One of These Things is Not Like the Other

There are several terms that are translated into an English equivalent that I'm familiar with, but it often turns out that more than one of these things is not like the other. Below are a few of my observations.

"Kindergarten" There are three years of kindergarten here: Pre-kindergarten for 3-4 year olds and kindergarten for 5-6 year olds. While Russell was enrolled in "kindergarten", he's actually in pre-kindergarten. A better English equivalent would be "pre-school"

"School bus" In September we thought, 'Boy, tourism is really picking up here!' due to all the charter buses. After two weeks of wondering what the attraction to the residential neighborhoods were (yes, we're a bit slow), we figured out that the charter buses were being used as school buses!

"Mall security" With the exception of the small family owned stores, every store you walk into has a metal detector and a security guard posted at the door. After a week of shopping here you get used to putting your purse on the table next to the metal detector and walking through the metal detector while the guard carelessly looks through your purse (if at all) and you continue on your way (even if the metal detector is going off). At first we were suprised with all the security. Then we were surprised at the lack of attention we got from security. Now we realize that Israelis live with a keen sense of awareness about their surroundings. They aren't worried and they don't overreact. They are just aware. They have had lifetimes of knowing what looks suspicious and what to give attention to. For example, if something is left unattended on a bus, any given Israeli will notice it and calmly start asking those around them if the parcel belongs to them. If not, then the word spreads throughout the bus to locate the owner - again, calmly. Eventually the owner is found and scolded. We haven't been around for when the owner isn't present.

"Lemonade" Doesn't that sound refreshing? Especially on a sunny 95 degree day (which is what most of our days are like here)? However, the lemonade here is bitter more than sour and definitely not sweet!

"Electrical plugs" Where do I start? The electrical current is never consistent. They don't always stay in the wall (it depends how crumbly your walls are - remember, all the walls and ceilings are concrete). They usually spark when you plug or unplug your cord. They are at the level of my shoulders. They all have three holes, but they were two diaganol slats and a hole. Most 3 prong electrical items have three round prongs. The advice we got from our teammates? Drill out the slats to be holes. Ok...

"Partially cloudy" This refers to a season and not a day. I think that season starts in October or November, but by Febuary the season is over and we return to "sunny".

"Grocery shopping" If you are used to shopping at Aldi's, then the only challenge you'll face here is finding the food equivalents to what you're looking for. They have most of what you are used to, but it's in different packaging with irrelevant pictures and in different quantities than what you're accustomed to. The produce is the best deal in this country - it is twice the size of American produce and half the cost! As in every shop, you bag your own items. Oh! And when you put your purchase on a credit card they will ask you how many payments you want to make. I'm still not sure how that works, but a lot of Israelis will split their purchase into three payments.

"House cleaning" I'm still experimenting with this. The advice I've heard is to use lots of water. The floors are tile, so the tools of choice are water, a squeegee with a long handle, and a cleaning rag for over the squeegee. There are drains in the floor in almost all the rooms. What I do is sweep and crumbs the dust off the floor, mix a little cleaning product with hot water, and then dump part of the bucket on the floor (which is probably why the outlets are so high off the ground). Then I wrap the rag around the squeegee and scrub as best I can. When I'm done scrubbing I remove the wrag and squeegee the water to the drain. I actually like this last part because then you don't have dirty water sitting on top of your floors to dry. The floors get pretty shiny if you squeegee well, and they feel amazing in your bare feet. I know when it's time to clean the floors when I start preferring to walk around the house in sandals rather than bare feet. Another note on cleaning: In the States I hated to dust and could avoid it for long periods of time. Out here we get the equivalent of 2 months worth of dust in a week. So I've begun dusting more regularly out of necessity.

"Checking account" We just got a shekel account and most of our information is in Hebrew, so we have a lot to learn. What we noticed right away was that you don't need to have any money to have an account. Their technology for signatures impressed us, too. We signed an electronic pad five times each until the computer software found a consistent average. I forgot to use my middle initial in one signature and was rejected, so I had to sign several more times. I don't think there is such a thing as "free" checking, so we're expecting some fees. There are no debit Visa cards here, but we do have an ATM card.

"Salesmanship" While customer service is a novel idea here, salesmanship is spectacular. As a customer, you feel like the salesman truly wants you to have the very best product. If you are even browsing the products, a salesman will come over to you and open the packaging to display or even demonstrate it. I felt a lot of pressure to buy at first, but now that I know it's a common technique I am just entertained. What do they do with all those opened boxes that customers don't buy?!

"Family plan for cell phones" In the States this would mean that you have a block of minutes that every phone on the famiy plan chips away at. Here it means that you have a block of minutes that you can call one other phone with. So our family plan here is only $10 a month and I have 300 minutes I can call Marshall's phone with. Then you pay per minute when you call someone else (which is like 2 cents a minute). By the way, you have to have a shekel checking account in order to get a cell phone plan. Otherwise you get a prepaid phone and pay about 30 cents a minute.