do you see me standing in line here?

To wrap up a visit with family over the September holidays in Paris, Prague and Zilina, Slovakia, we stopped in Greece for a few nights.  We're on Rhodes island at the moment, at the Sheraton.

Turns out all of Israel came here too.  Kids are running up and down the halls yelling, while families are leaving their room doors open and talking with their loudest voices....

At breakfast this morning I grab a glass and step up to the fountain to fill it with water.  A couple with a stroller are standing in front filling their water bottle, so I wait patiently.  As they step away, another guy steps right in front of my and puts his glass under the water spout.  To which I replied, "Seriously?  I was in line here first!"  After he finishes filling his glass he says, "oh, sorry,"  with an Israeli accent, then walks off. 

While he does not represent all Israeli's, nor do the loud families in the halls, or the parents who let their children keep on screaming in the dining room instead of taking them out and teaching them that certain behavior is unacceptable in public, it gets harder to reserve judgement when patterns emerge.  Of course, the Germans in Thailand had their own selfish behaviors - throwing their stuff on all the beach chairs at 8am, then leaving them for hours at a time unused and unavailable to others. 

I can't help but wonder though, that if it is so important to many Israeli's to present a different image on the international stage, why don't they start at the grassroots level by changing individual behavior, especially when they go abroad and/or interact with foreigners?  I realize that accomplishing this is a sociological challenge, but one option might be to include education of other cultural norms in the K-12 school system, to raise awareness of how behavior can be interpreted differently by different cultures.  I'm not saying that Israeli's need to change.  It may help, however, to understand the role that their own actions play in others perceptions. 

Emotional Intelligence

From Wikipedia, "Emotional intelligence (EI) describes the ability, capacity, skill or, in the case of the trait EI model, a self-perceived grand ability to identify, assess, manage and control the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups.

I am finding that functioning in Israel can take a fair amount of emotional intelligence, and emotional energy. 

A few days before we moved into our apartment, the owners called us and tried to change the terms of our agreement by offering to leave the TV for 3,000 shekels (about $800).  As this was the very first item we asked to be left during our initial meeting with the owners back in May, we were more than a bit peeved.  After reminding her that we were 100% certain that they had agreed to leave it along with the patio furniture, she let it go.  But needless to say, everything in Israel seems to be a negotiation on a good day, a battle on most others.

My first visit to the shuk hakarmel (the tel aviv market), resulted in my ability to catch one vendor trying to rip me off (he told a guy in hebrew 15 shekels for asparagus, then told me 20 in english).  When I told him to forget about it, and that I was irritated by his attempt to rip me off, he gave them to me for 12.  Who knows how many times I didn't catch someone trying to take advantage of me.  But my overall spend still seemed less than the grocery store for fruits and veggies, so here's hoping I did ok.
 
Mindless tasks in the U.S. take a high degree of attention and focus here.  Sometimes I get so tired of it I'd rather not go out and have to interact. 

apparently you CAN fight city hall

Tel Aviv residents are allowed a resident parking sticker, making street parking free in your zone, and about 10% of the price in other city zones.  Dan got his back in early July.  But when we requested mine, they rejected it because each car needed to be linked to a separate employee and paycheck. Most professionals in Israel are given a company car by their employer, and pay a small amount out of their monthly paycheck. This is what the city uses to validate their application and issue the sticker.  But both of our cars are under Ford Motor Company, under Dan.  The city said a resident/employee is only allowed one sticker (assumption being that without employment, you'd never have a car I guess, and a single employee would certainly never have two cars!).  However, we both pay city taxes, so we were prepared to fight.

After a month and a half of waiting in city hall lines, phone calls that no one answers, an appeal to the Tel Aviv municipal authority, a rejection, ratcheting our complaint up the food chain, and general all around noise-making - success! 

They delivered my Tel Aviv resident parking stickers yesterday morning at 8am, by messenger!

wireless, wireless, where have you gone?

