Things that are different, Part I

We are in a new country right now, so obviously some things are different. Most of these things are very obvious: signs are in Hebrew, people speak Hebrew, there is a body of water that I can't see the edges of. Things of that nature. Most of this stuff is very easy to ignore and chalk up to Being Someplace New. However, tiny little differences can really baffle the mind and make foreign travel very odd. I'm going to list some of these things.

The Toilets

So our toilet has flush buttons. That's right, buttons. If I were to label them, they would say #1 and #2 because the first button is a very lady-like flush for, I'm guessing, #1. The second flush is a real Niagra of a beast that takes a good five seconds to die down. Some toilets have handles - the little one is nested into the bigger one.

The Doors

The doors are really interesting to me. instead of having a single rectangle for a door and then having a door stop that keeps it from swinging through, Israeli doors have a smaller door that fits into the door space and then a larger rim that prevents the door from swinging through. It reminds me of a testube cork.

The Doors, Part 2

All doors open inwards, which makes me look like an ass who can't open a door. Also, it hurts chivalry - it is awkward as hell to open a door with one arm and let a lady go by.

The Lights

We are on the third floor. There are buttons that you press with lights on a timer. For the average person the amount of time the lights are on is probably enough, but since I can't seem to use a key I am further challenged by having to try to open a door in pitch black while Naomi laughs at me.

The Crosswalks

My favorite. The lights are green for Walk and red for Don't Walk. Easy enough. However, many of the streets are four-lane behemoths with turn lanes and a big median. The put a crosswalk light on the median AND on the far side of the street. No, they aren't synchronized. Sometimes you can just cross half the street. Sometimes it's just the far side of the street, and the untrained user doesn't remember to look a the closer signal, which is red, and starts to walk into oncoming traffic. These lights have finally knocked Freya off the top of my list of "Things That Will Be the Death of Me."

More to come later. :) By the way, we ate a fantastic dinner last night at a restaurant called Bar Giyora. Yup, that's why we went to it.

Captions:

1. Naomi's Hospital

2. A man feeding cats - there are no birds to feed, for some reason...

3. Bar Giyora!

4. Random street art