Shopping; The Good, the Bad, and the Double Ugly

Today's weather was so cold and rainy (sorry Portland friends...I know you've been living with this for a while... but it's hard to be a tourist in this) the only reason I could find to go out was to go shopping for dinner as we were entertaining. I made two trips out, for food, stories to follow.

I need to unload about the entire Israeli shopping experience.  Good news is, other than food, jewelry  and art (all  are VERY expensive, and I can live without the art). Bad News is I couldn't afford it anyway.  We were looking for warm clothes, I could buy Nike here for three times US retail, but as I get all our stuff at the employee store, it would only cost 6 times as much.  Israel has a store called FOX that everyone wears... think Abercrombie and  Fitch  (double the price and half the quality)  Dressy clothes... forget it.  There is a hot designer named Ronen Chen, I saw a winter clearance sale sign, and saw a lovely sweater with couture detail out of yummy warm velour... and it was on sale for only $200.  When we were in Tel Aviv, we heard about all the Israeli designers... not at any price.  Most everything looks like a shma'∙teh. I suppose it is the style:-(  I am a bit spoiled as I can get a Giorgio Armani suit on Ebay for $50 (yes it was worn once on Law and Order, but who cares... it has seams)! The Double Ugly is, the experience.  You go into a place and expect help. Not in grocery stores.  Other shoppers are pushy and aggressive, like the drivers, but that is another entire blog.   When you go to the "Shuk" like the Mahane Yehuda market as we have all blogged about, you expect a bit of pushing and shoving, and you get plenty of it. Last week we were attempting to buy halvah for Ellen's return trip to SD, and we waited and waited while others just pushed in front and after trying to get the sellers attention we went elsewhere.  I think I am aggressive enough and if I couldn't get the goods you know what this place is like.  Today at Mega (think Safeway), Noa and I had 14 items in our cart.  We looked at all the lines, and as usual I picked the wrong one, after waiting in line for over 15 minutes, we decided to go to the 10 items or less aisle.  We each had seven.  A nice man had a loaf of bread so I signaled him to go ahead of me.  Next thing I knew a "Russian Beauty" as Noa and I call them, woman with loads of make-up, dressed like they were wishing they were 30 years younger and more than a few kilos lighter, tried pushing ahead, I told her "no", we are in line, then her other gal pals started the pushing.   As I was now into 25 minutes of waiting in line my patience was growing thin. I went to get a manager and the nice man with the bread held the Russians away from Noa. Like a mama bear protecting her young cub.more than a few choice words were spoken, some even made me blush when repeating the story to Paul, The "Russian Beauties" were surprised that we held our own, and I bet don't want to see me again.  Later in the day I went in search for fresh bread and dessert for our company (plus I needed 5 more miles to walk).   It started raining and hailing.  I was dressed for the weather, but this was ridiculous. I found what I wanted at a neighborhood bakery, I just don't know what neighborhood I was in... the sun being my usual guide was absent.  After going several miles out of my way, my waterproof hiking boots were soaked as was my gore-tex jacket. I was officially crabby and crazed to get home and I was darned if I was going to spend $30 in a taxi to get home.  After meeting a nice man from the foreign ministry he set me in the right direction and made my way home... like a wet dog.  The apple strudel was put back together and re-baked and all loved it!