- Packing and Shipping
- Making sure you keep in touch
- Other arrangements
Packing and Shipping
The choice of what to ship over and what to sell here and re-buy there
depends highly on your preferences and finances. These decisions will
affect the way you choose to move the stuff. Here are some options:
- Mailing packages via surface mail. As of summer '98, the cheapest per
kilo was the Israeli Post's 10kg packages. You'll need your own boxes
(their biggest one can only handle about 5kg). It takes a while to get
there, so this is an option for stuff you can live without for several
weeks. You'll need someone on the other end to receive them and store them
until you come over, because you can't really just dump 15 boxes on someone
without prior notice. There is a good chance that the university's
international students office will cooperate. Note that it really takes a
long time to fill the forms at the post-office. But you can take home a
bunch of empty ones to fill at your leisure (don't forget the customs
declaration!). If you have a home printer, and are able to make up a
template to print directly on the forms, let me know!
- Your suitcase. The airline limit (20 kg? 30 kg?) is surprisingly
adequate for basic stuff (some linen, a few plates and cups, a pot/pan and
so on to make you feel more at home as soon as you land). Depending on the
airline and the season, you may also be able to go overweight without
fine. For the particular airline we flew with, even the fine was about the
price of surface-mail shipping, so it's not so bad.
- Renting container space on a ship. This option seems economical only if
you move a *lot* of stuff (furniture and so on). There also seems to be
some hassle involved in getting it from the port of entry to the final
destination.
Making sure you keep in touch
Photocopy and give out to the family a sheet with all the contact
addresses you know of (your temporary housing address, the office of
international students, one or two people at the specific department you're
going to). Arrange e-mail accounts for relatives. If they are first-time
email users, put your own address in their address book and go through a
send-reply sequence. Do a research on the best calling plan and let
everybody know what current prices are, since in today's market a plan that
was reasonable six months ago is considered expensive now. Some (especially
the elderly) may still have a wrong perception on the low cost of
international calling --- make this point clear to them or risk them
talking fast and hanging up on you after 1.5 minutes of conversation :).
Take a Israeli calling card with you --- for calling home
before you have arranged other means. It may also prove cheaper than a
pay-phone for emergency long-distance calls within the US, should you
need those (after the pay-phone tells you how much money to put in,
hang up and call the calling card's center and ask for their rate).
Another option is to keep and use your Israeli mobile
phone. It will be expensive, but very convenient. You probably
want to do this just for the few first of apartment hunt.
The general rules for using a pay-phone are: use change for
local calls (it's 35 cents, which is less than the fee
calling cards charge you for using a pay-phone). For long-distance
calls, the cheapest way is to buy a calling card at any
supermarket or convenience store. Try not to buy them at the
airport, where they cost twice the usual price (see below). Note that
many businesses have a flat rate for local calling, and will let you
use their phone. While you don't normally walk into a store and ask to
use their phone, phones in the dorms are likely to have free local
calling.
After you settle down, again do a research on the best calling
plans to Israel. The best prices used to be on prepaid calling
cards or 10-10 numbers, but recently the big carriers caught up. As of
summer 2001, you should be able to pay something like 15 cents/minute
plus $10-$15 monthly, and even get some frequent flier miles on every
dollar on your long-distance bill. As the market is highly
competitive, you'll need to repeat this research every few
months. Some providers will also give you a calling card so you can
get a good rate to Israel even when you call from outside your
home. Depending on the provider, the rate on the card may be slightly
higher than what you pay from home.
A note on US telephone service: the local company is usually a
monopoly, but you get to choose your long-distance provider (in fact
you get to choose a "local toll" provider as well, but that has
nothing to do with calling Israel). Even if you have a long-distance
provider, nothing is stopping you from using a calling card (pre-paid
or otherwise) from your home phone. There are also companies that will
connect you to Israel on a per-call basis and bill you through your
regular phone bills (these are the 10-10 numbers).
If you switch carriers, the company you're switching
to will pay the $5 or so that it costs. I even know of
someone who gets a check for $70 or more just for switching a carrier,
but he is a real heavy user. The big carriers are
MCI,
AT&T,
and Sprint. Similar services are offered
by Qwest,
Verizon,
Primus (my current favorite), and
comwave.
If all you want is to fax to someone in Israel, and you can
type in the text, you can do
it over the web for "free" (they'll slip in an advertisement
banner). There are also several phone-over-IP solutions around that
let at least one party to use a regular phone (the other one uses the
PC sound-card and mike). Some of these are free, but I haven't tried
any of them.
Here's a tip for sending flowers to Israel: local florists will charge you
an arm and a leg for International deliveries (even though they're not
really delivering the flowers from here to there). Instead, pick up the
phone and call an Israeli florist (preferably in the city where
you're sending the flowers to), and have them deliver the flowers to your
destination. You can pay using your Israeli credit card (they'll ask for
your address and phone number, but they understand once you explain you're
not actually in Israel).
You will probably use a pre-paid calling card before you get a
telephone service (or even after, if you travel a lot). You can buy
one at the supermarket, hardware store, etc. They usually go for 10
cents/minute or so, which is OK if you have no alternatives (note that
there is a surcharge for using them from a pay-phone, which can make
them more expensive then just using coins for local calls). For calls
to Israel they usually charge 5 minutes for every 1 minute of
conversation, so this rate is not that exciting (most probably, you
can get that rate using you Israeli calling card). Again, there are a
lot of small companies that sell you cheaper cards (for example: 4
cents/minute in the US, 13 cents/minute to Israel, or even less). Try here
(my current favorite is this one).
Make sure you understand the way they charge --- they usually have
either monthly fees, or minimum charge per call (a bummer if you get
an answering machine!), or a connection fee, or some other invention
to slant the per-minute cost upwards. And be warned --- the sound
quality using those cards can be quite bad, so don't buy heavily into
one before you've used it for a while and made sure it's OK.
Other arrangements
AAA membership will give you free maps at
any AAA branch, as well as discounts in hotels, and road services (to what
extent?). You can apply for membership at MEMSI [link] branches in Israel
(anywhere else?).
Don't forget to issue an international driver's license (MEMSI again). Not
all states recognize the Israeli license. Even if the local police does,
you may get in trouble with the car rental agency or the insurance company.
To keep your health insurance in Israel, you should call
BITUAH LEUMI
and ask for the "unemployed" rate (even
that isn't cheap, but at least it covers your spouse as well). The easiest
is to set up HORAAT KEVA for them. Other options are to mail them checks
every 3 months, or wait until you come back (in which case you will be
charged fines and interest).
If you keep your Israeli bank account, make sure you will be able to
manage it remotely. Personally, I feel that calling the branch and/or the
"telebank" center is adequate, but you may want to explore web-based
options. Pack a handful of checks for that account with you, just in case
you will need to pay someone in Shekels (eg, make a donation to an Israeli
organization). For the same reason, try and hang on to your Israeli credit
card.
You might want to pack a keyboard with the Hebrew letters
engraved on it. If you're bringing any Microsoft Office files,
I'm told you don't need any "Hebrew-enabled" version of Office to open
them.
"A letter from the bank proving your financial strength may be useful
for picky landlords."
"If you use contact lenses bring a large amount of them, as it requires a
prescription here."
"Don't forget to bring a signed transcript from university. It may help
you exempt some courses."
"Bring some photos. You'll enjoy taking a look at them sometimes, and show
them to your new friends."
Maintained by Dan Pelleg.
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