Rule #1 - All toys are communal.
Once you bring a toy or bimba (any type of child scooter/car) into the playground and set it out so that it's visible to children, you automatically suspend your ownership of it for the duration of your playground visit. Sure, if your child really wants to play with it, then whichever other child that has taken it up must return it for the time being. Otherwise, do not be surprised to see people freely handling each other's belongings like good little Communists. To me, it is really charming how nobody seems to be afraid of theft. The unspoken rule is that one simply returns the toy to wherever it was last spotted, and the owner usually finds it back there again when it's time to go home.
Rule #2 - "Your child is not your own; s/he is the nation's."
I think this comes from Israel's culture of mandatory military conscription, and not just for the boys, as it is in Taiwan, but both genders must serve in the IDF for a minimum of two years upon 18 years of age. It builds some sort of kinship between unrelated families. As long as there is children, the adults would band together to watch over them. It's too bad I don't speak Hebrew, because usually any mom would get to know the other moms on the playground really well as their children play with each other. Nobody really keeps to themselves...unless you're that one Anglo mom that other Hebrew-speaking moms just smile at and then ignore.
A breakthrough in communication did happen this Thursday though, when I started changing Petra's diaper at the park because, well, she pooped. One of the Jewish grandmothers saw that Petra has a diaper rash, and started yelling, ahem, I mean talking, to me in Hebrew. I asked her to speak English, and she stopped. Then spoke more Hebrew, more slowly and loudly. Surprisingly, it did help (with her gestures) for me to surmise that she's instructing me on how to diaper change more effectively. She ended up forming a group of six or so other grandmothers and nannies, two of which speak decent English, to recommend me various diaper rash cream brands. Each competed to endorse their brand of choice as Petra waited, lying bare-bummed on the park ground. Finally, one of them squeezed out a huge glob of Desitin and smeared it on my hand.
This is why whenever I feel too lonely with the children, I drop by the park across the street.
Rule #3 - There is no such thing as food allergies.
The first few times I found Declan sitting in some corner of the park, munching on things unknown, I almost had a heart attack. Then it progressed to amusement as I see other moms and nannies share their children's snacks without ever asking for permission--something that would make American mothers react the way I did the first time. Now I just make sure to watch Declan as he eats the peanut bamba, cottage cheese, popsicle, ice cream, cookies, apples, etc... that he manages to get a piece of from other caretakers. Once, I didn't get there in time to stop a nanny from spoon-feeding Declan yogurt with the same spoon that she's simultaneously feeding her charge with. It was kind of gross, and I think Declan got kind of sick from it days later. Oh well... live and learn.
I would go on with more rules, such as, say, a rule #4 - Watch out for random piles of dog poop, but Declan is yelling loudly for me to start bedtime rituals and I don't want him to wake up Petra, who is the perfect child about early bedtimes. (Knock on wood.) So, good night.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
regarding two major israeli national holidays
So I tried to put Declan in gan (Israeli daycare/preschool) after the Pesach holidays. That lasted for...one day. In the end, besides the factors of the new baby, the large number of children, him being the youngest child, the gannenet's reluctance...the biggest reason why I decided to hold off on gan for a few more months at least is because it looks like it'll take Declan awhile to get used to the new day-to-day schedule, and if we decide to go with this particular gan even after our current apartment lease is up, it would drastically limit our future sublet options. I would far rather find a more permanent gan later on in the fall that I can rest assured would be the place for Declan to form friendships and pick up Hebrew for the rest of our time in Israel. And who knows...maybe, by then, I'll be so used to taking care of the kids all day every day by myself that I would rather both of them continue to stay home with me the whole time. Maybe. A big maybe. Although I do see, currently, the greater value, of Declan's varied routines with me rather than the (already really nice) gan environment in which he would otherwise be immersed right now.
