Fun Fact Grab Bag

In Israel:

Everything is negotiable. The advertised price is the most you can expect to pay for something.

Unless that something is gas. Gas is eight bucks a gallon.

Unless you're rolling with quasi-diplomatic status. Overseas hire teachers can obtain embassy gas cards that cut the rate to something like $4 a gallon. But only at certain gas stations. And if the attendant says that your card "doesn't work" and offers to "throw it away for you", take it back immediately and drive to another gas station.

Traffic signals are intense. There's a yellow light AFTER RED and BEFORE GREEN. You are expected to be putting the car in gear and actively getting into the intersection during this interval. To counteract the accidents this must cause, there are two versions of warning lights before the red light: 1) the solid green begins to flash, warning you that the yellow light is coming next. This means "speed up." 2) The actual yellow light. This means you shouldn't be in the intersection, because the cross-traffic is also getting the yellow light (after red) and is getting ready to peel off the line like at the stock car races.

When opening an Israeli bank account, the process takes about an hour and you will sign your name exactly thirty-two times. (According to historical sources, much of this vestigal bureaucratic stuff is due to Israel formerly being under the Ottoman empire, which dearly loved its paperwork.)

When you need a new TV remote, you get it at the post office. I still don't understand this one.

When you have large pieces of garbage, you leave them on the sidewalk outside your house. A truck with a giant robotic arm comes around every so often to pick it up.

The ultra-orthodox shop at Ikea. In their hats and all. Ikea looks exactly the same in every country except for the language in which signs are written. If you contemplate this too much, it begins to break your brain.

Fernet Branca and Drambuie are huge over here and can be found in every bar. I had a Fernet the other night and it gave me a happy Palace Kitchen flashback to 2004.

Paper size is A4, which is longer and narrower than in the US. There is also no such thing as a three-ring binder -- all binders and hole punches have two rings, both very close to the middle of the page.