Doing laundry in Israel is slightly different then doing laundry in America. For starters, there are 3 compartments in an Israeli machine. The middle compartment is for powdered detergent. I have no idea what goes in the right and the left, and the Japanese instructions have proved to be completely useless. There is also a dial that will typically go from 1-25. 4 is whites, 6 is colors, 18 is done. I have no idea what the other numbers are for but I assume it's somehow directly related to the right and left compartments.
Now while an entire family's soiled garments can fit into an American washing machine, the standard Israeli washing machines can fit no more then a shirt and a sock. Furthermore, in America, a nice big load will take half an hour. In Israel, it will take an hour and a half and the black sock will come out red, and the pink top will be gone.
Starting from the moment the warranty expires, an Israeli washing machine will become possessed. It will randomly start and stop, leak all over the place, neglect its spin cycle, and will then fix itself by the time the repairman comes over, only to break again as he closes the door behind him. I have found this to be the case with many an Israeli appliance, as if to openly mock my foreign naivete.
Now for the drying. The frugal Israeli woman would never use their dryer. Laundry gets hung out on the line. As a less frugal American, I'm open to the idea of hanging my laundry out to dry, but I take issue to displaying the family's assorted underthings for all to see. I was walking down Bar Illan Street the other day to find a woman on the ground floor hanging laundry out her front window. People on the crowded street were head-butting her unmentionables. No thank you!
Furthermore I find that when I hang laundry to dry, it dries so stiff that my boys' pants can pretty much stand up and walk away on their own. In addition, if you leave it in the Israeli sun for 5 minutes too long, the front will be bleached white.
So you see, it aint easy. Wish me luck!
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ReplyDeleteHaha I do NOT miss doing laundry in Israel, this post is right on target! Even in my "fancy" (jappy) sem we still had tiny machines with indecipherable settings/instructions, plus everything light colored used to come out of the wash gray and dingy.... We did have dryers but we had laundry lines too, I remember one afternoon when my roommates clothing had finally dried but before he had a chance to get them off the line it started
ReplyDeleteTo hail! Her clothing was back to sopping wet! (sorry for double post, trying to comment from iPhone!)