As we were staying at family in
Netanya, we were commuting to Modiin every day for the first week of our Aliya.
This meant a lot of time in the car, eating a lot of crisps and listening to
the same CD which we had brought with us, interspersed with the radio when the
kids had fallen asleep. We had begun the crusade to blitz through our list so
that we would be the most super organised olim that ever existed (we can be a
bit competitive like that!)
Two days after we made Aliya was
Ella’s third birthday. Now, she had already had about three parties when we
were back in London to celebrate this occasion but on her actual birthday, we
really spoiled her and took her… to the bank to set up an account. Thank
goodness our good friend David and brother/brother in law Daniel were around to
keep her entertained and took her out for ice cream, bought her a present,
bought her sweets – the instructions were “anything to keep her happy”. After
killing quite a few trees through the amount of paperwork that it takes to set
up an account here, we came across the dilemma of which type of card do we
get…credit or debit. In England, people use both but for people who like to
keep track of their spending tend to go with a debit card. So, when we
requested the debit card, the woman looks at us like we are a bit mad. She then
explained to us that in Israel, people like credit cards so that they can buy
whatever they want during the month and then only pay at the end. Finally, we
understand why so many people in Israel are in debt. It is not a conscious
decision but something that is part of society. We decided to be half English
and half Israeli…we got both! After an hour and a half, we realised we were
starving and so began the pizza fest that would continue for the next few days.
We also needed to sign up for health
insurance which meant bye bye NHS for us. As born and bred Britons, we were
used to free healthcare thanks to the NHS. So for us, a big difference was the
fact that you have to pay for healthcare in Israel. For Americans, it is the
same but for us, it was a different mentality to get used to. One definite plus
is that the Olim benefits cover a certain amount of the medical fees for the
first year – great stuff.
Next stop was shopping for a fridge.
We had never shopped for a fridge before because the one we had in London was
second hand and came with our flat. So this was a new experience for us. We
looked in three different shops, bartering prices between them all (only in
Israel) and finally came to an agreement and made our first purchase which
would be delivered to the flat the following week. Very proud of ourselves (and
also feeling that the guy might have charged us more because he could hear we
were not Israeli), we went to get food for the kids (pizza) before heading back
to Netanya for the night where we could actually celebrate Ella’s birthday with
cake and presents. Not a bad start. We had done most of the paperwork that we
needed to do and met up with Misrad HaKlita (absorbtion) to discuss next
stages. Now, we had to sit tight and wait for our shipment.
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