Another crazy week! I arrived in Netanya last Saturday night (over a week ago) and have spent my time working, exploring the city, and adjusting to life here. The apartment I'm living in is ok--it's not exactly the best financial deal in the world but for two months I can deal. I have two roommates, a woman who owns the apartment who is a lot older and a guy who is in his 20s and studying to be a teacher. The guy and I have been hanging out a lot during our free time, running on the beach, helping each other speak Hebrew/English, etc. The apartment itself has a shared kitchen and living room space and I have my own closet-sized room. For the amount of time I spend in the apartment it'll work! I cook for myself and am in the process of finding a place to do laundry...

Work has been a very different story. I am interning at Bank Leumi in Netanya, the branch sits at the edge of the promenade in the middle of everything. Walking to work, I am walking near the sea and leaving work I am a hop, skip and jump away from being on the beach! Not too shabby :-D The internship is hilarious. I say this for a number of reasons:

One, I work in the international section of the bank (which is the bank's main role there) and it was assumed that because I was not Israeli this would be the best place for me to work. The funny thing was that almost everyone in Netanya is FRENCH! So the first language people at the bank speak is French and then Hebrew and if they are really well educated maybe a little English. Thus, half the time I am lost in translation and end up nodding and smiling and waiting until the conversation is over. Remember, I work with people's hard earned cash.

Two, the bank is filled with Israelis. Ok ok, that sounds dumb. But take for example my second day of work when I was put in charge of all the foreign accounts, their organization, and updating their most recent info. That in itself was bizarre and a bit overwhelming (Netanya is the Bank Leumi flagship for international accounts) but it also meant I spent an absurd amount of time in the "vault"... which is a room next to the waiting room with a broken handle on the door. Accompanying me in the vault--and the true center of this long-winded story--is ...a fax machine. what? Yea, next to the money and confidential information and such, Bank Leumi keeps its fax machine. To clarify, while Israelis may be among the smartest cellphone creators, bio-medical innovators, WHATEVER, they can be incredibly disorganized, stubborn and clueless about the most random things. Sending and receiving faxes? look out. I sat through one instance where a woman from the bank wanted to fax something, dialed the number and then left before anything happened. The machine was answered by some random guy on the other end who eventually realized no one was there and hung up. The machine redials. The same guy answers, realizes no one is there and again hangs up. The machine, yep, redials. After FIFTEEN TIMES (I counted) of this, the guy starts yelling into the phone when the fax machine calls him--saying words that I understand and know that you shouldn't use when talking to your grandparents--and then hangs up. The machine doesn't give up and continues calling until the guy gets a woman who I assume was his supervisor or something and lets HER yell at the fax machine. After three more calls and the guy and his boss answering and then immediately hanging up, they disconnect their phone and the marathon ends. I was laughing so hard that when the woman who initially was trying to send the fax returned, she thought that I had done something to the fax machine to make it not work. She got upset with me until I told her she really needed to check the number before dialing again.

Three, and lastly for now, I work with a Eugene Levy look-a-like. Through and through they are IDENTICAL! Big eyebrows, glasses, the hair, the awkwardness--it's amazing. Best of all, he speaks ZERO English and works right next to me! Thus, every morning I can't help but smile when I see him and try really hard to speak to him in whatever language works. Not surprisingly (for Netanya) he's French and has a wicked accent. All this combined makes some funny encounters--I was building something to better organize the vault and needed tape. I first tried "tape", no response. Then I tried explaining what I was doing using words like "connecting" and "attaching" both in Hebrew and English (ya never know?). Finally, I started going through his drawer and found tape and said "TAPE". He looks and me, starts laughing and says "scotch". wow. Hurray for the French.

All in all, the job has been wonderful. My boss has been giving me lots to do and is very patient if I have any questions. She also didn't yell at me when I left my security pass sitting in the computer last week... The group of people run the international part of the bank all have offices near each other and have included me in the majority of their work. I get to sit in on meetings (Hebrew, not French) and become a special resource when someone comes in who only speaks English--it's happened three times in the past week out of around five hundred people.

Furthermore, my office is right in the middle of everyone else's offices. This means that every time a customer is looking for one of the people who runs the place to work with them, they see my office and assume I must be one of them. (which I kinda am... I'm just incompetent at most of the jobs that they would need me to do!) Due to this poor-strategic positioning of my office, I have been embarrassed a number of times by how badly I communicate with people in other languages. At one point I thought that if it looked like I was on the phone then people would stop coming into my office. Brilliant idea really. So I held the phone to my ear and taped down the piece to prevent the dial tone from sounding. This worked for about 30 seconds when the phone rang... yea, I am that lucky :-D

Outside of work I have been all over Netanya. Even though it is one of the bigger cities in Israel, you can easily walk the majority of the city. The beach is BEAUTIFUL, the waves are enormous and the people spend most of their time in that general area. There is also a big shuk with tons and tons and tons of food. While it is not as crowded as Machneh Yehuda in Jerusalem, I so far am a big fan and have found better deals on better food here! Because I finish work early (1pm or so), I have had lots of time to check out the unique Netanya stuff ...and also stay semi-caught up on the necessary home stuff... mainly the Simpsons Movie! I was one of maybe 20 people in the whole theater and was laughing through the majority of the film. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it--it's a nice break from ...well, nothing... but it's still worth it!

Anyway, I apologize about the long post, I hope you all are doing well. Good luck to people who are starting school, Ramanichs who have to readjust to life outside of camp, and everyone else who is enjoying summer around the world.

Col tuv,

AVI

It has really been a long time--sorry!

The past month has been wonderful albeit a lot more crazy than I ever thought it could be. Classes at Hebrew U have finished and although it sounds a bit sappy, I not only learned a lot but was blown away by how interesting all of my classes were. The continuity between the courses made a big difference and helped me connect a lot of dotes both in my understanding and experiencing Israeli society. Besides, it's fun to be able to say something intelligent about Israeli internal politics, history, economics, culture, and ethnic mix! Through the classes I was shown a much more personal view of Israel--one that was very balanced between Jewish and Palestinian narratives as well. The whole experience opened me up to other possibilities/realities within Israeli society and has really broadened my perspective. Of course, there's lots more to hear and do, but I feel like I have taken a step in the right direction.

Saturday is bringing a change in scenery. I have been in Jerusalem for the last month and some studying and such, Saturday I am moving to Netanya to begin working at Bank Leumi. I went today to figure out the details of the job and was also able to find an apartment and meet one of my roommates. Everything is perfectly situated. My apartment is a ten minute walk to work (which is within a good baseball throw away from the beach--one of the best in Israel), five minutes from the bus station, and five minutes from the center of the city. Tonight there was a huge concert featuring singers from the Israeli equivalent of "American Idol" and the atmosphere was great, I think I'm really going to like it there :-D

I have done so much while I have been here that it's hard to even know where to begin. Lucky for you all, I don't know anyone yet in Netanya, so there's bound to be some free time to catch up. A quick summary--walking across Jerusalem at 4am after Shabbos, beach visits in the Mediterranean, abandoned Palestinian villages, Tisha B'av at the Kotel, dinner at the King David Hotel, Eilat, Petra, a head-on fight with a camel, numerous trips to the shuk, and hours upon hours of trying to speak Hebrew!

See, there's so much to look forward to :-D ...and this time it won't take a month to tell you about it!

Hope everyone is doing well,

Col tuv po,

AVI