Internet access has not exactly met my expectations here.  In a country that boasts one of the biggest high-tech industries around the world, I expected internet to be a given, like water and electricity.  While it IS widely available, it is NOT reliable.   The concrete building construction isn't helping, nor is the lack of thinking during building to ensure different floors in the same apartment can receive signals.  Between the lack of thoughtful wiring and lack of power outlets in useful places, accessing the web and setting up other electronics has been a challenge, to say the least. 

This is impacting our Vonage phone as well.  Over the course of several hours, internet will go from flying, to crawling, to crapping out completely, then picking up again.  So, bear with us, if you've tried to call or Skype from the States.  There's only so much time one can spend with unreliable technology before you're ready to throw it off your 6th floor balcony (or at least lock it up in a room and leave the problems for another day).

Ford Global Week of Caring

Yesterday Dan and I joined Triwaks, his PR firm here in Israel, to participate in an afternoon of community service, as part of Ford Motor Company's Global Week of Caring where over 11,000 employees and associates around the globe volunteer during company time. 

Triwaks organized an afternoon for us at the Tel Aviv Safari (zoo), where we met with the lead veterinarian, Dr Igal Horowitz, and worked with his staff to clean some large walk-in bird cages and then hang branches for the birds to swing on while they recover from surgeries. 

The animal hospital there was opened in the last 10 years, planning to see about 200 animals per year.  It now sees over 2,000 annually!  The vet said that awareness and attention to wildlife in Israel has grown exponentially in the past 12 years or so. 

Oh, and that little creature I found on the sidewalk a few weeks back - that was a hedgehog.  They are quite common here. 

"ha mora" (the teacher)

Had an interesting experience in hebrew class during our last week.  Our teacher (who is a wonderful teacher, by the way), asked our class why we came to Israel and what impressions of Israel exist in our home countries.  The general consensus was that the media in all our countries (US, Norway, Ukraine, Germany, UK, Canada) did not reflect Israel in a positive light.  Well, this really hit a nerve for her.  She came in to class the following day and spent the first half hour of class telling us how upset she was by what we had told her (can't imagine her previous classes provided different feedback).  She felt that it is not fair how the media in other countries portray Israel's political actions.  Well, who ever said the media has a monopoly on the truth?  No surprises here.  As my high school physics teacher used to tell us, "it's all relative."

What was interesting was how upsetting it was to her; how careful she feels Israel is to lead by moral example in this region, particularly from a humanitarian stand point.  She believes that Israel is grossly misunderstood.  Her identity is so closely tied to Israel that this was extremely personal for her.  I've seen this blurring of personal identity and country here much more than I have in the U.S., or in other countries.

I certainly have felt both pride and embarrassment at American news and actions, but I can't think of a time that it has interacted with my sense of self. 

It was suggested to me that a key difference is that as a smaller country, there is a stronger sense of defensiveness when feeling misunderstood than for citizens in a country that is a leading world power. 

I am curious - what impressions do you have of Israel and more importantly, why?  Where did your impressions come from?
If you're not sure, or want to learn more, I am extending an open invitation to come and decide for yourself what Israeli's are like.  We have a spare room now.

blew a fuse

You may or may not be aware that outside the U.S., they use different electrical settings.  This means that you can't just plug in U.S. electronics here.  Computers and cell phones are already designed for use around the world, so all you need is an adapter for the shape of the plug into the wall.  But for appliances (coffee makers, blenders, hand mixers, etc) you need to know the watts and volts, and buy an appropriate transformer.  Well, we thought we did.

Last week Dan plugged in his coffee maker, excited to have coffee at home for the first time.  He double checked the watts used by the coffee maker, and the maximum the transformer was able to handle.  The coffee maker was 500 watts and the transformer was for 1600 - plenty of wiggle room (which is recommended).  As he plugged it in, we heard a loud "pop" sound, and that was the end of that.

Today he wanted an ice coffee.  So out came my cuisinart blender/mixer.  He plugged it in and "pop"!  That was the end of my blender.  Only this time he blew all the power on the 6th floor (for once I'm happy that our 5th floor is wired separately from the 6th).  We're now waiting for the electric company to send a guy over, because flipping the breakers in the apartment did nothing for us, and the ones in the basement for the building are behind lock and key. 

Oh the joys of relo....