3 Things I Bet You Didn't Know About Living In Israel

- September 22, 2021

So, I know that most of the people who read my blog probably live in Israel, so nothing I'm gonna say here will be of any interest to the vast majority of anyone reading this right now. But all the big YouTubers (Or at least the ones I watch) do "insert number here things you didn't know about insert topic here", and, well, a vlog and a blog are the same thing, right?

Right?

Also, I was bored. So yeah. Here I go.

3 Things I Bet You Didn't Know About Living In Israel

#1: Tuesday.

For all I know, other places have this too, but I've only ever heard of this in Israel, so if I'm wrong, then, I dunno, say so in the comments, and then, well, I'll know.

Anyway, in Israel, for whatever reason, most schools get out early on Tuesday. Not sure why. But they do. Sometimes this makes life easier, because it means less time in a classroom, and sometimes it'll just make my life difficult. For example, in sixth grade, I had this sort of after school learning thing called לימוד לשמה, (Pronounced Leemud Leeshma). School ended at 12:45. The girls not in לימוד לשמה would go home, and the rest would stay at school till around 13:20, when לימוד לשמה would start. Problem was, my little sister, who I was supposed to pick up from her kindergarten every day, finished at 13:30. So that meant that I had to run to the kindergarten, get my sister out of school early, and then run like crazy back to school with her, making it back in time for לימוד לשמה. My sister would either play in my schools yard, sit quietly in the corner with a snack, or crawl under the table, be cute, and make everyone laugh for around twenty minutes until the lesson was over.

I ended up dropping out of לימוד לשמה.

#2: Milk.

In Israel, for whatever reason, milk is sold in plastic pouch/bags. You cut off the corner, and then put the bag in this little pitcher thing. When we first moved to Israel, I hated it so much. I still do. The milk bags or like big water balloons, just with milk inside them. And what do water balloons do?

They pop.

At the supermarket, they keep the milk bags in these big metal, I dunno, tubs? When you stick your hand in, the bag (or your hand) usually comes out dripping with milk. Sometimes your milk will pop all over your groceries. Luckily, Israeli supermarkets also sell regular, good old milk cartons. When we first moved to Israel, it didn't take my parents very long to decide that this milk-bag thing wasn't gonna work, and they bought milk cartons, like normal human beings. The thing I don't get about milk bags is that in most stores, cartons and bags are the same price anyway! So why are people spending money on these floppy, drippy, poppable, bad for the environment abominations, when they can be buying firm, nonleaky, (most of the time) good for the environment cartons? I dunno. I just asked my dad why people bother buying the milk bags, and he said that it's cheaper. When I asked by how much, he said around half a shekel.

HALF A SHEKEL?

For those who don't know, half a shekel is worth around 15 cents.

So let's see...

You save 15 cents on milk cartons, just to have your milk pop all over your groceries, thus wasting more money then you saved. Make sense? No.

Moving on...

#3: Snacks:

When I first moved to Israel when I was 8, I was really excited to find out that there candy stores here. I mean, sure, I'd had some really good kosher candy. But that was from the supermarket! It's not the same as walking into a whole store that specializes in the selling of kosher candy.

I remember the very first time I went to a candy store in Israel. I got a little bag of Skittles. Kosher Skittles! It's a dream come true!

In Israel, we also have kosher Cheetos and Doritos. To anyone from the US who might be reading this, and thinking, "WOW! It's my life-long dream to try a Dorito!"... They're overrated. In my opinion anyway. I only like the plain and pizza flavor.

Then there's also these things called Apropo's, which are basically Israeli Bugles. I actually googled Apropos, and Bugles came up, which I found kinda funny. I'm not sure if Apropos are knock-offs, or just Bugles under a name easier for Israelis to pronounce, but whatever.

Anyway, I love living in Israel, even if we have weird milk and get out early at inconvenient times. I'd recommend living here to anyone.

Here are some pictures of the stuff I mentioned. Now you can see just how weird bagged milk really is.