Today we woke up to the cleaning lady knocking on the to door since we were all still jet lagged. We had found her prior to arriving from the recommendation of a friend. We are finding the apartment gets dirty fast with the smaller space and living near the beach tracking in all the dirt from outside. She told me she needed cleaning supplies right away as we had almost nothing since we had just arrived. Things like white out to remove the scratches on the walls we had done with our bikes, squeegee for shower doors and cleaner for the glass top stove. I was terrified at trying to find such specific items at the store in Hebrew since I couldn’t even figure out how to buy FOOD, let alone cleaning supplies.
The girls were still sleeping and Jim was off to work. So, I thought it was a good idea to go alone without the distraction of the kids. As I was staring down the cleaning aisle with no idea what to get, I noticed a woman with 3 kids. I asked if she spoke English and she DID! SCORE! She was nice to help me figure out what I needed in Hebrew or where to find it at the store. Since I was at the store, I decided to try buying some additional food items. I found another English speaking woman who helped me find baking powder so I could make pancakes for the kids, yogurt and a few spices.
When I arrived home, the landlord was there waiting for me. I forgot we had a meeting scheduled to give me a lesson on the apartment. Apparently, hot water is not a given in Israel…showers need to be planned. Many apartments (and I assume houses too) have a special switch to turn on the hot water when you use it.
It takes about 30 minutes from the time you turn it on for your water to get hot. If it is kept hot all the time your electric bill can be outrageous! Ours had been on the entire time since we arrived! The landlord had a man there to install a timer so we would have hot water when we needed it and not worry about turning it on and off constantly. He politely asked me WHEN we would be taking showers to get the timer set up. I had never been asked such an intimate question by a stranger when I planned to shower each day. So, I had to give it some thought and we decided we would want hot water by 6:30 each morning and 7 pm at night. He told me once it’s hot it stays hot for a while, so it does not have to be exact. We later walked outside and he gave me 2 clickers and instruction for garage. We are lucky to have underground parking included with our apartment for the hot Israeli days. We also have something I had never seen before…a CAR ELEVATOR!
To get to our parking spaces, we literally pull into an elevator with our car, push the floor, turn the car off, and when the door opens we restart the car and drive out to our space.
Very interesting way to park! There was also a system to make sure you don’t get stuck trying to enter or exit with another car since only ONE CAR can fit in the elevator at a time.
When the kids got up, I attempted to make them homemade pancakes. Unfortunately, no ready made pancake mix sold here. They were not the best! After that, we left the apartment, me on my electric bike with Mika, Summer on her pedal bike and Josh on an electric scooter to get photos taken before our visa appt tomorrow. I plugged the location into the gps and we managed to find it easy.
After that, we headed to the beach for ice cream and to let Josh and Summer try out my new electric bike, which they were dying to do, in a less crowded area.
Later that afternoon, I messaged a friend I met on a previous visit. He worked at a local hotel and told me how to find several things during an earlier visit. He was a Nigerian man living in Israel, but from Barbados. Josh needed a haircut before starting school. In typical Israeli manner, he offered to TAKE JOSH personally to a local barbershop. He picked up Josh a short time later and off they went. Josh told me he had his hair cut by an Ethiopian man that did not speak English. They communicated what he wanted using pictures on his phone.
Jim came home to take Summer to soccer practice across town and Mika went along for the ride. I was in the apartment for first time all alone. Not going to lie, it felt good. But, it was short as I headed to grocery store again to get some things for dinner. Later that evening we had a nice family dinner hearing about soccer practice, venturing to the African section of Tel Aviv and Jim and Mika’s trip to the grocery store while Summer was at practice. Apparently, Mika talked Jim into getting a lot of Israeli snacks we had never seen or tried. We spent the rest of night filling out mounds of paperwork for our visa appt tomorrow.
