Aliyah anniversary and weed whacker adventures

Today (28 December 2009), we celebrate the 4th anniversary of our aliyah (immigration to The Land). On one hand, it's hard to believe that that much time has passed, but, on the other hand, that day 4 years ago when we arrived here seems far away, in the distant past. So much has happened on our adventure, and some many more things seem ready to happen in the future. We love it here, and we are continually amazed by the people, the beauty, and just the general feeling of really, truly living in the Promised Land.

A couple of weeks ago, we had gone down to the hardware store in Khatzor and had bought a Hyundai (same Korean company as the one that built our car, too) weed whacker (well, actually the box says "grass cutter", in English). We had not yet gotten around to putting it together and using it yet, however, partly because the weather has mostly been much too wet and partly because we have been too busy. But, today the weather was dry (and has been long enough for the weeds in the yard not to be too wet), and I'm on vacation, so we had no more excuses.

I put it together without too much difficulty, but I discovered something peculiar. The handle was clearly turned 180˚ from its correct position (and this was NOT something that I had done!). After feeling rather discouraged, we pulled ourselves together and drove back down to Khatzor to see what they could do for us, especially since I had carelessly thrown away the receipt.

As we as we arrived, we saw the helpful (and cute!) young man who had sold it to us. Without any questions he proceeded personally to work on it until he was able to figure out how to get it turned around to the right position. Score one for both good customer service and the Israeli can-do attitude.

When we got home, I got back into my boots and old jeans, and started whacking the weeds in the yard by our front door. After only a very few minutes, however, the thing broke. Actually, it was a piece of plastic that broke. It's a circular piece that can be tightened and loosened in order to change to length of the pole. But when it broke, it could no longer be tightened, and this allowed the pole to break separate into 2 separate pieces, making the machine useless.

After another bout of discouragement, we hopped back into the car and drove back down to Khatzor once again. This time, Eliran (the cute salesman) was not there at first, but another guy (older, but also easy on the eyes!) helped us. We had to wait a while, and Eliran also returned during that time. Finally, the other guy taped the piece up as a temporary measure and told us that he would order a replacement piece, which should arrive in a few days (I'll take that to mean 2 weeks, since most Israeli time estimates need to be doubled!).

Of course, as expected, the tape didn't really hold it together all that well, but I still did manage to get maybe a third of that one yard trimmed in some fashion. By then, my back was about to go out, so I knew I'd better stop anyway, before I got seriously into trouble.

So, there you have it -- another excellent adventure in Israel. Although we often complain about customer service here, there are also times like this when it's just about unbeatable. And, did I mention the good scenery? ;-)