Travelling During a Pandemic and Other Weird Happenings

We are over the jet-lag from the 11 hour flight last week, travelling from Toronto to Tel Aviv (a 7 hour time difference) and here are some of the observations that I can share so far.

Could this be a type of Maple tree?

Artemis, our 11 month old COVID priceless puppy, flew with no problem… but there was some administrative paperwork and costs to get him here. In order to import a dog into Israel, they need a veterinary health check, certifying that they are healthy, have been microchipped, and proof of rabies immunisation (via a rabies titre test).  This exam can only be completed by the vet, and endorsed/signed off by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency within 10 days prior to arrival.  What hiccup could there be? Well, for starters, since Arty is a puppy, he only had 1 rabies vaccine which would likely not show enough antibodies to “pass” the antibody levels required for the titre test.  No big deal, just get another rabies shot, right?  It turns out that 30 days is required between vaccine and titre test.  I found out more about the titre test than I ever wanted to know!  Apparently, there are not many labs that run these tests and the one that most Ontario vets use is through Kansas State University and it can take 8-12 weeks to get the results for these tests.  I could only start this process once Sonny received his official message that we were moving, which was in April/May timeframe.  If you do the math, time was not on our side.  But if you’re willing to pay, you can get expedited results and you should have seen the look on my face when the vet told me that the fee for the titre test was $400 and to rush the results was a measly $500 more!  Thank goodness for credit cards.  The funniest thing (not really funny but a happy end result) was we had to redo the bloodwork because the 1st titre test got stuck at the Canada/USA border.  The lab couldn’t meet their deadlines for expediting the results so they refunded our fee back to us.

This water fountain sprayed water in the wrong direction!

That is only one example of the ups-and-down of getting to Israel (I’ll spare you the other long “stories”). 

For those curious about travelling restrictions, we all got that pesky nasal swab a few days before travelling.  Negative! When we arrived in Tel Aviv, we got another version of that test (this time it included swabbing two nostrils and the inside of the mouth). Negative!  Then in order to “break free” of quarantine, we had a serology bloodwork test that measured the COVID antibodies in our system.  Anecdotally, we heard that 500 was the “pass”.  This time you want a “positive”!  I got 24,000 , Sonny 12,000, and Grayson measured 6,000 (units?  Not sure what the measurement is). Ironically, Sonny and I both received our 2nd dose in May and Grayson, only 5 days before testing.  In my opinion, everything related to COVID is a surprise. 

On Sunday, we made a quick trip to the Port of Jaffa, which has been an active port for more than 7,000 years with Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Egyptian influences.  We managed to find an English Mass, the first full Mass that we’ve attended since February 2020.  It was sparsely attended but it could have been that Sunday is a “week day”.  Israel’s work week runs from Sunday until Thursday.  Shabbat begins Friday sundown until Saturday sundown, when most businesses and stores are closed (think back when Sundays were days of rest and you could only find the corner store open).  We wandered around the old city briefly before we started melting from the heat and headed “home”.

Home of Simon The Tanner where he hosted St Peter, the Apostle

The beautiful old city with stonework

We are still awaiting the shipment of our belongings.  Our rental home is furnished so we’re making do with what the house has.  It’ll be nice to have our own personal things, just to make this home feel more like home.

Ok, I could get use to this “home”

Outdoor living space is so great

I happily report that the Israeli people are very friendly and many speak English, the Mediterranean Sea is a mere 10-15 minute walk from our home, and you can buy alcohol at the grocery store.  On a silly note, Google translate will not translate Hebrew from photos, palm trees do not create enough shade and defensive driving is not universal.

Art is a mystery, too

Seriously, 15 mins walking from our house!

The finest sand you can imagine

The first week has flown by.  My internal clock has adjusted and I’m back to waking around 6am.  It’s very easy to have a coffee or two poolside, listen to the noisiest birds that you can imagine, while reading a book.  It still feels like we’re on a strange vacation and I quickly forget that this will be our home for the next year.  Whenever it’s safe to do so, we’d love to host visitors and explore this beautiful country with you.