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There’s no better sign that things start getting crazy than the fact I’m writing today about an event that happened two weeks ago (instead of writing about the amazing >play conference that just ended, but a dedicated post will arrive soon and that’s a promise!). Anyhow, I proudly present our first Halloween report!

Preparations

As I may have stated in some of my previous posts, people here do things seriously, and this definitely applies also to holidays. For weeks before the actual date our street started to be painted with orange, black and white - orange for the pumpkins, black for the witches and white for the ghosts, skeletons and fake spider webs (as if the area is missing real monster spiders!).

We also wanted to prepare, so we bought tiny light bulbs for our windows (which the cats enjoy very much!) and tons of candy for the “trick or treat” parade. We were strictly following the rule which states that only store-wrapped candies are allowed as there are lots of horror stories about poisoned candies. We couldn’t really tell what’s true and what are urban legends, however, parents here take this really seriously.

Trick or Treat!

As it got darker, some of the decorated houses turned out to be multimedia enables, with sound, lights and smoke effects. Around 7pm (you don’t write 19:00 in America - just one more of those things) the kids started to come. It was really fun except for the fact that Noozie didn’t appreciate their costumes as much as we did and decided to happily bark on each and every visitor. Being the big dog she is, we had to split roles with one of us serving the candies and the other holding Noozie while desparately trying to take pictures.

As you should expect by now (if you’ve read this blog in the past), Haas students have organized a huge costumes party in San Francisco to celebrate Halloween. Unfortunately, we couldn’t attend it this year, but we did manage to conclude an exciting evening watching a movie with our amazing friends from the village.

One of the things that I was looking forward to is buying a car in America. Everyone told me how cheap cars are in the States, and how big the variety is - just select your preferred car and take it home at a surprisingly low price.

ahm…not really.

Apparently, the recent year have changed the Americans’ driving preferences quite a bit. Goodbye huge cars, Jeeps or SUVs - hello small, Japanese, gas-saving cars.

What this means in practice is that those lucky people who have bought:
1. Toyota Corolla
or
2. Honda Civic
Are sitting on gold mines. They can sell their cars within seconds while people who hold any other type of car are stuck with it for weeks.

How it works

• You start by defining your budget, target models, years and source (dealers are not very popular here, so you will most likely go to private owners). The best source of helping you making these decisions is Kelly Blue Book (http://www.kbb.com). This is an online price-list for cars that will calculate a market value for any car by model, year, milage, condition etc. It also contains user reviews for each of the car models.

• Once you define your target specturm of cars, you start searching for it. The search usually starts (and ends) at craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org). Everyone is selling and buying there now all over America. It’s quite amazing, but this site have become the de-facto standard of classifieds over the internet.

• If you find a car that seems relevant, first thing you do is that you ask for the VIN#. Each car here has a unique identification number by which you can track its complete history through websites like CarFax (http://www.carfax.com). You put in the car’s VIN and you get a full and detailed report of every accident the car has ever been through, number of previous owners, milage each owner did etc.

• An interesting term you should know is “salvaged title”. It basically means that this car was through a major accident, or that it was stolen and returned at some point. In reality, this actually translates into - “this is the car of the devil, do not touch it and if you do no one will buy it from you”.

• Once you do find a car and run it through the neccessary tests, the actual sale is done by the onwer simply handing you over an ownership title, which declares that you are now the owner of the car. You must then register it within 5 days in the DMV (Department of Motored Vehicles).

(Our car, in the middle of our street)

Our car
Our little community of friends have encountered some horror stories regarding cars - people who give you a VIN and then try to sell you a different car, people who “forget” to mention that the car is salvaged or people who sell their car for their brother who lived in Hong Kong, did not sign the title as required and doesn’t have a US Visa so he can’t sign it now as well.

We were extremely lucky to find a nice 2005 Hyundai Elantra with only 40,000 miles and another year of valid warranty. To find such a car it took over a month and a half of daily scanning of craigslist on all the areas that were near enough to reach without a car (the classic “I need a car to buy one” paradox). Keep your fingers crossed for us that it doesn’t get stolen!

And so, after more than 6 weeks of male bonding (between me and our two cats Nimitz and Fry), the girls (Daphny, my wife and Noozie, our dog) joined us boys here at Berkeley. Yay!

This is definitely a day for celebration, and the girls found the perfect way to do so together.

Now let the real fun begin!

Around 5am last night, deep into my (short and unsatisfactory) sleep, I started hearing noises coming from the area of the cats door - which is installed on one of our walls that heads to the porch. As our cats are new to Berkeley they are not going out yet. Still, they are extremely interested in opening that door and take any opportunity to try and do so. Naturally, I assumed they are simply trying to open it again.

