I am Israeli, Therefore I Hate the Bank

Or is it, I hate the bank, therefore I am Israeli...

I put off going as long as I could, but today I walked into Leumi. And it went downhill from there. The teller told me that I didn't get any sort of special discounts for olim because I was an ezrach oleh (for all you grammar freaks, I'm using the generic term, so calm down). Then they made me sign five million forms. I am NOT exagerrating and anybody who banks with Leumi knows what I'm talking about. Then, to add insult to injury, the teller informed me that she tried to open an account in the States once and they took the skin off her bones from her. Did she expect sympathy from me? Is that supposed to make me feel better? And of course she told me that everything would be OK and that I shouldn't worry so much. They should have that written on the front of the bank.

Afterwards, I needed a pick-me-up, so I went to a bookstore. A few actually. I read The Little Prince in Hebrew (the rose chapter, 21, for those of you who know) and then I felt much better. One more bookstore and I found a really cool book about Shemitta by Rav Rimon. And the bookstore owner said that he lived near my absorption center and that I could come over for a meal sometime. That was enough good stuff to get me to my meeting with the Ministry of Absorption at 4:00 (or 16:00 here). My absorption counselor seemed to be in a hurry because we zipped through the paperwork. She gave me a voucher for ulpan and told me how much money I would get a month from the government for living in Israel. That was kind of exciting. It's kind of random how much they give each month but it adds up to exactly 15,789, just to be ridiculous.

Then I got back to Katamon and played basketball and tried to plot the bank's destruction. I'm still working on it...