A few lessons on Israeli culture!

I thought I’d mention some things about Israel that I find fascinating.
Lesson 1: As many of you might know, Israel uses solar power to heat water in people’s homes, and apparently there is a switch that can be turned on before a shower in order to heat up the water. This fact was unbeknownst to my roommates and me, so we resorted to taking a series of cold showers for the last few days. Now, that’s all good and tolerable when we’re showering at 17 o’clock and the sweat beads are dripping seductively off of our glistening bodies, but come 7AM Monday morning and I have to get myself all dolled up for Ulpan, I may feel otherwise about the temperature of my shower. This story ends with me finally discovering the solar heater switch and my roommates subsequently complaining that they “liked the cold showers.”
Lesson 2: Another thing I should mention is that napkins and tissues are priced and distributed here as though they’re worth about ten times their weight in gold. 25 shekels for a box of moisturizing tissues? No way, I opted for the “Soft” brand tissues and my nose is now suffering in its rawness as a result. And napkins: you’d think I’m asking for them to hand me my falafel on a silver platter when I request an extra napkin. This shortage of paper goods is making me quite frustrated.
Lesson 3: The more stairs, the better. Israelis LOVE stairs. Not only do I have to climb a flight of stairs that is about twice what we tolerated in the Allston just to get to my apartment (on the 2nd floor I might add), but there is ANOTHER flight of stairs immediately when you walk in the door! This wouldn’t be a big issue except that when you’re walking from the kitchen to the “living area,” there is nothing blocking you (me, obviously) from tumbling down the stairs if one happens to lean a bit too far to the left. I'm betting I’ll be the first member of Otzma to injure myself on the staircase.
Lesson 4: All the meat here is kosher! I personally do not care one bit about this fact, but apparently it’s a big deal to the other people in my program. They’re always carrying on about how they’re sooooo excited to be able to eat anything they want in the grocery store, because it’s all been okayed by a rabbi or whatever.
Lesson 4½: Most of the people here are Jewish. This, too, is often brought up by all the people in my program who love the fact that practically everyone they meet in a bar is fair game. Because seriously, why date someone who isn’t Jewish if it will just never work out in the long run? (You have no idea how many discussions we’ve had about this topic in the last week.)
Lesson 5: Apparently you can get a sunburn while underwater. In addition, it is also quite possible to get bitten by fish while swimming in the aforementioned water. I found out both of these facts the hard way while swimming in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, but it was all worth it to swim in some clean water for once.