Today was our first day of Hebrew class. Wicked difficult. I've been giving myself pep-talks all day, encouraging myself that yes, Hebrew is mean, but yes, I will master it someday. I can do this. I can do this. (I think.) To add to the difficulty, the style of teaching includes the instructor NEVER speaking in English. I think it's kind of like a sink-or-swim technique. For vocabulary, she would show us pictures and give us the words for them. The problem was, I often didn't know what she meant. For example, I wasn't sure if "yayin" meant "bottle" or "wine." Turns out it means wine, which is one of the first five words we learned. It's a staple of Hebrew culture. Wine and bread. All of life revolves around those two things (or so I am told). My Israeli friend who is a religious Jew told me you can't be a good Jew without wine.
Later in the afternoon, we ventured down to the mall to open a bank account. We get there to see about 20-30 people waiting in line, and we took a number. Then we talked to someone and found out we could fore-go the line to meet with a specific lady about opening an account. As we were waiting for her, a managerial-looking man came over and asked if he could help us. We told him what we were there for, and he asked if we were Israeli citizens. We said no, and he said we couldn't open an account. After talking a bit more, he took us to his office because, he said, "I want to help you."
After we went to his office and discussed and negotiated, he got confirmation from the main office that we could get an account there, but not the student account. We soon learned that it would cost us about 5.5 NIS each time we deposited money into our account (even if we went to the bank teller). IF we got a debit card (which costs 15 NIS a month), we would (only) have to pay less than 2 NIS each time we deposited our OWN money into our OWN account.
That didn't cut it for us. We told them that we appreciated their time and effort to get an account opened for us, but we weren't interested in an account that charged fees. The competing bank offers student accounts to foreign students, so we would just go there.
After more deliberation between themselves in Hebrew, another long phone call was made. At the end of it, he threw the phone down and said something like, "We got it." No, that's not it. I wish I remembered. Moral of the story: EVERYTHING is negotiable in Israel, and people are VERY helpful, or at least they are at Leumi :)
So I have a fee-free bank account! Yay, now onto negotiating with the cell phone people for a free iPhone. Evidently they told my classmates that the student special wasn't available anymore, because foreigners would leave the country with their shiny new free phones and never come back. Stupid foreigners. Anyway, the only way for me to get this "free" iPhone is to put down a 4,000 NIS deposit (or something like that). Yeah, right! Pah! If this iPhone thing doesn't work out, I don't think I'm going to get a phone. Skype will suffice for now. I may change my mind in the future. We'll see.
After spending more than two hours at the bank, I started my long journey home, which was intercepted by a crowd of protesting students. There were at least 200 of them along the street shouting, singing, and dancing (yes, dancing, more like dance-stepping, but it was happening) to protest the high cost of student housing. They have a lot in the city full of tents where the boycotting ones sleep. It's interesting. They bring their dogs with them. The contending crowd marching on the street (which was surrounded on all sides by officers on foot, in cars, and on motorcycles - and police cars were parked with their lights on in the medians and the sidewalks) included mothers with their babies on their hips and in strollers. Everyone was college-age. I'm assuming they were all BGU students. The thing is, student housing costs are like 1,000-1,500 NIS per month. It's not really that bad. It's like a little less than $300-$500 per month. Maybe they're protesting the more expensive apartments - or maybe the on-campus housing. I don't know.
On my walk back, I saw two of my classmates heading to the grocery store. I ended up going with them, because I'm already running low on that super-expensive food. It was a small grocery store that required me to check my backpack at the door. It was much cheaper than the others, and it really seemed to focus on the Russian population. Most of the food labels were in Russian. I saw a tube of "American Chips," which were like knock-off mini-Pringles cans. I also saw a can of beef liver, with a cartoon smiling cow with horns in the middle surrounded by a field of lovely-looking, almost majestic, beef livers. Seriously. Imagine the can of peas in your cupboard. Now substitute each pea with a liver. I really need a camera.
להתראות
Later in the afternoon, we ventured down to the mall to open a bank account. We get there to see about 20-30 people waiting in line, and we took a number. Then we talked to someone and found out we could fore-go the line to meet with a specific lady about opening an account. As we were waiting for her, a managerial-looking man came over and asked if he could help us. We told him what we were there for, and he asked if we were Israeli citizens. We said no, and he said we couldn't open an account. After talking a bit more, he took us to his office because, he said, "I want to help you."
After we went to his office and discussed and negotiated, he got confirmation from the main office that we could get an account there, but not the student account. We soon learned that it would cost us about 5.5 NIS each time we deposited money into our account (even if we went to the bank teller). IF we got a debit card (which costs 15 NIS a month), we would (only) have to pay less than 2 NIS each time we deposited our OWN money into our OWN account.
That didn't cut it for us. We told them that we appreciated their time and effort to get an account opened for us, but we weren't interested in an account that charged fees. The competing bank offers student accounts to foreign students, so we would just go there.
After more deliberation between themselves in Hebrew, another long phone call was made. At the end of it, he threw the phone down and said something like, "We got it." No, that's not it. I wish I remembered. Moral of the story: EVERYTHING is negotiable in Israel, and people are VERY helpful, or at least they are at Leumi :)
So I have a fee-free bank account! Yay, now onto negotiating with the cell phone people for a free iPhone. Evidently they told my classmates that the student special wasn't available anymore, because foreigners would leave the country with their shiny new free phones and never come back. Stupid foreigners. Anyway, the only way for me to get this "free" iPhone is to put down a 4,000 NIS deposit (or something like that). Yeah, right! Pah! If this iPhone thing doesn't work out, I don't think I'm going to get a phone. Skype will suffice for now. I may change my mind in the future. We'll see.
After spending more than two hours at the bank, I started my long journey home, which was intercepted by a crowd of protesting students. There were at least 200 of them along the street shouting, singing, and dancing (yes, dancing, more like dance-stepping, but it was happening) to protest the high cost of student housing. They have a lot in the city full of tents where the boycotting ones sleep. It's interesting. They bring their dogs with them. The contending crowd marching on the street (which was surrounded on all sides by officers on foot, in cars, and on motorcycles - and police cars were parked with their lights on in the medians and the sidewalks) included mothers with their babies on their hips and in strollers. Everyone was college-age. I'm assuming they were all BGU students. The thing is, student housing costs are like 1,000-1,500 NIS per month. It's not really that bad. It's like a little less than $300-$500 per month. Maybe they're protesting the more expensive apartments - or maybe the on-campus housing. I don't know.
On my walk back, I saw two of my classmates heading to the grocery store. I ended up going with them, because I'm already running low on that super-expensive food. It was a small grocery store that required me to check my backpack at the door. It was much cheaper than the others, and it really seemed to focus on the Russian population. Most of the food labels were in Russian. I saw a tube of "American Chips," which were like knock-off mini-Pringles cans. I also saw a can of beef liver, with a cartoon smiling cow with horns in the middle surrounded by a field of lovely-looking, almost majestic, beef livers. Seriously. Imagine the can of peas in your cupboard. Now substitute each pea with a liver. I really need a camera.
להתראות
"...you can't be a good Jew without wine." - Haha that's great! Thank you for doing a blog! I love reading your adventures in Israel. I'm so excited for you and that you get to do this!
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