Before making aliyah, I was told Israeli's didn't know how to stand in line. When my fiance and I first arrived in Haifa, we didn't notice the line situation because at the bank and post office you took a number, sat and waited for your turn. At ulpan, during breaks, people queued up nicely for their turn at the toilet. We did notice that people tended to crowd onto the bus, and push their way in. I can definitely understand why. First, is to get a seat. Second, is to be seated before the driver thrusts forward as if he's driving a race car; so that anyone who has not braced themselves is tossed unceremoniously across the length of the bus.
At the grocery store, however, it has indeed become apparent Israeli's do NOT have line etiquette or common sense. Here's an example, we were at the produce market picking up some oranges and corn on the cob. The store is very crowded, not so much with people, just because it is small and narrow. The store offers supermarket size shopping carts, but there is not enough room in the aisles for one cart and two people. When I go there during the day, the customers line up in such a way where the aisles are blocked but the egress is open. Once customers have finished paying, they can push the buggy outside, take their packages and go.
When my fiance and I were at the store the other evening, the line situation had changed. Customers were lined up so the egress was blocked by people standing in line with their buggies meaning no one could get in, and after the customer had paid couldn't get out. Everyone would have to stand back to make room for the customer to exit the store. Except they wouldn't do that, they squeezed tighter so the person who just paid had to go around the entire length of the store to another egress which was also blocked by people standing in line.
Stupid me, I didn't realize the line situation had changed and went to stand in line like how they do it during the day, only to be greeted by people staring me down with dirty looks because they assumed I was trying to cut in. When I figured out where end of the evening line was, my fiance and I were talking about the line situation and how it didn't make sense. Although I was speaking in English, the guy in front of me must have realized what I was saying was not exactly flattering and he gave me one of those, "I'll kill you with my evil glare," looks. The whole thing was rather disconcerting.
I tell you, you notice something and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere. The other day, I had seen a mother allowing her little girl to pee in the park in front of everyone: boys, girls, dirty old men. Well, when we were in Jerusalem, I saw a grown man taking a pee outdoors as casual as if in the privacy of his home. The thing is, he wasn't peeing in a park, he was peeing by some shrubbery at the mall. Another time we saw a mother supervising as her little boy sprayed the sidewalk. That evening, sure enough, as we were walking home through the park there was yet another little girl peeing in the garden, her father helping her pull her pants back up.
Anyway, we needed a few more groceries and stopped at the Super-sol we call Emu. Super-sol is a grocery chain that can be found everywhere in Haifa. The ones located at the malls are quite large -- and by American standards would be considered a regular size grocery store -- while others like the one near our apartment, are rather small. We call the Super-sol by our house Emu because we inadvertently bought roast emu thinking it was chicken. Only after getting it home and seeing the size of the "chicken" wings, did we realize that was no chicken. Ever since we have been very careful to ascertain that chicken is actually chicken.
At the Super-sol people will try and cut in line. They'll do that by inching their cart in front of yours. You really have to stand your ground or lose your place. Here's the odd thing, though. Someone will be in line, leave their cart and be gone for a long time, and come back and expect to still have their place. My fiance and I are nice, we'll let people back in.
Now that we have been here longer, we have noticed that even in places where you take a number instead of standing in line, you have to be careful to hold your place. When you're number comes up, you better be at the cashier or else somebody else will move in and claim your spot. That happened to my fiance a couple of times. The first time he didn't know what was happening, but the second time someone tried that, he demanded his rightful place. When in Israel...
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Passover in the Holy Lands or more specifically Haifa: Part 2
In all other areas outside of Israel, Pesach is celebrated for 8 days, in Israel it is only 7. For some reason the State of Israel, has declared the last day of Pesach as a national and religious holiday. Like on the Sabbath, all stores, government offices, banks and other businesses are closed. Unlike Sabbath in Haifa, the buses do not run.
