The move to Eilat, with some pictures

Moving day was Sunday, 26 February, two days ago. Now that we've finally gotten some crucial things unpacked and gotten the city taxes, the electricity, the water, and the gas transferred to us, I can pause for a few minutes to give an update on the move and to show you some pictures.

First, here's a picture of the moving truck literally packed and overflowing with our stuff! The 4 guys in the picture are the movers. The one in the blue shirt on the right is Erez, the guy I first talked to when I called them. He is one of the owners. He's the only one of the three who did NOT travel in to Eilat. His business partner is Leon, the guy standing up on the tailgate of the truck. I didn't get the names of the others. Both the young man on the left and Erez spoke pretty good English, and, of course, they ALL spoke Hebrew (and all but Erez spoke Russian, too!).

Now HERE is the picture of our car! The first things loaded, which you can't see at all, were the 3 cats -- Katom, Pascal, and Peachy -- in their respective cat carriers. Besides that, there were 3 computers, 3 boxes of other things, and some miscellaneous loose items, including a blanket, a quilt, and several coats. This is the max that our tiny hatchback can carry!

After we got to Eilat without any problems at all, this is the picture I snapped out of our new kitchen window. You can see the fading sunlight on the Moutains of Edom, located on the opposite (east) side of the valley behind Aqaba, Jordan (some of which is also visible).

Yesterday (the 27th), I took a short walk down to the local supermarket to pick up a few things we had forgotten when we had gone to the really BIG shufersal supermarket on the other side of town. Here are some pictures I shot during that walk.

Here's the view of our building from across the street. We are on the corner of Ein Yahav (our street) and Ein Akev. There is a kikar (traffic circle) at the intersection. Behind the building, there is plenty of parking for the people who live in several nearby buildings.

Here's the view looking up our street (northwest). Just 2 short blocks up is the road that goes around the edge of Eilat. The desert begin the other side of the road.

Here's the view looking DOWN our street (southeast). Yes, that's a bit of the Gulf of Eilat, the eastern branch of the Red Sea that you can see, although the street does NOT go all the way down to the shore. On the other side of the sea are more of the Mountains of Edom (in Jordan). A little further south, but certainly well out of this picture, is Saudi Arabia!

Two blocks over from our street, in the northeast direction, there is a long park or green strip parallel to our street. It runs most of the length of our part of Shakhamon (the name of our neighborhood). Here's a view looking down the green strip from Ein Akev (2 short blocks northeast of our place).

We still have a LOT of unpacking to do, but we really have made good progress, so it shouldn't take us too long.

I'll try to continue taking more pictures of the area as we take more walks in various directions.