So last week I needed some tomatoes for a salad I wanted to make so I popped into the supersol (local grocery) and figured I would go through self check-out to make it quicker. I got kind of hung up when I had to find the vegetable I wanted on the screen b/c obviously this is all in Hebrew. Now sitting on the wall of my ulpan is a large poster with many different fruits and vegetables. I know that a tomato is an "agvaniyah" but every time I typed aleph (first letter of Hebrew alphabet) no tomatoes were coming up as a choice. I turned to the customer at the other self check out station. "What is this?" I asked him. He sort of looked at me like he didn't know how to proceed and then maybe b/c of my accent he answered in English "it's a tomato". Well gee whiz. I mean I know it's a tomato it's the whole reason I came to the store. I just can't get it to come up on the screen. He came over and typed in "agvaniyah" but apparently it's spelled with an "ayin". Not likely to forget that anytime soon.
Nor will I forget the word "pereg" anytime soon. Last week I stopped to get an iced coffee at the local bakery on my way home and saw some delicious looking brownies that I thought would be nice for Shabbat. Imagine my surprise when we bit in and it was poppy seed cake. I think that poppy seed cake is clearly an acquired taste and when you are expecting a rich fudge chocolate brownie it is definitely not the time to learn to appreciate poppy. Pereg=poppy--thank you so much.
Meanwhile we've made some noise and now someone in the national level of the education ministry is aware that two little American kids in Mazkeret Batya need to get their in-school ulpan hours. The superintendent should know that N has already mastered all swear words in Hebrew using her techniques. Haha he said. I thought this was a holy land--they have swear words here too :)
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