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23 Aug 2006

ISRAEL: Hebrew - So Mysterious.

People obviously speak Hebrew here, and I don't know a single word. Well, that's a lie, I know "Shalom" and .... yeah.

I'm actually surprised at the level of English. Almost everyone speaks VERY good English. Yet when left to themselves they immediately break back into Hebrew, despite their best intentions of staying in English. Its all the "th"s, I think.

New immigrants immediately get working on their Hebrew when they arrive, and most Jewish people visiting Israel (I think) know at least a LITTLE Hebrew from Hebrew school when they were kids. There are some funny times because people automatically expect me to know at least a little Hebrew.

For example:

The nice HR lady showed me the ladies' room on my first day of work. It is outside of the suite - so she had to show my the keycode to get back in. With that taken care of I was ready to go - but where was it??? There were the elevators, and another suite, and a few doors with words on them. ?? Perhaps it was on another floor?

I went back into (using the keycode) and asked the HR lady - where are the bathrooms? On the floor below?

And she points at the door [see photo below] - "No! There!"



Right.

Tricky.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Must be why airports have the universal gal in a dress and stick men. Too Funny!