When (if) things work . . .

Okay, here comes a “we’ve noticed” list that may just sound now and then like we’re whining. I think we deserve at least one post like this, don’t you?

- To get privacy on our balcony screen doors and windows throughout the apartment, we pull on cotton straps in a pulley system in the window box to lower a metal “blind” on the outside of the window. Most of them work.

- We had no water when we returned (grungy!) from the Dead Sea on Monday night. We’ve had no hot water at all since then. We heat water in the electric kettle to add (takes three or four per bather, thus a bit of “extra” time) to take the chill off our baths. [Update: Thursday when we were “home,” a couple of maintenance guys worked on it. After about four hours, they found the problem. We now have hot water when the sun has warmed it (so, not early morning J).]

- BYO washcloths. We’re lucky to have one per person in our apartment, but we’ve noticed that no other place keeps them on hand. Just not a Middle Eastern thing?

- Our refrigerator has not functioned well since Day 1. First, we defrosted about 20 pounds of ice from the back wall of the cooling section, ’cause we thought that would help. Then it took a couple of days to feel like it was cooling moderately again. Eldon pulled the fridge away from the wall and ran our one electric fan against the condenser coils. We have lost more than a couple food items to spoilage. Folks finally came today to take a look at it, but we keep buying ice to prevent the most important stuff from spoiling.

- No recycling, in most places. We did run across a couple of large cages for depositing water bottles at the Dead Sea swim area, but those are the only ones. Could easily explain the TRASH problem everywhere else!

- Terry put off cleaning out the mouse poo cupboard for a while, then finally forced herself to get it done. Mainly it was just plastic storage containers for food, with some little kids’ sippy cups stored in there. The Nazareth Hospital rep lady said, “Do you want me to look for traps, which are very hard to find, or do you just want to wait and see if they come back, and then ask me to look for traps?” Ummm…

- People at Nazareth Village run the office air conditioning with the windows and doors wide open. . . . But, we've had a few power outages there, too. And we had to turn off some A/C when the film crew was here 'cause they were getting some fluctuations in their equipement.

- Ice cream comes in flat plastic containers. Vanilla tastes a little weird. The strawberry oval container has two very large flower-shaped squirts of vanilla ice cream (like they were dispensed from a giant soft ice cream machine at your local Country Buffet, for example), but they’re swimming in a thick strawberry syrup. Nina and Zoe say it’s beautiful.

- There is no consistency in pricing. We’ve purchased identical ice cream bars from vendors for as little as 25 cents, or as much as $5 each (we bought fewer that day!).

- You may have guessed that in Israel, pig products are hard to come by. Last week one day at breakfast, Zoe very sweetly asked Eldon to please make her some bacon the first day we’re back at home.

- The washing machine in our building is possessed. Terry wrote about some of this issue in an earlier post, but Eldon has since taken a look at it as well and declared that it needs a motor starter capacitor. Until that time, the hospital lady said “did you check to see that it’s working? I did tell maintenance.” Uh. . . not in the mood to get ourselves electrocuted, or waste any more tokens, thank you. The breaker blows every time it reaches a spin cycle. Then you have to pull a grungy string under the left front corner to get the door lock to pop open before you go hang up your really drippy wash. We go to another washer now and use our tokens there, instead.

- Most ceiling lights consist of a bulb hanging from a wire.

- We have to put a five-shekel coin into a slot on the grocery cart to get it to pull apart from the chains holding them all together. When you return it, you get your coin back, but no one told us about this when they sent us to the big Jewish grocery store, so we felt like idiots.

- There are lots of little shops within walking distance of the apartment for this great cheesy bread, or bread with za’atar on it (the hyssop & herb mix).

- The Israeli electric adaptor that Eldon bought locally comes apart when you pull it from an outlet. (He’d brought a whole set of stuff from CO, and those are fine).

- When a restaurant has a special item to offer, they call it their “speciality.” We had some GREAT garden-type tea with powdered mint floating on the top in a lunch shop in the Muslim quarter in Jerusalem. (Reminded me of Esther’s garden tea.) No one else who lives here had ever heard of such a thing. They figured it was offered to us because we’re all tourists. The Israelis drink lots of cool, or luke-warm stuff, never truly “cold.” The establishment was an Italian restaurant that was labeled as serving “Oriental” food. Go figure! ;) Terry was handled a bottle Nestle’s mint tea at a coffee shop in Jerusalem and really flustered the server when she asked him for any amount of ice. He graciously dug up about ¼ cup of small cubes for her cup and said “This is all we have!” ;)

- We figured out that Nina and Lily’s stomach bug bites, and bites on their necks and feet, were coming from critters in their side-by-side mattresses. The Hospital lady said we should “air out the mattresses.” Terry said no I don’t think so. We got different mattresses from another flat. Puh-leeeeze!

- ATM access is another story. It’s the best way to exchange dollars for shekels. However, a machine that functions one day is found to be literally ripped out of a bank’s wall the next day. The next-closest ATM is not functioning. It’s really hot, you need money for lunch, you keep walking . . . Happy searching!

- We like to read the Hebrew letters on the containers and imagine that they are similar to English letters, and make up something completely American out of it. It’s shameful! But, the word for hummus looks something like DININ, so that’s what Lily calls it. She’s addicted.

- Don’t buy “black” olives unless you can sample one first. We did a buy-3-get-1 kind in cans early on and it turned out to be really sour. Hmm . . . I guess the next tenants can enjoy them!

- Many beverages have lots of added sugar or added fructose syrup, or some combination thereof. We were very happy to find regular soda water at the Mega store, and these lovely lightly flavored waters (Mint is a favorite!). Thank goodness.

- We didn’t notice until we got to Nazareth that the Israeli border guard at the airport forgot to stamp Nina’s 90-day Visa stamp in her passport. We don’t think this will be a problem, but, it sure seems important in a place that’s so tight on security. . .

- One pet peeve in the apartment (did we complain about the apartment yet?) is that the air vent for the toilet is shared with the air vent on the tub drain. So, when you’re sitting in the tub, it smells grand. That, and the coolness of the water, makes for generally short stints at body washing.

- Speaking of the toilet, the flush handle keeps falling off. Mr Fixit (no relation to anyone on the hospital staff) says the whole toilet needs to be replaced. Even the screws holding the toilet to the wall are all rusted out, except one. Let’s hope the last one to go does so after we’re long gone! ;)

- Traffic. When people blow their horns, Eldon likes to believe they’re doing it just to say “I’m here.” They do it a LOT. People like to be seen – in front, behind, and beside. It’s all so, so – friendly like. There are a lot of tight spots and quick-response situations in the cities. Eldon likes to imagine that it’s a video game. Terry says, “be my guest!” Besides being hilly, there are some streets that are genuinely steep and coaster-like. History says that most of the streets were built over donkey paths, because they have always found their own routes.

- Even though there are a thousand falafel and schawarma (the pressed, roasted then shaved turkey on an upright spit – not unlike Greek gyro meat, if you’ve seen that) shops, at least there aren’t a thousand chain-burger joints, like in America. We did eat at one McDonalds on our way back from the Dead Sea (or choices were slim), and ended up spending $60 -- for the “name brand,” I guess. They didn’t even have cheese ’cause it was a kosher shop (no mixing of dairy with meat). Forget it! Pass the falafel, please.