We knew that everything was going to be shut down on Friday -- and this is kind of my fault -- because on Thursday I wanted one last gluten-free pizza available at the mall. Well, David hates the Grand Canyon mall -- the old, crappy one we can walk to in about 20 minutes -- so we decided to take the bus to the Haifa mall which is indeed much nicer than the Grand Canyon mall. For some odd reason, the Haifa mall doesn't have a food court, thus no kosher pizza, all it has is a few rather expensive sit-down restaurants. I wanted my pizza. So we got back on the bus and traveled literally across town to the CineMall, where the movie theaters are, and the only place in Haifa that shows American films.
The pizza place wasn't open, so we settled for a deli and I had a potato bread sandwich. Since we were at the movie mall anyway, we decided to catch a flick and then after the matinee we would go to the grocery store and stock up for two days of food.
We saw Hunger Games, which is quite good and I recommend it. However, because it is a trilogy, at the end you really don't understand what's going on. I'm sure in Hunger Games II we'll learn more, and the film will leave us with bated breath for Hunger Games III where all is explained.
At any rate, we timed our arrival perfectly in that the movie would be starting in a few minutes. When the film was over and we were walking back through the mall, David noticed the stores were closed. It was only 4:30 in the afternoon.
When we got to the bus stop, no one was waiting for the bus. Uh-oh. We completely forgot that holidays officially begin the evening before the actual day. In Israel, that means everything shuts down in the middle of the afternoon, around 3:00.
When we were leaving some Arabs had asked us in Hebrew if we wanted a cab. When we realized there was no bus forthcoming, we shuffled back and asked how much it would be to go to Neve Shanaan. A hundred shekels! We didn't have much to negotiate with, but bartered it down to 80. David had a 200 shekel note and I had 100 shekels, so I gave him the 100, so he could deal with the taxi driver and make change. But the taxi driver got lost and had to backtrack and got mad at us like it was our fault he didn't know the city and insisted we pay the full 100 shekels. How's that for customer service, you make a mistake and force the customer to pay?
We should have hitchhiked home. Hitchhiking is actually considered a reasonable mode of transportation in Israel. There are certain precautions you should take, however. For instance, if you are going to hitchhike, be sure and bring water because it can get really hot in the summer. Bring water? Not a gun? Next time, we'll try the hitchhiking instead of the taxi-driver gouging the customer route. If we had known about hitchhiking we could have gone to the community seder. Live and learn.
Of course, the grocery stores were closed and we couldn't stock up for the weekend. There was enough food around the apartment to eat, just not enough food of what you would actually want to eat. Man cannot live on popcorn and matzah alone. There was enough food for a big salad for dinner, and I had already decided to start fasting again one day a week maybe until Yom Kippur.
On Friday I took a little walk. As I was going through the park at little girl and her mother made a commotion. I watched as the mother took the little girls pants down and held her up to pee on the grass in front of boys, girls, old men and me. It was all I could do not to stop and stare.
On the Sabbath, we went to schul and afterwards found that secular non-kosher restaurants were open for lunch. We went to Giraffe which is an Asian-fusion restaurant and has the only Thai food in town. I broke my fast and David had a real meal. On Sunday morning, we were completely out of food and went to the market. The grocery store was open, but the shelves were not stocked with staples that were removed as being non-kosher for Pesach. Someone told me there had been a rush for bread early that morning which could also explain the bare shelves.
And that was our first Passover in the Holy Lands.
We knew that everything was going to be shut down on Friday -- and this is kind of my fault -- because on Thursday I wanted one last gluten-free pizza available at the mall. Well, David hates the Grand Canyon mall -- the old, crappy one we can walk to in about 20 minutes -- so we decided to take the bus to the Haifa mall which is indeed much nicer than the Grand Canyon mall. For some odd reason, the Haifa mall doesn't have a food court, thus no kosher pizza, all it has is a few rather expensive sit-down restaurants. I wanted my pizza. So we got back on the bus and traveled literally across town to the CineMall, where the movie theaters are, and the only place in Haifa that shows American films.
The pizza place wasn't open, so we settled for a deli and I had a potato bread sandwich. Since we were at the movie mall anyway, we decided to catch a flick and then after the matinee we would go to the grocery store and stock up for two days of food.