These two weeks are the highlights in Israel's national holidays. National as in non-religious, but having to do with the whole country. The first of the three happened this past Monday, called Yom HaShoah i.e. Holocaust Remembrance Day. An air siren went off at 10am through the entire country, while I had just strapped Declan into his stroller en route to Mommy & Me. Everything and everyone stood still. At the park across the street, all the adults stood up from their beverages and child-minding. The children slowed down and stopped their play to imitate their adults. Old men on the sidewalk stood, looking down at the pavement. Cars halted, and drivers and passengers alike got out to stand by their car doors. In the two minutes that life paused throughout this entire country, and all one hears is the warning blare that would otherwise only be heard during an air attack, I was really struck by the magnitude of the genocide the Jews faced during WWII. Struck in a deep, profound way for the very first time. There is a side to some of the Jewish culture here that I am growing in dislike. For instance, some people really are quite racist here. I don't know if they're more racist than the general American (and Chinese) cultures, but they're certainly more--like everything else--upfront and blatant about it. But, on Yom HaShoah, I see the lasting trauma that the Holocaust impressed upon a people's psyche and I think I can forgive and understand some of the people's reserve towards the Other... from the perspective of one who has been othered for so long and with such consequences.
To be honest, I have mixed feelings about Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day). There are flags everywhere in preparation for the concerts and parades, and on one hand, I am very happy that Israel exists. I believe very strongly in the right to self-determination for persecuted minorities, and even without the Holocaust, the Jewish people truly need a nation of their own. If I were Jewish, I would want that. I would be so tired of the ebb of flow of anti-Semitism that never goes away, and the doubt of ever really being able to set roots in other countries that have historically (so who's to say it wouldn't happen again?) expelled/evicted Jews who had lived there for generations. On the other hand, I'm starting to learn about the Nakba, and about the very real tension between Arab villages and encroaching Jewish settlements that are often illegal. The fact of the matter is, as much as a lot of the media campaign against Israel is unfair and shoddy journalism, Israel is not innocent in this long-standing Middle Eastern conflict. It is placed in a difficult situation, and as a worldly power, has chosen and is choosing in several areas to use unjust means itself for a gambit at survival.
It is very similar, I find, to why Taiwan was under martial law for as long as it did and went through a period called the White Terror. Why, even now, the United States has not paid reparation to African-Americans for slavery, and have military bases everywhere in the world, and undisclosed locations holding terrorist suspects without trial. Why basically every single country that has ever existed has performed unjust acts in favor for itself and against its perceived adversaries in order to stay in power. To hold Israel to a higher standard than the rest of the world's nations seems...really hypocritical. So I plan to celebrate with the best of them here, without justifying away the darker sides of the wonderful reality of this country and how far it has come...and how far it could still go as a truly great nation.
These two weeks are the highlights in Israel's national holidays. National as in non-religious, but having to do with the whole country. The first of the three happened this past Monday, called Yom HaShoah i.e. Holocaust Remembrance Day. An air siren went off at 10am through the entire country, while I had just strapped Declan into his stroller en route to Mommy & Me. Everything and everyone stood still. At the park across the street, all the adults stood up from their beverages and child-minding. The children slowed down and stopped their play to imitate their adults. Old men on the sidewalk stood, looking down at the pavement. Cars halted, and drivers and passengers alike got out to stand by their car doors. In the two minutes that life paused throughout this entire country, and all one hears is the warning blare that would otherwise only be heard during an air attack, I was really struck by the magnitude of the genocide the Jews faced during WWII. Struck in a deep, profound way for the very first time. There is a side to some of the Jewish culture here that I am growing in dislike. For instance, some people really are quite racist here. I don't know if they're more racist than the general American (and Chinese) cultures, but they're certainly more--like everything else--upfront and blatant about it. But, on Yom HaShoah, I see the lasting trauma that the Holocaust impressed upon a people's psyche and I think I can forgive and understand some of the people's reserve towards the Other... from the perspective of one who has been othered for so long and with such consequences.
