a far way to have come in a year

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of my first date with my amazing husband! Wow!
It is hard to believe that it has only been a year since I made aliyah and met my husband.
Just 5 days after arrived and officially became an Israeli I went on my first date with my husband.
To celebrate last night I made yummy black bean burgers and then we went out for ice cream. After enjoying my cone of Ferrero Rocher and Mint Chip we walked past Cafe Hillel, the site of our first date. My husband thought I was cheesy, but I don't care I thought it was cute, and was delighted that he even remembered exactly where we sat.

A year can be filled with so many surprises!

aliyaversary #1

One year ago today I made Aliyah and officially became an Israeli Citizen.

It is hard to believe that a year has passed already since I landed in Israel and received my Teudat Zehut (Israeli ID card) and Teudat Oleh (Immigrant ID Card). This year has been full of so many new and exciting things, of course the biggest, my marriage to my husband!

I love living in Israel, although I am far from my family I know that this is the place to live. Here I can live a true Jewish life in the Holy Land, the land that God gave to us! Israel is full of its ups and downs but I wouldn't give it up for anything. Ridiculous things are always happening, juts the other day someone from the Electric Company came to turn our electricity off because we had a bill from last year that we didn't pay. We had never heard abut this until then and when inquiring why we had never heard about this bill and why our new bill was exorbitantly high, we were told that there was a strike and so no one received their bills and no one was checking the meters. So instead of sending us a bill for what we owed they send someone out to collect the money or turn the electricity off, Thank God we were home. And apparently our new bill was SO high because in their estimation they said we used 3000 kilowatts when apparently we used only 300. We only learned all of this after a lot of question asking. RIDICULOUS! But still I love this small little turmoil filled country that is ours!

B'Shanah Ha'Ba'ah B'Yirushalayim!

Life

Wow so life has been crazy since my Aliyah. I have started ulpan which is a pretty intense experience. I am learning Hebrew from 8:30am till 1pm. Then from 4pm-6:30pm I am helping this amazing family. I also just got offered a job working for a center for at risk teens in Jerusalem. I will be teaching an art chug (class) and going out on teh streets witha social worker one night a week to reach out to these english speaking teens. This is going to be a very challenging job but I am excited for the challenge and I know that it will make me grow.

I can't belive that it is Rosh Hashanah again! I feel like it was just Rosh Hashannah, the years pas so fast. I decided that I am going to try and make oatmeal apple honey cookies for Rosh Hashannah. I found a couple recipes for appleish cookies that looked kind of good so I am going to combine and well kind make up my own. I'm not sure how they are going to come out but hopefully yummy.
L'Shannah Tovah U'Metukah!!!

weddings upon weddings

I have been pretty busy taking care of all the details of moving to an other country. I finally got my kupat cholim (health insurance and provider) yesterday. This was a difficult process. So things in Israel seem to never been open when you need and always seems to be closed at weird times. Those of us coming from the west are used to places being upon in semi-convenient hours and being able to take care of things online or by a phone call. Well not here in Israel. So to get my kupat cholim I first needed to go to the post office to pay a few dollars for I don't even know what and then take the receipt and this paper form the post office to the health provider of my choice. So after two days of trying to go to the post office to find it to be closed for who knows what reason. It then took me a few more days to get to teh health provider because many businesses here in Israel close at 1pm and sometimes open again at 4pm or don't open again till the next day. This is very convenient for the people working there since there is no Sunday here, the weekend is Shabbat and for those of us who celebrate this holy day it doesn't leave another day to run errands like Sunday in America.
So basically it took me a few days to find the time to get back to get health coverage but now I have it.

Activating my bank card was also a long process. I received it in the mail a few weeks ago but wasn't able to activate it. i tried to call the number and use the English section and then tried it in Hebrew. I even had my friend's husband call and try to do it for me, we just couldn't figure out what number's it was asking for so finally on a day I was able to get to the bank before it closed, the bank is open from 9-3pm Sunday-Thursday, I was able to activate it in the bank over 3 weeks later.

Besides these little odds and ends I have had a few simchas yay!! Mazal Tov!

Last night my friend Marna got married. It was such a beautiful high energy wedding. Marna looked beautiful and I loved her dress! Above is me, Aliza, and Rachael looking oh so beautiful and pregnant with the Rose girls minus Shiran.

So the day before Marna's wedding I became a shomeret. The bride and the groom have a few close friends serve as Shomrim (guards) for them. This is kind of the equivalent to Bride's Maids because we run around taking care of weddings details and entertaining the family member's and making sure the bride and groom don't see each other. Some couples don't see each other for the week before the wedding so the first time they see each other is when the groom is escorted in by all the men singing and dancing while the women surround the bride. This is a beautiful and powerful that always brings tears to my eyes.


In little over a week Shalva is getting married so we had a tichiel (scarf) party for her. Here I am showing Shalva how to tie her tichiel after she gets married. I don't know how I became the tichiel tying teacher but I did and I showed her a few different ways to do it.

This is the last tichiel of the night and it happened to be form me! If I do say so myself I tied it on her pretty nicely!