We saw Hunger Games, which is quite good and I recommend it. However, because it is a trilogy, at the end you really don't understand what's going on. I'm sure in Hunger Games II we'll learn more, and the film will leave us with bated breath for Hunger Games III where all is explained.
At any rate, we timed our arrival perfectly in that the movie would be starting in a few minutes. When the film was over and we were walking back through the mall, David noticed the stores were closed. It was only 4:30 in the afternoon.
When we got to the bus stop, no one was waiting for the bus. Uh-oh. We completely forgot that holidays officially begin the evening before the actual day. In Israel, that means everything shuts down in the middle of the afternoon, around 3:00.
When we were leaving some Arabs had asked us in Hebrew if we wanted a cab. When we realized there was no bus forthcoming, we shuffled back and asked how much it would be to go to Neve Shanaan. A hundred shekels! We didn't have much to negotiate with, but bartered it down to 80. David had a 200 shekel note and I had 100 shekels, so I gave him the 100, so he could deal with the taxi driver and make change. But the taxi driver got lost and had to backtrack and got mad at us like it was our fault he didn't know the city and insisted we pay the full 100 shekels. How's that for customer service, you make a mistake and force the customer to pay?
We should have hitchhiked home. Hitchhiking is actually considered a reasonable mode of transportation in Israel. There are certain precautions you should take, however. For instance, if you are going to hitchhike, be sure and bring water because it can get really hot in the summer. Bring water? Not a gun? Next time, we'll try the hitchhiking instead of the taxi-driver gouging the customer route. If we had known about hitchhiking we could have gone to the community seder. Live and learn.
Of course, the grocery stores were closed and we couldn't stock up for the weekend. There was enough food around the apartment to eat, just not enough food of what you would actually want to eat. Man cannot live on popcorn and matzah alone. There was enough food for a big salad for dinner, and I had already decided to start fasting again one day a week maybe until Yom Kippur.
On Friday I took a little walk. As I was going through the park at little girl and her mother made a commotion. I watched as the mother took the little girls pants down and held her up to pee on the grass in front of boys, girls, old men and me. It was all I could do not to stop and stare.
On the Sabbath, we went to schul and afterwards found that secular non-kosher restaurants were open for lunch. We went to Giraffe which is an Asian-fusion restaurant and has the only Thai food in town. I broke my fast and David had a real meal. On Sunday morning, we were completely out of food and went to the market. The grocery store was open, but the shelves were not stocked with staples that were removed as being non-kosher for Pesach. Someone told me there had been a rush for bread early that morning which could also explain the bare shelves.
And that was our first Passover in the Holy Lands.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Passover in the Holy Lands or more specifically Haifa: Part 1
The bad news is we didn't get to go to a seder. The synagogues apparently don't do congregational sedars here: they don't have to, since practically everybody here is Jewish and know how to do their own sedars. Two families who would have invited us -- at least they said they would -- were going out of town. We could have gone to a community seder at the Technion, but the buses wouldn't have been running by the time the seder was over and there was no guarantee someone would drive us home. Trekking home from the Technion would have been a very long walk. Rather than chance it, we didn't go to a seder. Boo-hoo.
Oh well. Next year in Jerusalem.
A couple of weeks before Pesach, you could walk around and see that people were doing intensive spring cleaning. The day before Pesach in several neighborhoods there were men with curls hovering over big tin barrels with smoke coming out. David explained they were burning chometz, or leavened bread.
On the first day of Pesach, David noticed that all the insects were out. He noticed the bugs because he was bit around 15 times. I maybe got one or two bites and barely noticed. David was afraid of an allergic reaction, and his arm looks like the beginning of leprosy, it looks horrible. For some reason bugs of all types like to eat him.
Because of the bug attack, David remarked that the Jewish religion is really meant to be practiced in Israel. He suspects Pesach and the arrival of bugs is no coincidence. Perhaps these bugs don't go after unleavened bread, thus the burning of all the chometz, and he things that the bugs will die down when Pesach is over. In the meantime, David is mad at Haifa for not having any mosquito abatement and thinks it's a wonder we all don't come down with some bizarre or exotic disease like malaria or e-bola.