To be honest, I have mixed feelings about Yom Ha'atzmaut (Independence Day). There are flags everywhere in preparation for the concerts and parades, and on one hand, I am very happy that Israel exists. I believe very strongly in the right to self-determination for persecuted minorities, and even without the Holocaust, the Jewish people truly need a nation of their own. If I were Jewish, I would want that. I would be so tired of the ebb of flow of anti-Semitism that never goes away, and the doubt of ever really being able to set roots in other countries that have historically (so who's to say it wouldn't happen again?) expelled/evicted Jews who had lived there for generations. On the other hand, I'm starting to learn about the Nakba, and about the very real tension between Arab villages and encroaching Jewish settlements that are often illegal. The fact of the matter is, as much as a lot of the media campaign against Israel is unfair and shoddy journalism, Israel is not innocent in this long-standing Middle Eastern conflict. It is placed in a difficult situation, and as a worldly power, has chosen and is choosing in several areas to use unjust means itself for a gambit at survival.
It is very similar, I find, to why Taiwan was under martial law for as long as it did and went through a period called the White Terror. Why, even now, the United States has not paid reparation to African-Americans for slavery, and have military bases everywhere in the world, and undisclosed locations holding terrorist suspects without trial. Why basically every single country that has ever existed has performed unjust acts in favor for itself and against its perceived adversaries in order to stay in power. To hold Israel to a higher standard than the rest of the world's nations seems...really hypocritical. So I plan to celebrate with the best of them here, without justifying away the darker sides of the wonderful reality of this country and how far it has come...and how far it could still go as a truly great nation.
Friday, April 5, 2013
if we had stayed in china
This morning, as I was reading books with Declan, it was obvious that he showed a preference for English books over Chinese ones. It pained me to hear him say: "No Chinese!" or start to dawdle and lose interest when I plowed on with reading in Chinese without doing on-the-spot English translations.
He's really starting to talk, and make conversations...all in English, with an occasional Hebrew word. But very little, if at all, Chinese. It makes me wonder, if we had stayed in China, if now he would be speaking mostly Chinese.
My children being able (and comfortable and willing) to interact fluently in Chinese is important to me. I am afraid this might become an impossible dream.
On the other hand, if we had stayed in China, I definitely would not have been willing to have another child. Even though life would have been a lot easier for me right now without the intense day-to-day struggles of minding a toddler and a newborn, it's hard to imagine never knowing Petra, this particular person that would not have otherwise existed in any other point in time, starting at her conception.
He's really starting to talk, and make conversations...all in English, with an occasional Hebrew word. But very little, if at all, Chinese. It makes me wonder, if we had stayed in China, if now he would be speaking mostly Chinese.
My children being able (and comfortable and willing) to interact fluently in Chinese is important to me. I am afraid this might become an impossible dream.
On the other hand, if we had stayed in China, I definitely would not have been willing to have another child. Even though life would have been a lot easier for me right now without the intense day-to-day struggles of minding a toddler and a newborn, it's hard to imagine never knowing Petra, this particular person that would not have otherwise existed in any other point in time, starting at her conception.
"Well, something's lost but something's gained
in living every day." - "Both Sides Now," Joni Mitchell
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
success!
Today, I finally washed the mountain of dishes in the sink that accumulated during the week-long Passover holiday. For most of the week, we had been eating leftovers brought back home from the Seder prepared by Or's grandmother. I tasted gefilte fish for the first time ever, and it reminded me of fish balls I've eaten in Taiwan, with a different consistency. The star of the leftovers was the goulash Or's grandmother made. Beef stew is one of my all-time favorite dishes, and this particular goulash was the best beef stew I have ever tasted. Ever.
I also washed out the secondhand, new-to-me slow cooker and made tonight's dinner with it. Daniel was skeptical due to its extremely low price that it would actually work. As this post's title indicates--it worked! And I'm also immensely pleased by how we obtained it. You see, after Thanksgiving last year at Kirsten and Or's, they lent us their large slow cooker to make turkey stock with the turkey carcass. I discovered how much more convenient it was to use the slow cooker for that kind of thing. Given the kids' demands and my always being tired, there were a couple of times later when I tried to duplicate stock-making with a stove pot--and failed miserably because I forgot about the simmering concoction only to be reminded by the dry acrid smell. Also, there were a few times when I prepped the night's dinner in the morning when I just woke up. And I was so glad to have a ready meal around dinnertime when I was getting too tired to want to cook much. So after I returned their slow cooker to Kirsten and Or, I started thinking that perhaps I should get a slow cooker of my own. If we were staying in Israel for longer than a year.
