Beginnings

We've been in Israel for almost a week now, and having promised myself that I would do some writing while we are on sabbatical in Haifa this year, it seems time to start.  For the last few days, our time has been consumed with the business of setting up household:  figuring out where to buy groceries, how to sign our kids up for school, how to actually move the car we are renting out of the parking garage (far from obvious), and where to buy a birthday cake for our youngest son's 14th birthday. This last taught us that one of the wonderful things about Haifa is that it is Israel's bakery capital, with more per-capita bakeries (not a commonly used statistic, but one that seems to matter to our family) than anywhere else in the country.   The other thing I've noticed on the food front is that fruits and vegetables are surprisingly affordable for a desert country. Cucumbers cost about 75 cents per pound, tomatoes about the same.  From what I've been able to find out so far, much of this relates to investment in technological resources to make farming of these crops affordable, fascinating in light of their much higher relative cost in the US and the lack of investment in this sector at home.  This is an area I want to understand better.  Certainly just looking around the streets in Haifa, people are almost all thin.  Not a scientifically valid measure, but striking.

Everything seems to take longer than I think possible, largely because most businesses seem not to be listed on the internet, and in the absence of any other system, we are finding things by wandering the streets, looking for what we need and asking in various shops.  Because of this, when we sat down to figure out how to get health insurance for our family yesterday, we expected it to be very complex to figure out and require the same multiple visits to various offices that it has taken to enroll our boys in school (actually we've only managed to enroll one of them so far, with an appointment on Thursday -- visit #4 -- in hopes of enrolling the other).  We have US insurance through the end of August, so wanted to make sure there wouldn't be a gap.  Fascinatingly, one brief phone call later, we all have health insurance starting immediately and costing about 1/8th what our plan costs in the US.  Oh, and no co-pays instead of the 50% "co-insurance" we pay up to a cap of $5000 in the states.  I got an email later the same day with my insurance card as a PDF and the 24 hour toll-free number to call if I need help finding a doctor.  Really.  Israel has a private insurance system, but with very stringent governmental regulation.  I'm sure there are lots of flaws in the system that one could point out, but I'm still amazed.

Our other adventure yesterday was a visit to Dalyat el Carmel, a Druze village near Haifa.  We had a good time wandering through shops, finding a finjan for me to make my coffee in as well as a bakery with about 25 kinds of baklava.  Very, very happy boys.  Then we stopped for lunch at a restaurant near where we parked our car, where we had amazing homemade Druze food (homemade because the owner's house is next to the shaded porch where the restaurant sits).  He was unfazed by our request for vegetarian food, and brought out dish after dish of delicious lentils, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage, hummus, falafel, and mujadara.  This last is a Druze version of a dish that's made up of lentils, bulgar (rice in the Lebanese version), carmelized onions, and spices -- amazingly good!  I'm going to try making it as soon as it gets cool enough to imagine turning on the stove -- see:  http://www.everydaymaven.com/2012/mujaddara-burghul/ for what looks like a good version (apologies for not trying it before posting, but it's hot!).  After we ate, the owner sat and talked with us for an hour or so, telling us all about his family, the Druze history in Dalyat el Carmel, the history of the Druze and Muslims, and so forth.  An unforgettable trip.