We have rented the second floor of a house in Kochav Yaakov.

The interior is around 90 square meters. Kitchen, living room (salon, dining area (pinat ochel), laundry room, porch, three bedrooms. $400 a month (about 30% of what we are paying right now for a slightly smaller 2 bedroom apartment in Brookline).

However, it did take some time, and aggravation. The tough parts all basically revolve around one point: when you are 5000 miles away you cannot go to a place by yourself, you have to totally rely on other people to help you out. Even when you want to take the initiative by yourself, you cant because you are 5000 miles away, with a seven hour time difference. Combine that with a first-time encounter with hebrew contracts (and Israeli real-estate lawyers) it was an eye opener.

(The tough part was not the place that we ended up renting. That was easy, once we found out about it, talked with the owner and with a friend of ours who helped us out tremendously by giving the place the once over, and another friend who helped with faxing the paperwork back and forth. The tough part was the house we almost rented…and then decided against…and back again…and playing phone tag with a seven hour time difference…)

But anyways, we now have a place to go when we come home from the airport. (36 days to go!!)