The thing was that I had had at least three slow cookers in the last two years, but every time I acquired a slow cooker, I have had to move--and to another country with completely different voltage. So I was a bit tired of getting all happy over my newly acquired cooking tool, only to have to give it up again in six months or so. When we learned that we'll be staying in Israel for another year, the slow cooker desire returned. During the beginning of this Passover break, Daniel and I went to the mall and found only one model, selling for 399 shekels. It seemed a fair deal, considering that everything in Israel tends to be a lot more expensive. But it wasn't exactly the model I wanted, so I decided to sleep on it.
When I got home, I remembered yad2.co.il -- one of Israel's online secondhand products website. Kind of like Craigslist and eBay, only completely in Hebrew. I had purchased a night lamp for Petra's nursery via this website, so I decided to hunt for a slow cooker with the help of Google Translate (and a lot of time spent contextualizing the Hebrew term for "slow cooker" via Google searches). There were surprisingly a lot for sale, with two dominant brands. In the end, I narrowed the possibilities to a brand new one being sold in Netanya for 100 shekels, a like-new one in Nesher for 100 shekels, and a like-new one in Ramat Gan for 50 shekels.
Long story short, the sellers in Netanya and Nesher never replied my email requests. The one in Ramat Gan had been my first choice, and a friend in Haifa had suggested that her husband could pick it up during their day-long foray to Tel Aviv, which is about 20 minutes west from Ramat Gan. Her husband ended up not being able to do so, and I basically gave up on all the possibilities since there's a chance I might not return to Israel from visiting my parents in Taiwan this summer anyway.
Still, 50 shekels was a really good deal... And suddenly it was a possibility again when Daniel and I decided, rather last-minutedly, to use the car we'd rented during Passover break to pick up Mark from Tel Aviv. We were heading south to Netanya anyway on Saturday, so what's a few more kilometers south? Mark turned out to be available, and he had an app on his smartphone that served as a GPS--and it showed the guy who's selling the slow cooker (still!) to live just 10 minutes away from where Mark waited for our car.
Done and done, and we exchanged the product and the money. The seller looked like a single guy in his late 20s or early 30s. I assume he tried out the slow cooker once or twice, then decided it was too much bother (maybe?). It looked great, albeit a little smaller than Kirsten and Or's, but big enough to have plenty of leftovers after Daniel, Declan, and I had eaten our fill of the dish I made tonight (carrots, fennel, potatoes, tomatoes - cubed and seasoned with salt, pepper, caraway seed, a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil, and cumin - in chicken broth and with a leftover turkey neck from the Seder placed on top of the whole thing).
Yay for yad2! (Which is pronounced yad-shtein...Yad means "hand" and shtein is Hebrew for "2" or second, in this case.) This is the second time I had used the website, with great satisfaction.
Hopefully this particular slow cooker* beats my track record and doesn't mean I'll have to move again for some reason in the next six months or so.
*I can't believe I wrote such a long post about a 50-shekel slow cooker. Can you tell I'm super excited and proud of how I acquired such a good deal? I like the serendipity of having something that was sitting unappreciated in an apartment near Tel Aviv to now be cooking food on a kitchen counter in Haifa. Because of that, I value it a lot more than a 399-shekel brand new multi-function slow cooker that would otherwise have been purchased from the mall.
I also washed out the secondhand, new-to-me slow cooker and made tonight's dinner with it. Daniel was skeptical due to its extremely low price that it would actually work. As this post's title indicates--it worked! And I'm also immensely pleased by how we obtained it. You see, after Thanksgiving last year at Kirsten and Or's, they lent us their large slow cooker to make turkey stock with the turkey carcass. I discovered how much more convenient it was to use the slow cooker for that kind of thing. Given the kids' demands and my always being tired, there were a couple of times later when I tried to duplicate stock-making with a stove pot--and failed miserably because I forgot about the simmering concoction only to be reminded by the dry acrid smell. Also, there were a few times when I prepped the night's dinner in the morning when I just woke up. And I was so glad to have a ready meal around dinnertime when I was getting too tired to want to cook much. So after I returned their slow cooker to Kirsten and Or, I started thinking that perhaps I should get a slow cooker of my own. If we were staying in Israel for longer than a year.
