Thursday, March 31, 2016 - Experiencing Rishon Le'Tzion
Yaffa
and I spent a few hours strolling on Rothschild Street, in her immediate
neighbourhood. The sun was caressing my body and I felt it sinking into my
winter-weary bones. Restaurants, shops, and businesses of all sorts plague the
street. Name something you need, and I can assure you will find it. The vendors
display their merchandise on the street, and people sit outside cafes. It
seemed to me that in this setting people interact with each other much more
than they do in North America, and I suspect that this makes them feel less
isolated. I really like this model of a
sustainable community, where everything is accessible by foot and people
shop, walk, eat, drink and interact, without the need to commute by car, all of
which yields a lot of benefits.
Yaffa
and I treated us, to freshly made juice from a street booth (pomegranate,
apple, carrot, beet, and ginger). I admired the abundance, freshness and
quality of fruits and vegetables, and we came home with several bags of super
foods, bread, olives, dates strawberries, etc., a heavy bounty of goodies that
shed a sweet, minty and earthly smell.
Today
I also opened an Israeli bank account in Bank Hapoalim, a process that took a
couple of hours and went smoothly thanks to Yaffa’s support and
guidance. While my Hebrew allows me to communicate at a base level, it was hardly
sufficient to accomplish comprehension of a whole new banking system. I
confess that I felt a bit lost and frustrated, and wished that instead I were
dealing with the Royal Bank of Canada!
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