So many simchas...Mazal Tov yoyeh lanu v'lachol Yisrael!

taking care of business

So the last week or so has flown by. I have just been trying to take care fo all of the little details on making aliyah. I am almost done with all the little things I need to do. And it seems that things are beginning to settle down a bit. my next big tasks are starting ulpan (intensive hebrew language classes) which is everyday from like 9-1 and then getting a job.

As part of all the little things I needed to do, I got a new cell phone and plan. my new phone is pretty fancy and has a great camera on it. i took this picture of my bedroom with it.

I don't have much to say especially that now I am in the 9 days leading up to Tisha B'Av. This is a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

some other people's pics

On Tuesday morning, July 22, I landed at Ben-Gurion airport and there were about 200 people that came to greet the new olim that made aliyah from North America to Israel.

There were 217 olim on the flight including 50 singles (including 23 people joining the IDF through the Garin Tzabar program) 28 families with 98 children (98 - wow!).

The youngest oleh in the group is 3 months old and the oldest oleh is 88 years old. The flight also included 4 dogs and 1 cat.

A man named Jacob that came to greet the new olim posted pictures that he took
www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/history/2008/a322.htm

Here are some pics he took. I am in the background of a couple, that's me in the green shirt.




Frances Greenberg, the first to receive her Teudat Oleh. She was the oldest new olah and was a passenger on the famous Exodus, that was denied entry to Israel. She moved to the USA with her husband and now at 88 she says “It’s time to fulfill the dream of my youth.After 60 years, I am finally coming to Israel to stay!”

Frances on the plane shows a photograph of herself and other passengers on the Exodus on their way to Israel. Unlike with the Exodus this time she will make it to stay!


My friend Marna came to meet me and the other olim at the airport. Thanks everyone!

sleep

I am not sure if I even know what sleep is anymore. I flew to NY at midnight Saturday night meaning I arrived in NY at 8:30ish am. Spent the day with Deb and Sebastian in their new home in Port Washington, NY. I was able to sleep a bit on the plane and then took a two hour nap on Sunday. Then Sunday night I went to sleep fairly late and only slept another few hours before heading to the airport once again for my Aliyah flight. woo hoo!!!! Monday I spent the majority of the day in the airport at JFK or actually on the plane. It was pretty cool to be on a whole El Al plane where all the passenger were making Aliyah to Israel! Something very special! because the light was in the middle of the day I wasn't able to sleep, I would close my eyes and try, but nothing.
Now I am so exhausted that it is hard to keep me eyes open. I did fall asleep briefly a couple of times but I am realy trying to stay up as late as I can. It will start to get dark soon, so if I can just hold out till then it will be great! If this doesn't make sense, I blame it on the weather and the lack of sleep.
I'll write more later when I am a little more awake and can even maybe put up some pictures.

2 Days Left

I can't believe only two days left before Aliyah! That is just crazy. I am going to really miss everyone here but I am very excited to begin my life in Israel. Also I am very excited to be done packing. Packing to move to another country is really just insane; fitting your whole life into 3 suitcases and a carry-on! Good luck to anyone who ever has is doing or will have to do this. I know it is all worth it. I am going home!

swap meet sunday

On Sunday me, my mom and Marty woke up at 5:45 am and took almost everything I own to the OCC Swap Meet. It was such a strange feeling selling things, some that I have had since I was in 5th grade and others only a few years old that are more new, for $1.

We sold a lot but still ended up taking so much to Goodwill. This whole process of getting rid of all my stuff has been cleansing and sad and frustrating all at the same time.

There is less than a week now till my Aliyah and I have done so much yet still feel like I have so much to do. I know it will all get done, I just hope it gets done sooner than later.

moving...

Moving is a pain. I have moved many times since I started college. No matter how many times a person moves it doesn't necessarily get easier.

The hardest part is deciding what to get rid of. I get kind of attached to some of my things and get all nostalgic.

This move is totally different than any other move because I can't really take anything with me. I just discovered that the cost of shipping things is not worth it. So I will have to get rid of everything and start over. As stressful as this process may be it is very therapeutic to get rid of all of this stuff. Because that is what it is just STUFF! Who needs all this stuff anyways?

All this "stuff" is just clutter. The less clutter the more free one can be and open to all the surprises that life presents. Getting rid of all my belongings is freeing me, liberating! All of these things that I have been accumulating over the last 10 years going on 29 are now going to find new homes.

As my apartment gets more and more empty I am becoming more and more liberated. Now if I can just continue the process of getting rid of things instead of getting new things I am on the right track. Or at least getting rid of more and getting less, doesn't have to mean having zero.

Breshit

When I was first leaving for Israel in summer 2007 I made my first blog, but it was only a trial and well it disappeared. So here is my 2nd attempt. I am back in California for a 2 month, I guess, vacation before I return again to Israel to really become an Israeli.
I have been thinking about moving to Israel for maybe 5 years now, and well, finally decided to take the plunge and am making Aliyah, meaning I will become an Israeli citizen. I think I will be more excited once the jet lag wears off, today I woke up at 5:30am much letter than the previous days rising at 4am.