The thing was that I had had at least three slow cookers in the last two years, but every time I acquired a slow cooker, I have had to move--and to another country with completely different voltage. So I was a bit tired of getting all happy over my newly acquired cooking tool, only to have to give it up again in six months or so. When we learned that we'll be staying in Israel for another year, the slow cooker desire returned. During the beginning of this Passover break, Daniel and I went to the mall and found only one model, selling for 399 shekels. It seemed a fair deal, considering that everything in Israel tends to be a lot more expensive. But it wasn't exactly the model I wanted, so I decided to sleep on it.
When I got home, I remembered yad2.co.il -- one of Israel's online secondhand products website. Kind of like Craigslist and eBay, only completely in Hebrew. I had purchased a night lamp for Petra's nursery via this website, so I decided to hunt for a slow cooker with the help of Google Translate (and a lot of time spent contextualizing the Hebrew term for "slow cooker" via Google searches). There were surprisingly a lot for sale, with two dominant brands. In the end, I narrowed the possibilities to a brand new one being sold in Netanya for 100 shekels, a like-new one in Nesher for 100 shekels, and a like-new one in Ramat Gan for 50 shekels.
Long story short, the sellers in Netanya and Nesher never replied my email requests. The one in Ramat Gan had been my first choice, and a friend in Haifa had suggested that her husband could pick it up during their day-long foray to Tel Aviv, which is about 20 minutes west from Ramat Gan. Her husband ended up not being able to do so, and I basically gave up on all the possibilities since there's a chance I might not return to Israel from visiting my parents in Taiwan this summer anyway.
Still, 50 shekels was a really good deal... And suddenly it was a possibility again when Daniel and I decided, rather last-minutedly, to use the car we'd rented during Passover break to pick up Mark from Tel Aviv. We were heading south to Netanya anyway on Saturday, so what's a few more kilometers south? Mark turned out to be available, and he had an app on his smartphone that served as a GPS--and it showed the guy who's selling the slow cooker (still!) to live just 10 minutes away from where Mark waited for our car.
Done and done, and we exchanged the product and the money. The seller looked like a single guy in his late 20s or early 30s. I assume he tried out the slow cooker once or twice, then decided it was too much bother (maybe?). It looked great, albeit a little smaller than Kirsten and Or's, but big enough to have plenty of leftovers after Daniel, Declan, and I had eaten our fill of the dish I made tonight (carrots, fennel, potatoes, tomatoes - cubed and seasoned with salt, pepper, caraway seed, a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil, and cumin - in chicken broth and with a leftover turkey neck from the Seder placed on top of the whole thing).
Yay for yad2! (Which is pronounced yad-shtein...Yad means "hand" and shtein is Hebrew for "2" or second, in this case.) This is the second time I had used the website, with great satisfaction.
Hopefully this particular slow cooker* beats my track record and doesn't mean I'll have to move again for some reason in the next six months or so.
*I can't believe I wrote such a long post about a 50-shekel slow cooker. Can you tell I'm super excited and proud of how I acquired such a good deal? I like the serendipity of having something that was sitting unappreciated in an apartment near Tel Aviv to now be cooking food on a kitchen counter in Haifa. Because of that, I value it a lot more than a 399-shekel brand new multi-function slow cooker that would otherwise have been purchased from the mall.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Classic Israeli Moment (CIM) #2
While walking home from a morning session of Mommy & Me and impromptu play at the park in Vardiya (A dad was overlooking three of his kids and encouraged his son to play soccer with Declan), an elderly gentleman on a motorized wheelchair approaches us on the sidewalk. Daniel and I told Declan to make way for him to pass, but he stopped to make conversation.
Gentleman: How many children do you have?
Daniel: One [points to Declan]. Two [points to Petra].
Gentleman: Just two children?
Daniel: For now.
[I break into a cold sweat.]
