I am back at home. I suppose many of the readers of this blog will be my friends from the past three years, who have all had (or will soon have) the experience of coming back home after a long time. Therefore, most of you will know what it is like – waking up in the morning and needing a few moments to realize where you are and what language to speak, initial diarrhea caused by the minerals in food you are not used to anymore, excitement about going to your favorite cafés with people, who are „still not done with school, but - seriously – will finish in fall“ and the immense pleasure you take in reading your beloved weekend newspaper supplement in real tangible hard copy.
Being back home feels like waking up after a long time and slowly rediscovering all the things you know so well, but still having in mind the live dream you dreamt during your sleep. I think of Israel and my Yeshiva time very often, especially when I talk to my Prague chavruta Aleš, who came back from Pardes a few days before I returned from the Yeshiva (and who will soon go back to Israel for his second year) I honestly loved being there, but I am glad I am back at home. Being back home is a special kind of smooth, touching pleasure. Most things are the way I left them: the guy from across the street that works all night and who is usually my only companion at late night hours has not given up his habit of walking around half naked in a fully lit room, Café Louvre still serves Earl Gray on tables with small note pads saying „The place of all your appointments,“ my neighbors still grow weed on their balcony, only the bush is a little bigger now.
Most of my time, however, I don’t even have time to think about what it is like to be back home and whether I miss Israel or any of the previous countries for that matter – most of the time I try to deal with my current life, settle and handle my flat and job.
I am sure I mentioned to many of you both of these issues perhaps more than you would have wished – but still: 14 days before I left for Israel last September, I had moved out from my original flat to an attic apartment, which was built on the roof of the building of my original flat. The flat is an investment of my parents, who feared that their savings would lose their value once the Czech Republic enters the EU/ join the Euro monetary union. For reasons connected to this issue, the flat is 3 times bigger then the original flat I used to live in, i.e. I live on my own in a space that is 3 times the size of what I used to share with three other adult people. This is a very weird experience, especially at night during the current summer thunderstorms, but I love the flat and take immense pleasure in furnishing it bit by bit – putting on hangers for towels, going to Ikea trying out different beds and mattresses, buying all kinds of kitchen utensils – there is nothing like creating your own living space.
My job has recently started to slowly lose a character of a nightmare and began to get a clearer shape. All being well, I should start working very soon for both of the institutions I planned to work for while still in Israel. I will surely let you know if as soon as I know anything more tangible. The downside of having to wait for a couple of weeks before I get employed is that being 26 and not being an official student of any EU university any more, I had to register at the employment office as an unemployed in order to get my health insurance paid by the state before I start to work. After filling in a couple of forms at the registry, I was given an official blue ID card of a registered unemployed and was given an appointment with a job specialist, whom I have to see regularly as long as I want the state to pay for my insurance, despite that fact I have found a job already (this is the way the sate makes sure that while they pay for you, you are actively looking for a job.) Again, all this is a very new experience for me, hopefully it will also be very short and I will start to work as planned. My first meeting with the job specialist was scheduled for the coming Wednesday – I will let you know what it was like.
Last but not least, my yeshiva friend Tovah Honor came to visit me in Prague for two days last night – a bit of my old yeshiva life in my new flat :-). Joseph Robinson, my Mishna chavruta and dear friend from Jerusalem, should come to Prague on Wednesday with 44 Jewish teenagers on a USY pilgrimage. I cannot wait to see him again.
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