Before I begin with day 1 of Israel, it makes sense to start with day 0. The parents very kindly drove me down to Luton to catch the plane where upon EasyJet completely conned me. Interesting thing to note, if you purchase extra luggage allowance on EasyJet it does not increase your personal luggage allowance. So, you can buy as many 20 kg bags of luggage as you like, but everything after bag 1 or 20 kg is beyond your personal luggage and is charged at £11/kg. I’ll let you do the maths on that one. Needless to say, the additional luggage cost more than the actual seat.
An otherwise uneventful 5 hour flight later saw me touch down in an already dark Tel Aviv at around half past 7 local time. I say local time, because it turns out everything in Israel is seemingly surrounded in arguments. In this case, for some reason the Interior Ministry this year has extended daylight savings. This means that every single one of my devices, phone, tablet, linux laptop and Windows desktop all want to be an earlier than it actually is. Surprisingly, this time I managed to step off the plane without being questioned on the grounds of probably being a terrorist. Border control was also a walk straight through affair as opposed to last time’s 90 minute queue. Although annoyingly border control only give you a 30 day visa despite the embassy giving you a year. Sounds like a con, to get an extension fee out of you immediately after you land.
The only trouble I had then came from customs. Who stopped me and took apart the bag with my computer in it. They immediately asked to see an invoice for it. Which of course I dont have, as it’s a self built machine. They then asked how much it was worth. I then proceeded to get a lecture how, anything over 200 USD should be declared upon entering the country. Of course, I thought this to be a bit of a reach to stop and lecture me. This is, after all Israel. All the time hundreds of people walking past me holding laptop bags. And of course none of the Jewish women walking past me were wearing gold necklaces worth more than $200. In the end, the security manager came over and just told the guy to let me go. Mostly I think he was confused my a desktop coming through.
A 40 minute taxi and a security guard walking off into the night with my passport later, I was presented with some keys and left with the task of finding my apartment.
Eventually, the apartment was found a friendly enough Southern Indian chemist, that I can barely understand, was inside happily watching something on his laptop. I went off and found my room. The room itself has 4 walls and a roof. And that’s about as generous as I can be about it. Plaster is coming off the walls. Big dents missing. Rubbish left all over the place from the last tenant. Wardrobes with doors that barely hang on. But, “it’s not like I’m going to be here for much more than sleeping” I thought.
So with some upbeat music on, I unpack, desperately trying not to think about what a colossal mistake this all is. Desperately trying to put a brave face on it all.
Of course, at this point my body clock is all over the place. I’ve been up since 630 UK time. But it’s nearly midnight in Tel Aviv, but my body clock is telling me that whilst I’m pretty tired – there aint a chance in hell that you’ll fall asleep when the hour still has a 9 in it. Especially with all the crap running through your brain.
A shower to remove the stench of travelling helps. And eventually sleep comes.
00:48.
I wake with a start.
The worst kind of rude awakening.
A mosquito has literally just flown into my ear.
It has to die.
The light goes on, but the thing has disappeared. I scour the room for 5 minutes and come up luckless. Starting to doubt the entire event I go back to bed. 2 minutes pass before I hear it again. Light goes on. Nothing. Time passes. Nothing. Light goes off. 2 minutes pass. IT’S IN MY EAR AGAIN.
With lightning reactions, the light goes on. I spot the barsted. Justice is delivered with a swift and decisive flip flop.
With success filling my senses, but now wide awake I slowly start to fade back to sleep. Until….
02:48
That buzz is back in my ear. Higher pitched this time. With the light on, I confirm the corpse of the first mosquito. This is a second offender. Learning from the lessons of the first, I turn the light off and pretend to be asleep. The buzzing starts up again. It gets close, lights on, where the hell is it?
This game is repeated for 20 minutes
I win.
At 04:54 I’m awoken again by the Indian flat mate going for a shower. At this point I couldn’t give a damn and roll over.
The first day of Israel, begins like no different than any other day. Alarm goes off. My whole being hates the alarm today. Immediately the sense of dread and reality of the situation fills my now very empty stomach.
A shave, shower and spruce up gets me out the door quickly in search of food. The welcome pack tells me there are 3 places I can get food from 8 at. The first place is closed at 820, the second is not possible to find. The third is the poshest place for miles, but in the absence of anything else….
Still it was a lovely setting, with a good cup of coffee in hand, I was informed of troubles in the kitchen and despite this now being quarter to nine it would be 20 minutes before food could be served. But the coffee was complimentary, and I was hungry. Which is just as well as the meal was massive.
The rest of the day was then mental.
It started at the lab. Then the school secartary for an IT log in and email address. I ran to the grad school for medical insurance before that disappeared for the day. I then collected the forms to extend my 30 day visa to the actual visa I asked for in London. Back to the lab. Lunch. Back to the grad school to sort the forms to acknowledge my position. From there across campus to the housing office. Sign off all the forms for my temporary accommodation. Meet the designated housing-assistance lady to help me find a flat. She talks me through the 6 flats that are available. Tells me that there are 4 post-docs starting this week and the Masters kids start this week too. So I immediately make 4 flat appointments. This sees me run across town for a flat viewing. Back to campus for a viewing of a flat next to campus. Back to the first flat, walk around the corner for flat 3. Time is now 5 o’clock. Need to get to the bank before 6 o’clock when it closes to open an account, knowing that this takes about half an hour.
When I thought British bureaucracy was bad, Israelis do it better. I signed no less than 26 times to open a bank account. Most of it in English.
Back to the lab. Check the email. Find out I’ve got another flat viewing at 11 o’clock tonight. Reply to a few more emails. I’ve been summoned to HR tomorrow…
Hungry again from all the walking it occurs to me that I’m a little sunburnt and that I’ve drunk 5 litres in the day and I’ve got no idea where it went. I haven’t gone to the loo and I haven’t visibly sweated. This 30+ degree heat is a killer. Now I need to find some dinner quick as it’s now gone 8 and I’m still yet to find a shop where I can get something for breakfast tomorrow.
The upside to it all of course is that I’ve been soooo busy today, that I haven’t had time to regret anything. The lab group seem like a good bunch of people and I’m sure I’ll have some good friends there. I just wish the comfortableness of having people outside work to pub with or the like could be fast-tracked. But it’s still day 1. I remember I felt terrible and pretty home sick at uni for 2 weeks before I sucked it up enough to have a proper go of it. Early days.
Anyway, must dash. Gotta run across town again to see a flat. Wish me luck!
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