Other moms I was hanging out with at the park between Shimshon and Yocheved Street assured me that I will once again get "baby fever" when Petra turns two. I decided not to share the fact that I have never ever felt baby fever.
The average number of children per family in a typical Israeli family used to be three. Now it is four.
Declan said "good bye" and "see you later" to the elderly gentleman in Hebrew, which made the man chuckle. I especially enjoy making old people happy, especially the ones in Taiwan and Israel. Their generation has ben through so much, it's pretty ridiculous. Whenever I see an elderly person in Taiwan or here clearly enjoying life, it always makes me pause to reflect on the resilience of the human spirit. Maybe I'm being too romantic to apply that in general to old people from countries with backgrounds of widespread war, but it's certainly true for both sets of my grandparents.
Following that, we continued walking down the sidewalk, stopping every now and then to share between the three of us one large watermelon popsicle. And we saw the same man again, this time cruising slowly down the middle of the road. Cars started building up behind him. He continued to "speed" along at a leisurely pace with the road open before him as more and more cars lagged in retinue. Israeli drivers are aggressive as a norm, but nobody honked.
Then, the elderly gentleman stopped in the middle of the road to make conversation with someone else by the sidewalk.
But, as we walked past and away from that particular street in that neighborhood, I still didn't hear anyone honk. Israelis can be pushy and aggressive, but they sure enjoy their children and respect their elders.
Gentleman: How many children do you have?
Daniel: One [points to Declan]. Two [points to Petra].
Gentleman: Just two children?
Daniel: For now.
[I break into a cold sweat.]
Other moms I was hanging out with at the park between Shimshon and Yocheved Street assured me that I will once again get "baby fever" when Petra turns two. I decided not to share the fact that I have never ever felt baby fever.
The average number of children per family in a typical Israeli family used to be three. Now it is four.
Declan said "good bye" and "see you later" to the elderly gentleman in Hebrew, which made the man chuckle. I especially enjoy making old people happy, especially the ones in Taiwan and Israel. Their generation has ben through so much, it's pretty ridiculous. Whenever I see an elderly person in Taiwan or here clearly enjoying life, it always makes me pause to reflect on the resilience of the human spirit. Maybe I'm being too romantic to apply that in general to old people from countries with backgrounds of widespread war, but it's certainly true for both sets of my grandparents.
Following that, we continued walking down the sidewalk, stopping every now and then to share between the three of us one large watermelon popsicle. And we saw the same man again, this time cruising slowly down the middle of the road. Cars started building up behind him. He continued to "speed" along at a leisurely pace with the road open before him as more and more cars lagged in retinue. Israeli drivers are aggressive as a norm, but nobody honked.
Then, the elderly gentleman stopped in the middle of the road to make conversation with someone else by the sidewalk.
But, as we walked past and away from that particular street in that neighborhood, I still didn't hear anyone honk. Israelis can be pushy and aggressive, but they sure enjoy their children and respect their elders.
Monday, March 18, 2013
tel aviv marathon 2013
It was super hot due to the sharav (or maybe chamsin, as it was also very dusty) aka heat current blown north from Africa, and a good number of people running the half-marathon got heatstroke/dehydration. One person died, inexplicably, despite having thoroughly trained for the race as well as being in general a very fit IDF officer. Several people are still in the hospital under medically-induced comas.
I ran the 4.2K course, which was just 10% of an actual marathon. A lot of people kept saying how amazing I was to be running after giving birth exactly two months ago. I'm glad I was able to do it, but I still don't see what's so amazing about that. It's only 2.6 miles and I basically jogged the whole way on a very flat course.
Many thanks to my sister-in-law for motivating me to run a few times up and down the hills of Haifa beforehand.
 |
| I ran it for the race atmosphere, in one of Israel's biggest running events. |
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
feeding my bibliophilia
I must say, the U.S. public library system as I have experienced it from coast-to-coast is a wonderful establishment for which I cannot show enough appreciation. Growing up in Salem, Oregon -- a state capital that is surprisingly rural in nature in the eyes of a city kid from Taiwan -- the Salem Public Library was my home away from my two other homes (school and that other place my parents bought). My English improved as a result of the literally 50 or so books I would check out every week from the library during my first year as an immigrant; I would take them home, read them out loud to improve my pronunciation, and look up then memorize new English words. No way could I have been able to afford buying so many books in order to accrue the same amount of knowledge and other benefits as I did from the library. I also read all seven biographies on Joan of Arc that the library carried during my obsession with her, then with Robert Kennedy, and so on.
