Today was a big day for us! We were going to move Josh into his new school at noon.  I had a lot of mixed feelings about this.  It was a good school, but I still was not happy about him being away at boarding school.  Our extensive research to try to send him to a local high school without knowing any Hebrew, left us with no choice. Josh also told me he didn’t sleep at all the night before because he was also nervous.

I went for a quick run that morning to ease some of the stress.  It was finally time to leave for the school, so we packed the car with 2 bags of Josh’s belongings and headed to EMIS.  When we arrived the parking lot was emptier than we imagined.  We were told many of the kids arrived by plane the night before and the school had vans to pick them up after arriving from their respective countries.  There was a nice student who  greeted us when we arrived and we saw several students and parents walking around. 

We located the area where Josh’s pre IB rooms were located. 

The first door we came to had Josh’s name along with 3 other boys. 

We walked into an empty room with 2 sets of bunk beds.  One of the beds was made with linen, but no one was inside.  We quickly inspected the room. 

It was ordinary by any standard with the bunks, a desk area  and 2 large closets.  There was  also a small bathroom with a shower at the farthest end of the room. 

We were told Josh would get half of one of the closets so we started to unpack his things. 

His counselor stopped by quickly to let us know his other 3 roommates were from China, Myanmar(Burma) and South Sudan. This school did not exaggerate their claim to have have students from around the globe! Josh has a passion for world affairs, so he already knew a lot about the countries his roommates were coming from. He told me his initial thoughts and questions about his new roommates. We were also told his roommate from Myanmar may be delayed arriving because of visa issues.

After we unpacked, the counselor told us there was a lunch for students and families in the cafeteria. So we headed out to find it.

There were several families walking with us speaking a variety of different languages.

We didn’t hear anyone speaking English.  It was a long hot walk and we had no idea where we were going. There were others following us thinking we knew where we were going, so we got lost together.

Along the way we passed all the wildlife on the campus that included peacocks, deer, antelopes and even cows!  It occurred to me this was a big spread out campus and just going to eat would be a journey for Josh in the heat.

When we finally arrived at the cafeteria there was a buffet line full of different foods, some familiar some not. There were people there to serve the food and to explain the dishes. 

There was a meat, chicken and vegetarian dish along with several side dishes and a salad and bread bar. We all sat and enjoyed our lunch while gazing at the international crowd around us. We heard a group of students speaking in English so we listened into their conversation.

After lunch, we headed back to Josh’s new room to continue to set up. I put up his Colorado state flag in his bunk area he wanted to bring with him.

We later ran into that same group of English speaking students. They introduced themselves and several were from America including New York, Portland and Hawaii. They asked Josh if he wanted to join the group at the pool and he quickly changed and left with the large group. That was the last we saw of him that day. No formal goodbyes or hugs. Like that he was off on a new adventure at boarding school.

After leaving the school we headed to a large grocery store nearby. Josh’s school is located in a more suburban area with larger grocery stores with a bigger selection and much better prices than we have at the small markets in the city.

We took advantage of having a car to leave with several big bags.  In the city, we are limited to what we can carry on the bike and by hand.

I did buy one of those rolling bags to be able to haul more things back to the apartment. This was life changing!

Later we took the girls to the beach to watch the sunset and a late dinner at a restaurant between the beach and our apartment.

We have already eaten here twice because we have to pass by it to get home.  I still haven’t figured out what to cook here with the language barrier and different products unique to Israel.  I’m happy the chicken strike is over so I can now get chicken!