I woke up all dizzy and went there to make them stop so I can go back to sleep. To my surprise, both cats were sitting in front of the cats door, giving it their “hunt look”, all charged and ready for action. I was even more surprised to hear the noises continue even though the cats were not causing them.

At this point I became a little scared. I was pretty sure there’s a thief trying to break into the house (well, not a very talented one considering the level of noise he was producing. Coming to think of it now, he had to be a really tiny thief if he tried to break in through the cats door). I turned on the light on the porch and looked out. I was amazed to see a beautiful animal staring right back at me - a raccoon! A real raccoon at my porch! Here’s one thing that would not have happened to me in Israel…

We stood there for about 20 seconds, just staring at each other, not sure what to do next. After recovering from the shock I ran for my camera, but when I came back he was already gone. My landlord explained to me that the raccoons learned how to open the cats door and were using it occasionally in the past to sneak into the house and steal some of the the cat food. Quite impressive, isn’t it?

After a day or two of recovering from the flight and the shock of realizing that this is not a two-week visit only, the time has come to start getting things done.

Making things done in America is quite easy IF you know the rules and follow them strictly. If something goes wrong, however, things start crashing like a card tower. So I carefully planned my Friday - First a Student Card, then a Bank Account and finally a Cell Phone.

Unfortunately (and after waiting for an hour for nothing), I learned that I can only issue my student card starting next year.

Opening a bank account was quite easy, but the cell phone required a huge deposit since I don’t have any US credit history.

Now, let’s talk a bit about credit history - one of the vicious inventions the human mind ever came up with. It basically gives each person a rating based on his history in meeting payments. In order to start building a credit history you must buy things with your credit card and pay for them on time. To get a credit card, and this is the really nice part, you must have credit history, or at least a Social Security number, that will allow you to apply for a pre-paid credit card that will allow you to build your credibility until you have proved you’re worthy of a credit card.

All this happens in America, where personal confidentiaityl is one of the most important values, right? But your financial history seems to be above that, so it’s available to everyone by demand. Without a credit history, no one will give you anything here, unless you bring substantial guarantees that you will pay your bills.

Anyhow, I simply gave a really large deposit, and got myself a new cellphone plan (which seem to be cheaper then in Israel in terms of what you get in return for your money, specially around cellular web access). And as the nice lady that served me felt really uncomfortable with this deposit, she went an extra mile trying to arrange me a really nice number, so not all was bad after all.

I’m writing this post from Amsterdam where I’m waiting for my connecting flight to San Francisco. I was just informed that the two cats traveling with me arrived to the connecting flight and seem to be in good condition. Now that’s a relief.

It’s rather strange to fly without a return ticket. Makes the entire experience more dramatic, and although I assume we will visit home quite often, it still feels like a whole different story.

Such long flights always required delicate planning in order to maximize battery life of entertainment devices (laptop, phone, MP3 player), and combining them with non-digital entertainment (books and magazines, for those of you who never heard of such media) so that there is no dull moment during this horrible commute. however, in this 24 hour trip, with my mind occupied with the cats’ safety, I completely lost track of when to do what and found myself with a full laptop battery at the end of the trip (which is inexcusable under regular conditions).

Next step - getting used to a new country.

It’s my first time moving to a new country, and the hassle is so great that it can sometimes make you forget why you’ve started on the first place.

At the beginning, it seems just like moving an apartment, only that at some point you realize that there is no “we’ll put it aside and figure out what to do with it later”. Each item has to be debated - is it coming along or stays here, and for those who stay, and appropriate arrangement has to be found.

Not to mention the bureaucracy. People who enjoy regulations, forms and clerks (and surprising as it may sound, I personally know a few) should definitely arrange themselves with an immigration every now and then. It’s simply all over the place, and I bet that a similar amount of regulations, forms and clerks awaits on the other side of the ocean.

To name just a few:

• Visa arrangements
• Figuring out how to pay for these two years
• Finding a substitute to our current apartment’s lease
• Finding a place to live in Berkeley
• Flight arrangements for our pets
• Social security and health services arrangements on both countries
• Cancel all registrations (magazines, TV, Internet etc.)
• Pack and send what’s coming with us
• Pack and store what’s staying here
• Hold a lottery for desired household items among interested family members
• …

With all that said, I still find it hard to think of something more exciting. My flight is in 26 hours, and it’s almost unbelievable that the moment has arrived. This meal that started over a year ago is now rapidly moving towards its main course, and I have no doubts it is going to be just tasty as it seemed on the menu.