The Ann Arbor, Pittsburgh, and Seattle public libraries all rocked as well.
Israel's, not so much.
Okay, to be fair, I'm sure Haifa has great public libraries for Hebrew readers. But I have yet to find a sustainable and truly satisfying source to feed my reading habit. There's a library on Pevsner Street that I've heard about, but how to get there remains elusive (which bus stop? What number?) and I'm still cherishing its potential and not wanting to have my hopes dashed.
Meanwhile, book shopping at Steinmatsky (Israel's largest bookstore chain) is pricey, with most English books marked up to twice their US retail price. But I think I'm starting to hit a suitable arrangement, thanks to the advice of other English readers here to get books from the Book Depository and my husband's/his parents' very kind gift of a Kindle*.
So, today, I finally registered and synced up the Kindle and I see that Kindle offers a lot of free books daily. While these aren't books I normally go for, I am not as big a book snob as I once were. Living away from public libraries have humbled me in this respect. And these free books look interesting...of better quality than the free books that Nook routinely offers.
And I also ordered a book to be shipped from the Book Depository that couldn't be found on Kindle or Nook but I must have for this English book club I'm in. This UK company has free shipping *and* sells books at a discount pretty regularly. It was much cheaper than buying from Steinmatsky, so there's my new source for book purchases, should I desire something beyond what I can get free via the Kindle or Nook or able to check out via OverDrive at the Pittsburgh Public Library.
That's a lot of resources... (as I count them out now, four!) I think I am set for another year (or two) of living without a good public library nearby.
* It amuses me to recall that my brother had given me my first eReader, the Nook, shortly after Declan was born. And now that my second eReader, the Kindle, was gifted to me shortly after Petra's birth, I see the secret to obtaining another eReader someday**.
**So kidding. Having a third child just so I could get a new eReader is all kinds of lunacy.
The Ann Arbor, Pittsburgh, and Seattle public libraries all rocked as well.
Israel's, not so much.
Okay, to be fair, I'm sure Haifa has great public libraries for Hebrew readers. But I have yet to find a sustainable and truly satisfying source to feed my reading habit. There's a library on Pevsner Street that I've heard about, but how to get there remains elusive (which bus stop? What number?) and I'm still cherishing its potential and not wanting to have my hopes dashed.
Meanwhile, book shopping at Steinmatsky (Israel's largest bookstore chain) is pricey, with most English books marked up to twice their US retail price. But I think I'm starting to hit a suitable arrangement, thanks to the advice of other English readers here to get books from the Book Depository and my husband's/his parents' very kind gift of a Kindle*.
So, today, I finally registered and synced up the Kindle and I see that Kindle offers a lot of free books daily. While these aren't books I normally go for, I am not as big a book snob as I once were. Living away from public libraries have humbled me in this respect. And these free books look interesting...of better quality than the free books that Nook routinely offers.
And I also ordered a book to be shipped from the Book Depository that couldn't be found on Kindle or Nook but I must have for this English book club I'm in. This UK company has free shipping *and* sells books at a discount pretty regularly. It was much cheaper than buying from Steinmatsky, so there's my new source for book purchases, should I desire something beyond what I can get free via the Kindle or Nook or able to check out via OverDrive at the Pittsburgh Public Library.
That's a lot of resources... (as I count them out now, four!) I think I am set for another year (or two) of living without a good public library nearby.
* It amuses me to recall that my brother had given me my first eReader, the Nook, shortly after Declan was born. And now that my second eReader, the Kindle, was gifted to me shortly after Petra's birth, I see the secret to obtaining another eReader someday**.
**So kidding. Having a third child just so I could get a new eReader is all kinds of lunacy.
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