First post from Pittsburgh

Last time we wrote we were still travelers in Auckland, New Zealand. Although only three weeks have passed, our situation has changed dramatically and we are now writing from our new home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On the way here, we stopped for a magical week in Berkeley, California, where we stayed with our good friends Ayelet and Amir and were thrilled to have a delightful reunion with Shlomo (Anat's PhD advisor) and Miri.

We arrived in Pittsburgh exactly two weeks ago. And boy did we NOT get a warm welcome (!)weather wise. The temperatures were far below zero Celsius, and in the "single digits" Fahrenheit. To emphasize, on our very first weekend here we got more than 6 inches (15 cm) of snow, and we woke up in the mornings to a temperature of 8 Fahrenheit (-15 Celsius)! At least we were assured by the locals that this is as cold as it gets, and actually most of the winter is not as bad. We are already adept at shoveling snow from our outside stairs, scraping ice from the car every morning and taking the necessary 10 minutes to deal with the ordeal of getting everybody bundled up before leaving the house.

To make the best of thesituation, we immediately went skiing the very next weekend and had a marvelous time! Noga took a private ski lesson and was thrilled, while Hadas sat in her plastic red snow sled, and was content to be dragged around the bottom of the slope. Our settling down and adaptation were surprisingly fast and smooth. Within a week we managed to unpack our shipment from Israel in our lovely new apartment, buy a car, enroll the girls in daycare, open a bank account, do WAY too much shopping, complete our business with social security, utilities, phone, internet etc. Additionally, Giora has already found a group to join for a weekly game of soccer and Anat has joined a Yoga class.

Anat also started working at CMU this week and Giora is busy sending his resume all over Pittsburgh to whoever might be interested - the selection is not very big, but we trust that something will come up eventually. Our apartment is truly wonderful! We were very lucky to have found it ahead of time, before even leaving Israel. It is situated on a not-too-noisy street, an easy 10 minute walk from the Jewish Community Center, where the girls' daycare is. Further, once the weather improves some, Anat will be able to walk to her office at CMU, a nice 25 minute stroll through one of the many parks of Pittsburgh. We are also just down the road from the neighborhood "business district", which is a couple of streets with small shops, a few bakeries and cafes, lots of restaurants and an energetic urban feel. We are enjoying the experience of living in a city again, after almost 5 years on the Moshav. And Pittsburgh is turning out to be very nice indeed - the public transportation is surprisingly good, there are many museums and art galleries, large parks, a zoo, a great children's museum, libraries and an interesting skyline dissected by 3 rivers and numerous largebridges.

One of the pleasant things in moving to a totally new place is discovering all the little details of how things are done here. From the fact that all alcohol in Pennsylvania is sold only by state-owned franchises, through the central role played by the car in the American lifestyle: we knew there was drive-thru fast-food, but have now seen a drive-thru window at the bank and even a drive-thru pharmacy. One of the most striking, and less pleasant, aspects we've been exposed to is the blatant consumerism: huge shopping malls, HUMANGOUS mega-stores such as Target and Wal-Mart. At some point we got the feeling that everywhere you look you bump into a huge shopping center. On some level we knew that this is the situation, but still once you see it in person the impact is much stronger.

A little more about the JCC daycare: The facility is simply amazing. There are 15 different groups/classes/rooms of children from infants to 5 year olds. The ratio of teachers (as they are called) to children is unheard of in Israel. Just for example, in Hadas' classthere are 13 children and 3 full time teachers! There is a lot of first rate equipment and a great variety of activities during the day including gym, swimming, art, Hebrew, music and more. Hadas had a hard time saying goodbye to us in the morning in the first few days, breaking our hearts with her sorrowful crying. But we're happyto report that she is completely transformed this week. She barely bothers to wave bye bye to us when we drop her off in the morning, and is now using the exact same sorrowful crying to protest when we come to pick her up in the afternoon and separate her from her beloved teacher Leah.

Noga's beginning was easier, however it seems that the burden of not being able to understand what is being said around her all day long is starting to get to her. She is so curious and inquisitive, and used to being on top of things and all of a sudden she is unable to participate in the conversations around her. We expected something along these lines, and believe that once she starts picking up some English things will improve greatly. Amazingly, despite all this, she is quite happy most of the time, and all-in-all enjoys her time at pre-school.

Tomorrow Anat's parents are arriving for our very first family visit. Everybody is excited, especially the girls, after almost 3 months separation. We're looking forward to showing them some of the things we already know, and discovering others in their company.

Love and kisses to you all,
Giora, Anat, Noga & Hadas