Chadica.com

Greetings from Jerusalem.

First of all, we arrived safe. Our flights were pretty uneventful. Luckily, we got Economy Plus for the longest leg, so it was a bit more comfortable.

Now for what you really want to hear about. Israel. It’s been ten years since I (Chad) was here last, and five years for Jessica. We got our bags and made through customs hassle free. Our land lady sent us instructions on the best way to get from the airport to our apartment. She was spot on, and we met her in front of our new home.

Our landlady brought her husband and they helped us lug our 7+ pieces of luggage (picture to be uploaded soon) up the five flights of stairs. Definitely above and beyond what was required of them. I can try to describe our apartment, but instead next week I’m going to post a short video walkthrough of our apartment. Isn’t technology great? It’s very comfortable and we have plenty of storage space. We haven’t seen any other apartments yet, so we have no base for comparison, but we like it.

After resting for a few minutes, we headed out for our first adventure down the street to the German Colony. As we were walking, a asked Jess who was going to run into someone they knew first. Well, less than 5 minutes later, Jess won as she ran into an old friend that she hadn’t seen in a few years. Gotta love Jewish Geography. After that, we enjoyed a Shawarma dinner, and then headed back to our apartment. At 9:30, we both crashed and enjoyed a blissful night of rest.

Well, blissful for Jess as I woke up at 3am wide awake. Oye. So I got up, and played the computer and listend to the sounds of the city waking up around our place. At a more reasonable hour, Jess woke up and we went about unpacking our bags. We then started out to find HUC (Hebrew Union College) to get all of our information and take a campus tour that they offered. When we got there, we met about 10+ of her follow students plus some of their SO’s (signifant others). So far, I’ve only met one other SO that is staying for the full year. The campus is much bigger then you’d expect, but it is very nice. One of the rooms upstairs has this gorgeous view of the Old City. In years past, they did High Holy Day services in this room.

After we got our cell phones, health insurance, etc. we grabbed some lunch, set-up our internet service (it will be installed on Tuesday), and then took a much needed nap. For dinner, we headed out to find a restuarant that I read about. Of course, we walked by it without even seeing it and ended up at a sushi restaurant. We’re still looking for a good sushi restaurant, if anyone knows of one.

HUC has interns to help with orientation and have different events planned for the next couple of weeks. Last night, we headed to a bar that is off the beaten path. It was very nice, and the owner loves meeting up with the different students every year. He even bought a bottle of whisky to welcome us.

This morning, the interns took us to Mechaneh Yehuda…aka the Shuk…aka the open air market. I love going there. Beyond the fact that there is the greatest Rugalech stand in the world here, it is just fun seeing everyone out shopping and getting ready for Shabbat. The booths were full of fruits, vegetables, spices, nuts, dried fruit, etc. We stocked up on fruit and veggies and headed home.

Now, we’re at a shawarma stand taking advantage of free internet. It’s pretty warm out and we’re definitely drinking a ton of water.

I’m trying to process my initial feelings, but so far am having a hard time putting them into words. I’m ready to go out and be a tourist, yet also enjoying being able to go home at the end of the day.

We’ll update soon.

L’hitraot,

Chad and Jess

So tomorrow is both Jess and my last day of work. For Jess, she is leaving her job of 9+ years. I’m hoping that she’ll log on and write some of her thoughts about leaving, but for now…you’re stuck with me.

It’s actually very weird to be leaving. Mainly because I’m leaving the office and my co-workers, but going to continue the job. For the year that I’m in Israel, I will be telecommuting to Cleveland and will be continuing to do the work that i’ve been doing over the last year. So you can see how I’m a bit at odds about leaving tomorrow. On one hand, I’ll basically be talking with people via email and the phone and will lose the day to day commraderie. On the other hand, I’ll continue to work with a great company, continue to talk via phone and email with my co-workers, and I will continue to do a job that I truely enjoy.

So after tomorrow, I will be officially unemployed until I start working again in mid-July.

So as I prepare to work overseas, I started to run into issues getting the software set-up on my Windows Vista laptop. After hours of searching Google for fixes to the solution I was having, I just got feed up and rebuilt my laptop with Windows XP. I gotta say, it feels like I just bought an entirely new computer. Everything just runs faster and easier. And no more of that ‘Are you really sure you wish to install the software…’ messages. So for those of you thinking of upgrading…don’t. It’s not worth it. For those of you with Vista that want to downgrade…it’s worth the effort.

One of the other big curiousities that Jess and I have is…how do you pay rent in a foreign country? Besides going to the ATM and grabbing the appropriate amount of money, can we write checks? Can we charge it? So far, no answers.

So planning is in full swing for our year in Israel. It’s exciting, it is a new adventure, it’s logistic hell! Well,  maybe that is a bit melodramatic, but there are a ton of logistics. Logistics that neither Jess or myself are used to dealing with.

The moment that Jess was officially accepted to school, the overwhelming amount of things to do started to settle in. We need an apartment, a plan ticket, let our jobs know that we’re leaving, let our land lord know we’re leaving a month early, etc. Stuff that needed to happen right away. Thankfully, we got those things out of the way within the first week.

We found what sounds like a nice apartment with really 2 incredibly helpful tenants (1 of which is a current HUC student). It’s on the 5th floor and there is not an elevator, so if you plan on visiting, plan on getting a bit of exercise. With the help of Jess’s aunt, we found a decent plane ticket to Israel. Expensive, but has flexibility on the return flight. We talked to our relative bosses and everyone has been incredibly supportive.

So now comes the next step. How do you pack up your entire life, move to a city (yet not have an apartment in that city), see as many of your friends and family as you can possibly see in 1 1/2 months, change credit cards and checking accounts, see doctors, etc. Aghhh!!!

It’s actually not that bad, it’s just you want to front load as much as possibly because I know that with less than a week to go, the last thing we’re going to want to do is run around dealing with logistics. We’re going to want to be see and hanging out with family and friends. Doing the things that Jess and I really think are important as opposed to running to the bank or going to another clothes store to pick up stuff that we may need.

Ah well, yesterday the tenants of our apartment in Israel sold us a ton of stuff, so our logistical lives once we get to Jerusalem will be a ton easier. Not only that, but we won’t have to carry said tons of stuff up 5 flights of stairs. Wahoo!!!