tigrenok | M&M

We are of the Decembrists. I.e. we are of these people who arrived to Israel in December 1990, when the amount of newcomers exceeded all numbers of immigrants who had moved to the country during the previous months and who came in the all next months too.
As everyone can easily guess, the main thing for every new habitant is studying of the language, hence ulpans (= courses of Hebrew, etc.) spreaded out better and faster than some mushrooms after a good rain. In one of them, which was called "a students ulpan", I was sent a few days after our arrival.
I can not say about all ulpans, but in ours the texts/topics to study were thematic, i.e. useful, as "copybook maxims" in old educational exercise books. I haven't calculated the relative frequence of sample, but if I remember right, among the most popular subjects were Diet (where can we go without it?:), Necessity/relevancy of "ordinary" jobs for newcomers and students, Charm of the life in different unpopular settlements and learning in University of Beer-Sheva (advertising is "our all" and the engine of any business...), and, on the top of all there was the mentality and its differences.

Again, I'm like an Akyn: I sing about that I see. One of my friend heard a lot about Bar-Ilan University instead of one of Ber-Sheva at her ulpan. She started her study there, but escaped, losing sneaker, a year later. My parents at their ulpans met no ads about any universities, but about mentality they had heard a lot. By the way, my first big love (yes-yes, I was a young stupid girl too) once expressed clearly all his thoughts about the mentality of "russian" girls (i.e. girls from the former Soviet Union), but he went for dates only with them. I guess, the other~~kin~~ girls prefered not to meet with him. Because of their local mentality, I suppose :)
Well, you have got already: the theme of "mentality" is almost classic and is good in any weather, as the nose of freken Bok :)

* * *
My dentist has his medical office on the fifth floor of a six-story building, there are a lot of other offices on each floor, starting with the first, built like regular apartments. However, the door to the building is not as usual as it seems at first glance. The door looks like a pure automatic one, but you definitely need to open it by yourself and with hands. Exactly near this foxy door I noticed an Local Madame (LM for the rest of our story). LM had come to this door before me and stood there for a little, watching the door carefully, but it didn't react.
To be honest, i went through the same story at first time. And on the second time too, and on the third time, until I finally got used to this door...

I was almost about to tell LM about the mentality of this door, as she handled it by herself. I caught the door in order to enter after the lady, as she turned to me, and then an untranslatable play on words in the local dialect followed.
We came to the elevator almost simultaneously. Its door opened immediately (an automatic!), and a monsieur went out, rolling a cart behind himself. We both with LM stepped aside (but to different sides:) to yield the monsieur with the cart. He decided to take his luggage towards the MD. As a result, I stepped into the elevator first, and it immediately an angry voice of LM, demanding to wait for her, sounded. To say honestly, we with elevator didn't intend to depart without LM, but we didn't have enought time to explain that - MD proudly paraded in and briefly commanded: "Au deuxième!"

Elevator sincerely raised MD to the second floor, but she did not move.
"It's your floor", I told MD.
Her look talked better than any words: "There are all sorts of muggles here, and even dare to speak to her! And what about to ask for the highest permission at first?

I'm not guilty: the elevator stood on the second floor for a while, then it closed its door and went up to the fifth floor. And then LM open her mouth and even in English:
- I told you, I need the second floor!

* * *
I have already mentioned once Rosie, who had taken "the patronage" over our family in December 1990. The same one who explained us so well about the importance of vitamin P ("Protection" - translating from her own language :)
So Rosie liked a lot to talk about "local mentality" too. And about herself she told a lot, of course, how she is nice-n-generous. She brought me and my sister a few splendid chocolate imported candy M&M - it's extremly cute, isn't it?