to match the other side of the world. First was catching up on lost sleep and jet lag, and now its a matter of being ready to go to bed at 5pm and waking up around 2am. Last night I managed to fall asleep an hour later, closer to 6pm and woke up around 3am. Maybe doing an hour later every night will put me back to a regular sleeping pattern.
Other activities have included finding food and yet more bureaucratic stuff. This bureaucracy crap never goes away. Everyone in Israel is required to have an ID number, much like a social security card, and what has been referred to in Revelations as the "mark of the beast." So we had to go downtown to get that, and our project coordinator was supposed to meet us to guide us through the process.
We had not taken the bus yet, and didn't know which one to take or how much it would cost. Fortunately, there was information about the Israeli bus system on-line and it would cost 6.4 shekels to ride one way. We had to go purchase something so we could get correct change for both of us the ride downtown and back. After we had the change, we were told that the bus driver could give change, even change for 500 shekels. Sure enough, once we were on the bus, the driver had plenty of cash in plain view -- not in easy reach -- to give change to customers. Apparently bus driver robberies do not happen in Israel.
We got on the bus and it was like any other bus ride, and reached our destination an hour early. We wanted to arrive early because we weren't sure where the bus would let us off and didn't know how far we would have to walk. We didn't have to walk far, and once we ascertained exactly where we needed to go, we walked around downtown Haifa as the city started to wake up to a new business day.
Unlike in the US, there is not a Starbucks on every corner. In fact, we couldn't even find a coffee shop. David suggested that normally it is so hot here, people may not be so addicted to coffee like the in United States. The drink of choice in Israel seems to be Coca-Cola, which unlike its better tasting alternative Pepsi Cola, is kosher. So: no Pepsi, plenty of Coke. The Coke tastes good here, and I've been sucking it down like there's no tomorrow. The soda is sweetened with real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, and the taste difference is dramatic.
We had about an hour to blow and no little coffee-shops to sit and wait so we wandered around the streets of Haifa, and tried and find a potential place to eat lunch. The streets are what you would find in most any major city, lots of traffic and big trucks barreling through. The sidewalks are mostly brick paving, and the buildings are built in the style my girlfriend would call the "Eisenhower uglies." She calls it that because practically everything manufactured and built in the US during the fifties was for functional value without any artistic design. Haifa may have the hills and views of the water similar to San Francisco, but it is lacking in SF's charm.
We happened down this little side street with very little traffic and there was a cafe advertising falafel. I was thinking we might want to come back there until I saw the dead pig carcasses hanging in the back of a truck. It was disgusting. We watched as a couple of men unloaded a pig and sent it to the warehouse where another guy put it to a table saw and cut it in half along the spine. It's not like we stopped and gawked, we were just walking along -- by the time we were right there is when it registered what we were seeing. So we hurried by, and as we did, it appeared the pigs had already been skinned. There was a big box by the truck filled with pig heads and a cat was hanging around wanting to eat something. So much for kosher.
Then we spent the rest of the day dealing with bureaucracy. The Ministry of Absorption sent us to the Ministry of Interior who sent us back to Absorption who sent us to the bank. All this time, we were unable to find our project coordinator. David calls her Smar-dar, which is not her real name but close. He's been calling her Smar-dar so much I thought that was her name, and told the people at Absorption that's who we were waiting for. They looked at me like I was crazy, but how was I supposed to know? David has been calling her that for three months now.
At the bank we happened upon our two neighbors also immigrants under the wing of Smar-dar and she was on the phone with them. Talk about serendipity. Before doing the bank she wants us back at Absorption, so we traipse back over there where she takes us over to another place to pay the rent. By then, I'm starving and we found a place to eat which had a the scary bathroom. Using the bathroom required a key, which was okay. I took the key, found myself in the back of the building in a corridor-like maze and followed the signs to a bathroom shared by both sexes. I unlocked the door and there were two toilets: the man toilet and the sit-down toilet. I go into the sit-down toilet and close the stall door, sit down, hear somebody else come into the restroom. I presume it was a man because he went in the neighboring toilet. He took a whiz, but not flush and left not washing his hands. Talk about uncomfortable, I didn't move until he was gone. At least he was quick about it. I finished up and got out of there asap. Returned to some very good hummus and a Coke; and we were ready to face the bank.
In the United States opening an account goes like this: personal banker explains all the different accounts, choose an account, personal banker takes your money makes the deposit, and the whole thing takes maybe 20 minutes.
The personal banker didn't explain anything. She just took our ID numbers, passport and started plugging things in the computer. Thirty minutes later she asked if I was a stock broker and I said no. After the hour it took to open my account, it was David's turn. When our accounts were opened, she showed us where to make a deposit. We had to take a number and wait for the teller to take our money. Except it couldn't be an ordinary teller, it had to be the special teller who could take foreign currency. After what seemed like hours, the bank was done.
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