The family is sleeping in the living room, because the one and only air conditioner we have, is there. Its a nice unit, thank G-d, that looks like a 4 foot long by one foot smiling mouth, that blows cold air through its rotating teeth...except on Shabbas when it turned into a fan only, and then none of us were smiling. Lesson, learn how to use your air conditioning before Shabbas, and be grateful if you even have one, because many folks do not. A fan or two will be purchased soon, at all costs, for the other other rooms.
There is also a fridge in our living room. That's because the entrance to the kitchen is smaller than the fridge, even when most of its external parts are removed by your handy friends during their weekend off from the IDF (Asher) and the Chabad Shliach from upstairs' Brother In Law Eli. The fridge is just a loaner, from the Cantorman's from upstairs, but it has really helped make our landing a soft one.
I mention these issues early to help those who follow us to the Holy and not to complain. Our family simply wants you to learn how to make your landing a soft one.
Speaking of soft landings, Nefesh B'Nefesh deserves a prize. From the two minivans they rented for us to carry all of our housewares to our new apartment, to the El Al Flight they chartered for the Olim (Someone who "makes aliyah" is called an oleh (m. singular) or olah (f. singular); the plural for both is olim. [Wikipedia]) they have gone out of there way to make everything real nice and easy. Millions of little things that go along way...for example....all the kosher food I wanted on the flight at no charge, offers of free beverages every 20 minutes, free movies, headphones, kids T-shirts, baseball hats, drinks and cake at the airport in NY. When we landed there were thousands of people, soldiers, citizens, friends, (Moshe Baruch and Yochevid Zemel, the Firestone Family, Asher Kaplan) all jumping and singing for us. We became dual citizens of Israel on the plane, we didn't have to go through customs, all of our luggage was stacked up for us and waiting when we landed, they had free airport luggage carts and people to help us get our stuff on the minivans, as mentioned before. They really know how to say "Welcome Home."
Click here to see video of our arrival in the Holy Land
Ok, where was I. Ok. Shabbas. But first, back to Thursday. As I mentioned we landed on Thursday. We got to our apartment mid afternoon, which we had only seen via emails, but we were extremely happy. While Men can generally survice in a fraternity house environment, my wife didn't want to...and the apartment is great, bli ayin hora. We are on the 4th floor of a 6 floor apartment. There is an elevator that hustles, and a clean and secure lobby in the front. The Street is called Shalom Aleichem, which is nice because everytime we tell someone where we live, we are also giving them the traditional Ashkenazic greeting literally meaning "Peace be upon you." The appropriate response is "Aleichem shalom," or "Upon you be peace." [Wikipedia] We have been building up our circle of friends, allowing us to feel more comfortable daily, especially the kids.
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