Catching Up...Random Musings

Good morning, my loyal readers...how have you been? I'm great. It's been a slow month of posting and I'm about to head to summer camp for a couple of months. Much, much more to say about that in the coming days but for now, just a couple of quick pics and comments to remove some guilt from my non-posting self.

Just a beautiful picture from last month before Yom Ha'atzmaut. This is one of the Azrieli skyscrapers in Tel Aviv covered in...are they still called Christmas lights in this country??? The picture doesn't do it justice. For the Israelis in the Diaspora, this is the soon-to-be-completed third tower which they resumed work on this past year...read all about it in the link.
Sadly, there's no frame of reference to see how small this is. This is a palm-sized bottle of sunscreen I bought at AM/PM a couple of weeks ago on Shabbat. If you can't read it, it costs 57 shekels. AM/PM is a store open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week which you should only shop in under one of the following two conditions:
1) Everything else is closed, or
2) You are being held at gunpoint.

ARE THE OWNERS OF THIS STORE AWARE OF WHAT THINGS COST IN OTHER PLACES??? WHAT KIND OF ECONOMIC RULES ARE DICTATING THEIR PRICING STRUCTURE???

It was either spend the money or get fried that afternoon. This is the perfect example of a popular game that we American olim play. "Ohhhhh, it's no big deal. That's only 14 dollars!", ignoring that we don't get paid in dollars nor do we live in America. Another popular line is "ohhhhh, I'll just use my American credit card/bank account to pay for ______", noting that were we in America, it wouldn't be such a big deal to swallow said expense. I like this game.

This is the "How am I driving? Call _____" sticker in Hebrew.

Does he really want to hear the answer? The truth hurts, buddy.

A juice vending machine on a bus. Just had to share it.

That's all for now. More to come!

What's Wrong with This Holiday?

In a study detailed here, a high incidence of lactose intolerance was discovered among North American Jews, similar to findings in Jewish communities in Israel.

In a completely unrelated story, last night began the festival of Shavuot, when Israelis come together to celebrate G-d's giving of the Torah by eating...oh, I don't know...cheesecake and cheese blintzes.

Remind me not to get into a car with anyone until this holiday is over.

Postscript: During the few minutes it took me to write this, a friend called to tell me that he took something huge after his dairy dinner last night. (Hint: It wasn't a leave of absence.)

Just for the Taste of It

So I like to make fun of my Israeli friends. It's fun. The way they put the "s" in the wrong place, like "its depend" or "what its mean"...the way they say "ehhhh..." all the time...


Especially the way they say "ehhhhh" all deh time.

As I was harassing my co-worker Moran recently, I finally asked her "why don't you ever make fun of me? Surely I say ridiculous things when trying to speak Hebrew! Why don't Israelis ever make fun of Americans?" (If anyone wants to know the answer, one, because we're more immature than them, and two...um, that's pretty much it.) After a little prodding, I finally got her to do her best American impression. It wasn't pretty-neither the accent or the social commentary.

"Omigaaaaaaaawd! I'm so ex-CIT-ed!!! Omigaaaaawd!

I want a Diet Coke!"

Nice to know the rest of the world thinks we're all idiots from the Valley. The truth hurts.

(I want a Diet Coke???)

How we see Israelis

How the world sees Americans

Later on that day, I was back in Moran's office trying to learn a little Hebrew. "What's the difference between 'heef-sah-deh-tee' and 'fees-fahs-ti'?" My co-worker Maya answers: "'Hifsadeti' is 'I lost' and 'fisfasti' is I missed.' You would say 'hifsadeti' et hamilchama."

I lost...the war? Way to use it in a sentence. Only in Israel.

Baryshnikov, Brewski, what's the difference...

Remember the Bud Light series of commercials "Real Men of Genius"?



Well, my loyal readers, it's time to recognize another unheralded group of geniuses: Israeli mailmen. How badly can people continue to mangle my street address and still have the mail arrive? First, they successfully deliver mail to me addressed to Berdishevsy. Now?
Bardizevski??? You think the descendents of Michah Yosef Berdichevsky are cool with this?
Anyway, I'm still waiting for one of you to take me up on my challenge and send me mail addressed only to the letter "ב" in place of my name. Or if we don't have that much faith in Israeli mailmen, how about Rechov Breadsticks?

LET'S PUT THESE MEN OF GENIUS TO THE TEST!!!

"What's the deal with Israelis who say 'ehhhh'? Who aaaaaaare these people?"

As of last night, I'm back. Didn't do as much philosophizing about my new life as I expected to. Barely left the house, in fact. The only thing I have to tell you, my loyal readers, is that...wow...Americans eat a lot of crap. Admittedly, it tastes delicious, but man oh man...I feel like my body is going through detox right now. Burritos, M&Ms...things in packaging... Tex-Mex sure is good but when I ordered vegetables on the side, I was hoping for something more than sliced iceberg lettuce and a tomato slice. They could have served the actual menu and it wouldn't have been any less healthy. That's all for now.

I'm surprised I haven't seen this reported anywhere else in the J-blogosphere (seriously, what DOESN'T have an entry in Wikipedia? "J-blogosphere"???), but Jerry Seinfeld is coming to Israel. He'll be here in November to promote his new animated movie "Bee Honey." My sources tell me that he does a lot to support Israel although he keeps a low profile about it. The big question of course is "will he perform?" Along with these visitors, it could be quite a fall.

"What's the deal with the Green Line? It's not even a line! They should call it the Green Squiggly Thing! Who aaaaaare these people?"

One thing we can be sure of is that he knows how to get here. Remember this episode?

JERRY: You know, I don't get it. Not allowed to ask a Chinese person where the
Chinese restaurant is! I mean, aren't we all getting a little too sensitive? I
mean, someone asks me which way's Israel, I don't fly off the handle.

I wonder if he'll perform on Shabbat. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

So what might Jerry say about falafel, Israeli drivers, or the current government? Let's hear it in the comments below!

With Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy

It's been too long, my loyal readers, and for that I apologize. If you've wondered where I've been for the last 2 weeks, well...I'm in chul. Short for "chutz la'aretz", or outside of Israel, this is how Israelis refer to everywhere abroad. For all you aspiring olim out there, you must use this word correctly. I'm not going chul. I'm in chul, as if it's a country itself.

For G-d's sakes, where the hell is chul?
(Just keep looking, you'll find it soon...)

Lucky enough to get a free ticket to the States for a work weekend, I've spent the last several days at home seeing family for the first time since I moved to Tel Aviv. After 9 months of making fun of Israelis for all of their craziness, I was eager to return to the States for the first time. I'm sure every oleh chadash goes through the same thing during their first trip home: the proverbial reality check during which you truly appreciate the differences between the two places, feel how far you've come, how much your life has changed... So what have I figured out during these past few days? Umm...that American is crazy? Seriously, how can breadsticks be a viable food option?

Eat your heart out, Jeff Foxworthy.

• If you see someone drinking out of a mug, and that mug can hold up to 64 ounces of liquid...you might be in America.
• If the Cingular employee has to use a fourth-grade teacher passive-aggressive voice two times to tell the same impatient customer to sign in and please wait his turn, and you sense that she actually wants to bludgeon his face with a pick-ax...you might be in America.
• If your host has one of these...you might be in America.
  
• If you put your CHILD ON A LEASH...well...you know the rest.
  

What happened to "land of the free"?
Have fun, Timmy.

• If you finish a meal without a vegetable within a 7 mile radius...you might be in America.

I ask you now, my loyal readers. How do you know you're in America?

I love you, America; it's good to be back.