Slaying the DMV Dragon

Moving to Israel involves dealing with bureaucracy. It’s unavoidable said our friends. Be prepared they told us. Be patient. So we braced ourselves and made a list of the Government offices we need to conquer: ministry of absorption (משרד הקליטה), social security (ביטוח לאומי), DMV (משרד הרישוי), Ministry of Interior (משרד הפנים), Customs (מכס) to name a few…

Rediscovering life afer 10pm

I grew-up next to the Mediterranean, where nightlife meant actually enjoying life at night… Leaving the house late in the evening, meeting with friends, having dinner, or sitting at a café sipping a drink and chatting. We often returned home well after midnight.

My 408 Area Code

I now live in Raanana, Israel. Where the telephone country code is +972 and the area code is 9. If you want to reach me by phone from the US, you are supposed to dial an international access code (e.g. 011), a country code (972), an area code (9) and finally my home number. A tedious and relatively expensive process.

This international dialing standards and the associated country/area codes have been in place for almost a century. But what was true several years ago is no longer true today. The Internet changed our phone service forever. All thanks to a technology called 'Voice over Internet Protocol' (or VoIP).

You can't have Tofu in your soup!

Asian food has been a family favorite for a long time. We simply love Thai, Chinese, Korean and Japanese food - in that order. We have eaten Asian food in dozens of restaurants around the world. It was always tasty, always easy to digest, and always highly customizable... You want extra tofu in the soup? No green peppers? Mild flavor instead of spicy? No problem - your wish is our command.

'Alte Zachen'

'Alte Zachen' is a Yiddish phrase for 'old stuff' - 'Alte' meaning old and 'Zachen' meaning things or stuff. When I was a child, we used to have a person passing down the street with a horse and a cart yelling 'alte zachen'. It was a signal for the people to take out their old, used things - clothes, appliances, shoes, you name it. The 'Alte Zachen' person would collect them, load them on his cart and haul them to a flea market.

Packing frenzy

19.5yrs in California is sufficient time to accumulate lot's of stuff... Things you need, things you thought you needed, things you once needed but not anymore, and just things... Packing and moving all your belonging to another country can be a daunting task, as we found out.