under the weather....

...which is actually pretty crapppy. yes, 3 'p'-level crapppy. for all y'all who think i plopped myself into the middle of desert and instantly get to enjoy 40 degrees, you'll be glad to know (and so will i) that youc an stop hating me for escaping winter. ok ok you're right, it's not snowing (where i am anyway - too bad for those suckers up north!), but it's raining and cold (kinda late fall in canada) so the cold gets into your bones... so now i'm really sick. :( but also, Sarah Blooma (aka Bloomie) has been sick and i've been babysitting, so i'm sure that didn't help build my defenses. or (ready for a tangent?) take away from how cute she is!

In addition to having a cute daughter, my sister Amanda and her husband Chanan (c'mon, really put a good chhhhhala at the beginning of that) have an adorable son, Yisroel (like Israel) Moshe. i started calling him Izzy Mo when he was first born (as opposed to second born? pfft), but Yismo has stuck. And he has long hair in the back and short in the front, which makes him look like Coach Fox (what was that actor's name? Craig something...?), so i now call him Coach. i hope it sticks.

[photos soon. uploading is being annoying right now.]

unfortunately, it here that i must reveal that i have deceived you. no, not about the kids; they're real. but it isn't cold today and i'm not as sick as i claimed above. this is because i wrote half this post last week and never finished because i got soooooo sick - i've sleeping, fevering, and groaning since tuesday, and haven't been able to sit at the computer for more than six seconds until last night really. so NOW there is much more to tell, but i'll save it for a separate post.

but i will leave you with this:

baking powder only comes in individual packets here??? ma ze chara a ze??? (something like, 'what the shit, man??')

Four days in

I'm sorry, but this post will probably be boring. But it'll be a decent standard details catch-up.

The flight was fine. Took off and landed rather promptly. I sat next to friendly, punky, air-sick youth pastor who kinda stole my window seat but I figured she needed it more than me. Made sleeping nearly impossible, so I've been tired since I got here. I guess jetlag has something to do with it too.

It was the first time I'd ever had someone waiting in the airport for me with my name on a sign. That was pretty cool. She nabbed me nearly as soon as I got off the plane, then took me to another person who had my name on a sign, all the while telling me about this crazy flood that had just happened in the south. The new sign lady let me bud the security line to get my passport stamped, and then took me upstairs to the absorption office (kinda freaky - i was absorbed...) where the lady told me that my necklace (the Celtic Goddess lady... you probably know the one) "is not good thing for Jew to put." Ah well. I put it anyway. I didn't give her a hard time about the comment because then she gave me cashmoney and introduced me to the man that was to get my bags for me and wheel them out. That was pretty awesome.

Eyal was waiting for me with Leon and a rose. We were happy. We were happy for so long that the guy who wheeled my bags out finally came over and was like, "Uh, ok well mazel tov and enjoy Israel," and kinda sauntered away. It was amusing.

The apartment is very cool - it needs heaters in every room. (YES I KNOW i'm Canadian but this doesn't mean I don't have the right to complain about the cold. Because it's SO cold at home, we need heaters and sweaters and slippers and duvets, and thus we don't acclimatize to the nippy weather. So there, Israelis.) Although most apartments are like this- the buildings here are constructed to be self-cooling because it's so damn hot in the summer. So it's a lot of tile and concrete and poor insulation. I know I'll appreciate it in the summer.
But in other definitions of the word, the apartment is very cool. I'll post pictures when Eyal gets home. It's kinda like a cave, with lots of archways and niches and slopes in the ceiling and walls... apparently this is old-style Israeli, but at the same time not very common, because our place is older than most - so unique even to Israelis! Neat. :) It's a half-basement, so we still get lots of natural light. Not direct sun, but not a typical basement, so it's fine. There's lots of space for storage, and Leon (the dog), and toys for when Yismo and Bloomie (the nephew and niece) come over. We have a decent kitchen, a washing machine in the bathroom, and large common area that we'll use often. Already have, in fact...

On Friday night (people call that Shabbat here), we had four friends over for dinner and wine. I made three Indian dishes from the Indian Vegan cookbook Lon gave me just before I left (it's AWESOME. i can't wait to make stretchy fried bread) and they were all well-received. Yeahhhhh. I really like Eyal's friends. His friend Tultul (which isn't his real name - "tul" means curl, and he has curly hair, so they call him Tulul. I don't actually know his real name...) lives close and he's super nice. Also, Omri's girlfriend Michal lives close-by, and Eyal 2's girlfriend (he's one of Eyal's best friends) named Liori goes to school in Jerusalem, so I have some lady friends near-by too. And soon I'll make my own friends. :)

In other news... tomorrow, I'm going to pop into the community centre (rather, center) that is right by my building because they have an ulpan there (an intensive Hebrew studies program) that I will hopefully start attending the first week of February. Other things on my to-do list:

1. get a cell phone
2. get a router so we can hook up our VOIP phone (which will let me call anywhere in Canada and the U.S for one low monthly price!!!)
3. sign up for a bank account
4. get my Israeli ID card (Teudat Zehut), which I actually need to do first.

To delve quickly into feelings... I think i was in shock a bit when i got here. I wasn't feeling nervous or excited or anxious or worried or anything really... kinda weird. Jess told me i shouldn't worry and that i'll start to settle and accept my new life and feel again. *lol* Well she didn't say it exactly like that... but i've actually started to wake up to all the new things in the past day or two, so things are moving along. More on feelings another time.

Love.