Schvitzing

I've never had much of an appreciation for yiddish words. I think in 7th grade I found it funny to say putz, but other than that, I'm not someone who integrates yiddish into their daily vocab. Until recently, when I looked up the definition of schvitzing. I was trying to find a word that would explain what happens to me when I step outside. I don't sweat, I don't perspire, and I certainly don't glow. I leak buckets of water. I schvitz.

This is what has been happening to me for the past four days since I launched my full force offensive in the apartment hunt:

I wake up. I drink a gallon of water. I eat some bulgarian cheese, a tomato, and a cucumber. I spend an hour looking for apartments online on a Hebrew website (praise google translate). I call the apartments and beg to come visit them. Sometimes they agree to let me come see them and so I suit up for the challenge.

I coat myself in sunscreen and deodorant. I put on a red dress that my friend Lindsey gave to me after I spent two years asking her to give it to me every time she wore it. This dress has saved me as I can only survive outside if I am as close to naked as possible, and this dress is the closest I can get. I put on my sunhat (excited, mama?). I take a frozen bottle of water out of the freezer. I google map my destinations on my blackberry. And then I leave my air conditioned apartment and all hell breaks loose.


I walk the block and a half to the best iced coffee place I have found and, after insisting on no milk and no sugar, I take my coffee and head out into the world. Because I hate public transportation, and because I have already ended up on two busses that have taken me the wrong way, and because I am cheap and because I want to get to know the city, I walk everywhere. I try to walk on the shady side of the street, but because Tel Aviv does not believe in tall buildings and G-d does not seem to believe in clouds, the shady side usually means walking under store awnings. Sometimes I walk in the Mediterranean, although frankly, it's not so cold itself.

Generally, by the time I reach my first apartment, I'm literally dripping in sweat. My body has repelled the sunscreen so that I have a light white coat of sunscreen and sweat all over my arms and face and back and shoulders and chest. That, combined with the bright red color my skin immediately turns to, gives me a vaguely purple glow. Beads of sweat drip off my chin and I chug water while whose ever apartment I am looking at gives me a strange look and proceeds to show me the rundown looking apartment which in photos looked beautiful. And then this theme continues for approximately four hours until I cannot stand it anymore and retreat to my apartment, covered in exhaustion sweat, sunscreen, dirt and sadness at the gross apartments I have been seeing.

When I get home, I take off my clothes, sit on my couch, drink another two bottles of water, and commiserate with my fellow fellows about how hard it is to find an apartment. We drink a beer, call our Israeli friends to ask for the hundredth time if they know of anyone who need a roommate, and spend more time on the Israeli housing website.

All this heat and sweat would be bearable and understandable, given that the temperature is in the high 90s every day and the humidity level seems to be 150%, if other people were sweating too. But no. No one else looks even slightly hot!

The Israelis wear jeans (jeans!!) in this weather and my Israeli friends look vaguely sympathetic but mostly incredibly entertained and slightly curious when I show up looking schvitzy. I imagine that while they pretend to discuss what food to order in Hebrew, they are secretly saying how grateful they are that they got Israeli Jewish genes, instead of the crappy American Jewish genes. There is also an invasion of French people here. Apparently they appear every August, take over the city, and are hated by Israelis. And, because they are French, they look perfect in their fashionable clothing and well groomed hair. It's infuriating. The only people saving me are the families of American tourists who are dressed in their best hiking gear with their sweat absorbing shirts, zippered pants, visors, and sunglasses. I take comfort imagining that underneath all their sun-protecting gear, they are secretly dripping in sweat as well.

My friend asked me yesterday what was worse - the New York City subway in August, or Tel Aviv in August and I finally decided I can only describe it as this: Looking for an apartment in Tel Aviv in August is like spending days maneuvering your way through the West 4th Street subway station. You take the wrong stairs, end up on the wrong platform, get trapped by a crowd of NYU students, climb your way up the broken escalator to the right platform and pray to G-d that the D train comes sometime in the next 15 minutes.

In good news, I think my D train has finally arrived in the form of a great apartment in central Tel Aviv. I have been told that it is definitely mine, but don't sign the lease until next week, and was told by many not to count on an apartment being yours until you have signed your name on a piece of paper. So, until I sign the contract next week, I am 92% excited that the D train has come, and 8% nervous that it is going to go break down on the Manhattan bridge and I'm going to be shit out of luck. Say a prayer for me!