Goose pimples with your morning coffee!

Liberty, equality, fraternity and laicity

Am I allowed to say that it upsets me that they burned down schools, shops, a library and seriously wounded 30 policemen of whom 5 seriously? or will my house burn down tomorrow night?

Yongsters in the northern suburbs of Paris, not all, but apparently those who rule the place, are upset because of a car accident that caused the death of two young men.

The car involved was a policecar.

While Nicolas is trying to put France on its feet by signing millon dollar contracts with China, a growing majority of the beaten part of the society are doing their best to destroy the last ounce of hope that the pluralisme in these areas could be positive.

Elastic Israeli pricing

When you're making aliyah you talk a lot about money, even without doing aliyah you talk money...

We need to know how much it would cost to buy new furniture, a fridge, a tv etc. Easy you think, well it would be in many countries, but not in Israel.

A few weeks ago on our trip to Israel we went in to a huge store where they seemed to be specialized in fridges, plasmas etc, Idon't remeber the name of it but it was a chain.

The prices where high and after a while my husband grabbed a vendor telling him it was really expensive, are these prices fixed?

The vendor smiled and said of course not, tell me what you want and we'll talk!

That's funny.

In big stores prices are always fixed, sometimes, after half an hour, you may obtain 10 % reduction but that's it.

Same things seems to be with the real estate agencies. We visited five or six houses, when I asked for the prices it was always the same, I told the woman that it was funny that a small house with a small garden was as expensive as a big house with a big garden.

Noooo,said the woman with a smile,the price I gave you is just an example!!! Tell me which one you like and than we'll negotiate...

Okey, I'm not stupid. Yesterday we had a meeting with some Israeli banks, we spoke about fees and interest charges and I felt really relaxed, I know how it works now, everything is elastic and few things are impossible, just negotiate... I pointed out to the woman in that her charges were high, gave her a smile and said "it's just an example, isn't it, in reality it's much lower" sure she said, we'll talk about it later, it's just an example...

The more we think about it...

... the more Kfar Yona seems to be our place.

It's funny, taking the decision to move to Israel was quite easy, now that we have to decide exactly where to live it suddenly becomes complicated. We loved Ramat Poleg close to the sea with beautiful appartements ( a little too expensive of course) and we adored Kfar Yona, a village about 7 km from Netanya on the road to Tulkarm. It is exactly what we love, do we dare to move to place no-one knows?

I've been googling and found two people living in Kfar Yona with their emailadresses, I wrote them a mail, now I'm checking my mailbox ten times a day, I hope one of them will answer. We want to know about schools and a little more about the area.

When we passed through I asked a lady who was gardening if the proximity to Tulkarm was a problem. She answered;

-Noooo, why would it be a problem? We believe in God and Tsahal...

I'll try to remeber those words when the "going will get tough"

OH NO!!

Yes, they are on strike again, there are no trains because the engineers don't want to work 40 years like everybody else, they want to retire after 37 years,- because they're worth it!

The French love being on strike, they like the feeling of being able to decide themselves, they can't stand having someone who tells them what to do. Sometimes I get the impression that they elect a president every five years, regret their choice 10 months later and spend 4 years and 2 months criticizing.

Poor Nicolas, it's tough being a president in a country full of obstinate children with the right to vote.

Only 56% of the French population disapprove the strike. Now different groups, dissatisfied with the goverment, are gathering to prepair a HUGE strike, the bigger the better.

Deep inside people think it's exciting to see how far they can go, it's a kind of an entertainement.

-I don't- I just want them to stop their strike so I can continue my hebrew lessons in Paris, isn't that selfish!

It's freezing cold...

...and I try to tell myself I should enjoy my last winter. Maybe in a few years I will remeber with nostalgia how nice it was to be late in the morning, run out in the cold and scrape the frost off the windscreen...

My children will never experience electric hair when they put on a polo-neck and I will probably never know that if they lick a lamp-post when it's below zero, their tongue will get stuck, unless we'll move to Jerusalem, and we will not.

I've been told that you can actually ski in Golan, look at the picture I uploaded, it's from Israels Hermon mountain. If we move to the Tel aviv area we will be 4 hours by car from summer (Eilat) and four hours from winter ( Golan heights) in January... Perfect, isn't it?

The real estate agnet is comming to take pictures on our house this afternoon. Therefor I have spent hours cleaning walls and doors from greasy little fingerprints... Why do children always have greasy, sticky fingers?

A house without finger marks is much more expensive than a house with fingermarks, everyone knows that!!

The worst thing isn't that they are comming to take pictures, it's that the house will have to be perfect for months now. Real estate agents always pop up when they shouldn't with potential buyers who want to check cupboards for example, what a nightmare!

I have to admit something you probably don't know yet; I am not perfect, but I'm afraid to let people know that so I will now enter a period of hysteric cleaning until the house is sold. When the agency calls to ask if they can come in five minutes, I will answer (poised); sure, no problem.

Dear G*d, please send us buyer a s a p. Rich and generous please. Thank you!!!

Bar mitzvah gossip

Yesterday we had a Bar mitzvah. The whole community was there and we got the last important information of who was or wasn't invited to the sunday afternoon party at Deborah's, who is buying a house, who is selling, and who is angry with who...Actually it is like a big familly, people get angry with eachother but when someone really has a there are hundreds of helping hands.

All important events in life are shared; brit mila, bar mitzva, engagement, mariage and unfortenately sometimes sorrow.

Our Rabbi is almost always there, he must be tired of all these parties, I guess he would love to spend a Sunday night in his pyjamas in front of the tv...

I know I will miss the feeling of being part of a huge family, and probably the gossip part too...

It's done!!!!!

Even if all my readers are Swedish I have decided to continue in English, I feel more anonymous and mysterious this way...

Friday afternoon, after a deep breath and a glass of water I called my parents. I have perepared this for months, what to say, how to tell them.

My father kept talking about the weather, the wind and the temperature ( so Swedish), I didn't even listen and suddenly I interrupted him and said that we were moving to Israel.

The answer supprised me. He said that he knew, that he could understand but that he felt sad because of the distance. We spoke about almost everything and i actually got the impression that he understood our decision.

Mum's reaction was cold and without feelings, she spoke about how expensive it would be for her to get to Tel Aviv and that we wouldn't be able to meet often, or at all, she would have to check up the price first.

It's so sad to think that five hundred Euros could stop a mother from seeing her child. I try not to think about what she said, there is nothing to understand, this woman has a deep, deep problem.

My life is going to change!

Back from a ten days trip from Israel. We were desperately looking for rude and bad mannered people but found friendly and warm hearted men and women, maybe they just pretend to be nice to get us there...
We visited Haïfa, Ashdod, Tel Aviv, Holon, Natanya, Zichron Jacob, Raanana, Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon etc and decided to concentrate on the Natanya area, it is close to Tel Aviv but less busy... Israel is very dense.
We were really amazed to see how much it had changed since last time, all these new company buildings along the highway to Tel Aviv prove that the country is doing fine. I believe more then ever that it's where we should be.
My mother is back with the children, she brought me a bottle of Yes (washing up liquid, it's called Fairy outside Sweden - she thinks it's a swedish brand ).
I'm sure -that- will change my life...
I still haven't told her, I mean she doesn't understand how I can survive without a safety pin in the house, I imagine she'll get crazy when I tell her about our plans.