Finding a home

As I sat down to write this blog entry, Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe" came on the Israeli Radio station that's playing in my new home; I'm enjoying listening to the 20 year old girl in the house sing along to the chorus.

Apologies for the lack of news -- I've been busy!

Wednesday I checked out two places to live and made a decision to stay in the city and not in the campus residences that are reportedly small and too isolated.

Thursday I got a SIM card -- having a mobile phone is key to building a social life! Then I headed up to the Mt Scopus campus (think SFU Burnaby) on the 4A bus. This is a terrible bus route. It goes through the city centre (downtown) like every other bus (it seems) and then it takes a wide sweep to the west winding through several neighbourhoods and finally coming at the university from the north. (This would be something like riding the BLine to UBC from Granville and Broadway east along Broadway to Cambie then south to 16th, west on 16th until Macdonald where the bus would head south to 41st before heading west again to campus - Ridiculous.) Fortunately, I've learned a new route that requires switching buses downtown.

Also on Thursday, I did a ton of administrative stuff, including registering as a "postdoc" (maybe; they might just register me as a student, it seems they don't get many postdocs) and getting a bank account. Absolutely indispensible to getting all this done was (and will be, I'm sure) my new colleague, Amit, a PhD student in Geography. Since both of my supervisors are out of town, Amit is stuck with the heavy lifting of helping me get into the "system". Hilariously, the forms for post-doc "registration in the system" are all in Hebrew: Amit filled out all the forms. I am illiterate and helpless.

There are just two days of work this week before Yom Kippur (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then Sukkot (which shuts down the university from Thursday, reopening on October 9). Despite this large chunk of holidays, I'm told it's good that I arrived when I did as it will take a while to get me into the system and avoiding the crunch of the beginning of term means I stand a good chance of getting paid by November 1! (Based on my experience, North America is a bit odd in paying folks bimonthly (in its twice a month sense), it seems far more standard to pay monthly.)

And, finally, to cap off a giant day, I moved into my new home on Thursday. I am living at Emek Refaim 6 in the German Colony (just in case you want a google street view while you impatiently wait for me to post photos) in a giant old stone house built by German Templars in the 1870s. The German Colony is a lovely walkable neighbourhood that Israelis say should actually be called the American Colony. It's a popular place for those who make aliyah (take up Israeli citizenship) and it's common to hear English spoken. Yay!! It makes me feel less helpless!

I found this about the house I'm living in  (http://www.tiuli.com/track_info.asp?lng=eng&track_id=132)

The Miller house – 6 Emek Refaim Street

If an agricultural German colony could have existed here, then certainly the place of a miller was very important as well. The house of the miller, Mathaus Frank Ebenezer, was the first house to be built in the Colony. The inscription on the lintel says in German “Ebenezer”, which refers to the battles of the Israelites with the Philistine people. Being devoted to their religion, the Templars used to etch religious verses on the front of their houses that harbingered the redemption by the Lord.

Just like today, most Jerusalemites didn't swim; the first private pool in Jerusalem was built in the garden of the house. It was here where the children of the neighborhood came to have fun and learnt to swim. Frank made a living from a steam flourmill of which remnants can be still seen on the western side of the house.

Many of the Templar families used to employ Arab servants who lived in the cellar next to the water cistern.

I live in the back of the house -- 4 bedrooms, a living area and large kitchen, and great patio for sitting, reading, eating -- with the Amir family. (I need to ask about the meaning of Amir in Hebrew, they are Israeli.) There are 4 of them -- Hedda (Mom), Sivan (daughter, doing law articles in Jerusalem, living in Haifa with husband on the weekends), Yonathan (son, off to the Tech Institute in Haifa to start his Bachelor's next month), and Yarden (daughter, currently doing her service at a Palestinian-Israeli radio station, but on vacation as of tonight when she flies to Barcelona to do a Flamenco dancing intensive).  Oh, and Tina (the dog) who barks at nearly everyone on first sighting of the day. The house is busy: someone is always coming and going. My room is quite lovely with two windows and a vaulted ceiling. The bed is cozy and I have a desk to work at.

Friday is an important day in the life of a Jerusalemite -- you need to get all your errands done before 3 pm when the shops close and buses stop running for Shabbat until after sundown (about 8pm) on Saturday. The Jewish day starts at sundown, thus the sabbath does too. My Friday started with coffee at the Coffee Mill on Emek Refaim where I experienced what I'm sure I'll come to view as standard Israeli interactions. I waited for what seemed like forever to be acknowledged by the wait staff. Then after I had a menu I waited for another eternity to have my order taken. Then my coffee and muffin came quickly. I asked the waitress if I could get a water and she pointed to the self-service cooler. Before I knew it the guy sitting next to me, who had overheard my request, came back from the cooler with two cups of water - one for him and one for me.  

Now fortified, I walked to the mall where the big grocery store is. Having just moved in, I needed staples -- rice, lentils, nuts and seeds, bread, etc. Before the groceries, I window shopped for shoes and stopped in the Office Depot to get a notebook for work. After sifting through the many stacks and asking for help, it became obvious other than children's notebooks for learning cursive, none of the notebooks are designed for writing English (or any other left to right language):  I'd have to take a Hebrew notebook and use it upside-down. 

Then, into the basement for groceries...and the beginning of the real fun. It turns out most products in Israel have very limited English (or other language) labelling. This means you really need to either look at the pictures on the label (a skill I have need to work on) or ask for help. I mostly made my own choices, except in the dairy section where it proved impossible to tell the difference between yogurt and sour cream and I asked a fellow shopper for help. Clearly, I do need to look more closely at the label pictures because I bought what I thought was a jar of plain tahini - completely overlooking the large sprig of dill on the label...making it not breakfast tahini as I had hoped. No spreading that on your pita with tea. Ick. True to form I bought enough groceries to turn myself into a pack mule; fortunately the bus stop was nearby. 

Before dinner I met up with a friend of a friend of a friend, Yaniv, a local who grew up here. We met at a cafe-cinema nearby that I've decided may become my favourite hangout. The cafe has a great vibe, sells used books (sadly doesn't buy them), and shows arthouse movies. Best part -- it's open on Shabbat!! Yaniv gave me several suggestions for things to see and do in Jerusalem and a bit more cultural insight.

Today I walked the Milton Path through the German Colony. The city has converted the old Ottoman railway track into a recreational path. It has space for walkers and bikers and attracts them in droves. This may be the place to be on Shabbat morning - old ladies with walkers, men with strollers, couples of all ages, and children galore. I think it would make a great rollerblading route...

Bike report 

The more folks I ask about biking in Jerusalem, the more confusing it gets. I have run out of fingers and toes to count the number of cyclists I have seen on the road (or sidewalk) with or without helmets making their way through Jerusalem (especially in the neighbourhoods of Baka, Katamon, and the German Colony), including families with children. Biking to Mt Scopus however, is considered a death wish. There might be the distinction. You can commute short distances in neighbourhoods that are expecting to see bikes. Outside of those, forget about it.  Today on the Milton Path I saw what might be described as a peloton of mountain bikers, some decked out in partial armour. I have no idea where they were going or coming from.