First Week Update

Hi everyone,

First - sorry if I haven't replied to your emails - I have read them all and really appreciate them, even the really sarcastic ones (you know who you are...). I just haven't had a chance to respond to everyone yet. Sorry!

So here's a quick update after the first week:

I'm pleased to report that only a few hours after I sent my last email, our lift arrived. Woohoo!!! The kids were happy to spread their junk around their rooms so that the place felt more like home and I was happy to put off buying pots and pans for another day due to all the unpacking. 

Unfortunately, that night we went to Dougies restaurant for dinner and realized that the time had come to buy some kitchen stuff. Sorry Americans, but we did NOT like that place. What is that onion thing??? For the non-Americans, it was basically a huge onion that was opened up like a big flower, dipped in batter, and deep-fried. The waiter said it was good. He was wrong. 

So the rest of the week was spent in shops like Target, Bed, Bath and Beyond and Glatt Express (ex-Teaneck people - stop salivating!!!) stocking up our kitchen with food and utensils. The first time I tried to prepare anything in the kitchen (a tuna sandwich) I had a massive shock when I opened the can of tuna and saw some white mush. I checked the tin and it told me I'd bought "Albacore", which to me sounded like a bird of prey and I was convinced I'd treifed up the kitchen on my first attempt. Thankfully, albacore is just a type of tuna which Americans like because it's white. What's wrong with brown tuna? No idea. But at least it wasn't albatross...

Meanwhile, as part of our "living-in-America-away-from-all-your-friends-and-family-and-everything-you've-ever-known-will-be-fun" propaganda campaign, we decided to take the kids to a Six Flags water park on Friday. (Yes - Avrom took a DAY OFF WORK!)  We had a great time and saw lots of interesting tattoos... The slides were fun too. Unfortunately, it was pretty far away - 1.5 hrs in fact, and that's if you don't take  lots of wrong turns on the motorways. What is with these 12-lane roads???? And what on earth is a turnpike? And all these tolls?? It was all very confusing and despite (or maybe because of) using the car's GPS AND Waze we took a few detours and ended up getting back to Teaneck about 45 minutes before shabbat. 

Suffice it to say that Friday night dinner was not my finest hour - the hotplate exploded just before shabbat, the oven burnt the apple pie, I forgot to take the challah out of the freezer until just before shabbat (and there was no hotplate to defrost it on because it had exploded), there was no time to make roast potatoes, so we had to have oven chips with our take-out chicken, and the shabbat urn didn't work. Basically, a complete disaster - but we had fun and reminisced over the week's experiences. We decided that the most American things we'd bought this week were a whistling tea kettle (because they haven't discovered electric kettles here yet) and brown paper bags for sandwiches. 

Luckily we didn't starve today as we were out for both lunch and seuda shlishit. It was great to meet some locals, plus another new Israeli family - they are actual Israelis, not fake ones like us. It was nice to hear some Hebrew spoken, other than in the aisles in Target.

Anyway, that's all for now. Tomorrow is SUNDAY, so we are all going OUT again!!! This is very odd. We are not used to such excitement and frivolity. It's also our 16th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Well done Avrom! 

Oh, and Avrom says I should switch to a blog so that (a) people can comment, and (b) I stop littering your inboxes.

So, when I get round to it, I'll do that.

Have a great week and good luck to all the Israelis for the first week of school. Enjoy, and well done for not strangling any children over the last 8 weeks.