All right basically I haven't been posting because I haven't had easy access to the internet. But not to worry Bezek is coming on Thursday to the yeshiva to install our internet so starting next week I should start posting regularly again.
Other then that I felt I had to send out a post now because this is my first time with one ONE day of Yom Tov, that's right ONE, I need to take advantage of both my internet connectivity-ness (thank's to the Eastman's) and my not being in Chag-ness.
So I'll fill in two interesting Aliyah related stories that have happened to me in the previous week's.
The first one being my health insurance. For those of you who remember, I had the whole nightmare of missing the Bituach Leumi table at the airport when I first got here, and then having to deal with the nightmare of actually having to spend to at their office in both Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.
So following up on that story it ended with me waiting for a letter from them so I could go and sign up for my Kupot (health insurance carrier-for lack of better translation).
So yeshiva started and they needed my health insurance information, so I decided to just go to the Kupot I had decided and see if there was a way to get my insurance without whatever it was I was waiting for from Bituach Leumi.
I walked in, they asked for my name and Teudat Zehut number, and then they asked me where I had been because I had been signed up for over a month already. Apparently whatever it is that Bituach Leumi does with the Kupot had already been done and I was the only person who hadn't been told about it!
So long story short, I am now insured and the best part that I can tell the people back in America is that I'm playing about $7 a month for the premium plan. (Details will follow on how good the actual coverage is, but for now from what I hear it seems quite decent).
Story #2:
All right this is just a weird story, I'll try to fill in all of the background information. Back in December when I was filling out my information at the Embassy in Washington and seeing that I was already Israeli but had never actually lived there, it would make perfect sense for them to ask for my address in Israel, right?
So I gave the current yeshiva address.
The yeshiva, as you might have guessed by lack of posts due being internet-less, moved and when I got to Israel they had a different address then what I had given and was put on my Teudat Zehut.
So I wanted to get the address on my Teudat Zehut changed to my new address, so I went to the Misrad Hapanim, and they told me that I needed a letter from the yeshiva with the notification of the address change, that I was living there, and my information.
I went back with the letter and was informed that they couldn't change my address.
All right for those of you who hate the Olmert government, here's another reason to change them. Apparently, according to this person at the Misrad Hapanim, the Olmert government passed a law making it illegal to have a yeshiva as your address. When I tried to point out to him that my current address, first of all, no longer existed, but second of all used to be the address of a yeshiva, he told me there was nothing he could do for me. You can have an address that doesn't exist on your Teudat Zehut, but you can't have the address of a yeshiva where you're living. But, the Misrad Hapaim worker told me, that law is only in effect while Olmert is in office, as soon as he leaves in November that law is void, so I can come back and he should be able to change it then.
Sometimes this country makes absolutely no sense.
But the important is that I'm doing well, loving yeshiva and ulpan and just being in this incredible country besides all of the headaches you can get from our wonderful government. As one person I know put it, you need to look at Israel as a country run by a government, but a country run by people. The news media likes to talk about the government and politics, but that's the tip of the iceberg of what our country is.
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