For kids, the week of Pesach is like spring break in the US, except I don't think they have "Girls Gone Wild" on any Haifa beaches. The stores are open and it is business as usual, kind of. The kosher grocery stores have put plastic sheeting over the foods not kosher for Pesach. With so many people off this week, the malls were exceptionally crowded. The mall food courts were open and serving food from McDonalds, Chinese, and pizza -- all kosher for Pesach. That's right, McDonalds hamburgers are served sans cheese on a potato flour bun that is yellow in color. Pizza is also made with potato flour and served with cheese but no meat. For me, the gluten intolerant, Pesach has been heaven. I've eaten pizza almost every day. I'm running amok eating foods that normally contain gluten and are unavailable or more expensive the rest of the year.
These restaurants prove that if there is a demand they can serve gluten-free food. So gluten intolerants need to unite and demand that restaurant chains make available gluten-free breads and pastries at reasonable prices.
Here's the bad thing though, pizza, buns, pastas, etc. made with gluten-free flour looses some of its flavor. My theory is many of today's foods have been formulated to compliment the flavor of wheat flour. Potato flour with the same ingredients just doesn't go as well. Think of it like this: a baked potato loaded with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese with black olives and mushrooms. Doesn't sound so good, so potato bread would have a similar effect. Now think of a potato bread sandwich loaded with roast beef and gravy, sounds good right -- that's what goes with potatoes. So our culinary delights such as pizza have been concocted to go with wheat flour and wheat flour alone.
Oh well. Next year in Jerusalem.
A couple of weeks before Pesach, you could walk around and see that people were doing intensive spring cleaning. The day before Pesach in several neighborhoods there were men with curls hovering over big tin barrels with smoke coming out. David explained they were burning chometz, or leavened bread.
On the first day of Pesach, David noticed that all the insects were out. He noticed the bugs because he was bit around 15 times. I maybe got one or two bites and barely noticed. David was afraid of an allergic reaction, and his arm looks like the beginning of leprosy, it looks horrible. For some reason bugs of all types like to eat him.
Because of the bug attack, David remarked that the Jewish religion is really meant to be practiced in Israel. He suspects Pesach and the arrival of bugs is no coincidence. Perhaps these bugs don't go after unleavened bread, thus the burning of all the chometz, and he things that the bugs will die down when Pesach is over. In the meantime, David is mad at Haifa for not having any mosquito abatement and thinks it's a wonder we all don't come down with some bizarre or exotic disease like malaria or e-bola.
For kids, the week of Pesach is like spring break in the US, except I don't think they have "Girls Gone Wild" on any Haifa beaches. The stores are open and it is business as usual, kind of. The kosher grocery stores have put plastic sheeting over the foods not kosher for Pesach. With so many people off this week, the malls were exceptionally crowded. The mall food courts were open and serving food from McDonalds, Chinese, and pizza -- all kosher for Pesach. That's right, McDonalds hamburgers are served sans cheese on a potato flour bun that is yellow in color. Pizza is also made with potato flour and served with cheese but no meat. For me, the gluten intolerant, Pesach has been heaven. I've eaten pizza almost every day. I'm running amok eating foods that normally contain gluten and are unavailable or more expensive the rest of the year.
These restaurants prove that if there is a demand they can serve gluten-free food. So gluten intolerants need to unite and demand that restaurant chains make available gluten-free breads and pastries at reasonable prices.
Here's the bad thing though, pizza, buns, pastas, etc. made with gluten-free flour looses some of its flavor. My theory is many of today's foods have been formulated to compliment the flavor of wheat flour. Potato flour with the same ingredients just doesn't go as well. Think of it like this: a baked potato loaded with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese with black olives and mushrooms. Doesn't sound so good, so potato bread would have a similar effect. Now think of a potato bread sandwich loaded with roast beef and gravy, sounds good right -- that's what goes with potatoes. So our culinary delights such as pizza have been concocted to go with wheat flour and wheat flour alone.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)