A Child, a Suitcase and Exile (Part II)

God promises: I will rain bread from heaven for you.” - Exodus 16:4

I saw this sentence carved into the city while walking through The Hague during a time when I was surviving day to day - no stable home, living out of hotel rooms with my child, measuring life in small daily provisions rather than long-term certainty.

What struck me wasn’t religion in theory, but something far more immediate: provision in motion.

Because in that period of exile, nothing was fixed

— not housing, not safety, not stability. And still, somehow, there was always enough for the next step. Not everything at once. Just what was needed to keep going.

At the same time, another process kept unfolding in the background - legal, Israeli, bureaucratic, emotional - a parallel life of paperwork, hearings, waiting, and holding onto a dream that refused to disappear even when everything else felt suspended.

This episode is about that split reality: survival on the surface, and something quietly sustained underneath it.

I won’t call it inspiration. I’ll call it what it was: endurance, provision, and the strange way life continues to give you just enough bread for the day you’re in.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Welcome to Israeli Goy, the podcast where the voices of an unchosen Israel get heard. My name is Adriana, I'm a Spaniard goi with a very long, uncommon and interesting journey in the land of Israel. God promises I will rain bread from heaven for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Exodus 16, 4. I remember reading those words while walking through the streets of the egg. At the time I wasn't thinking about ancient deserts or biblical history. I was thinking about tomorrow. About where we would sleep. About how long a hotel room can feel like home when you know it isn't. I was living out of suitcases, raising a child in transit without the stability that most people never have to think about. And strangely, what I discovered during those years was an abundance. It was daily bread, not certainty, not answers, not even a plan, just enough, enough from one more day. Enough to keep moving, enough to keep believing that the dream I carried hadn't died. Because while I was surviving on the sweet on the surface, another story was unfolding quietly in the background. Years of legal processes connected to Israel, paperwork, waiting, disappointing, hope. A future that seemed impossible, impossibly distant, and yet somehow remained alive. Looking back, I realized it was living in exile, not just geographically, but emotionally, spiritually, existentially. And maybe exile isn't only about what you've lost. Maybe it's also about what refuses to leave you. This episode is about those years, about auto rooms and unanswered questions, about motherhood and survival, about dreams that survive bureaucracy, and about the mysterious ways God keep providing bread from heaven. Not for the journey all at once, but for the day I was in. Welcome to a child, a suitcase and exile part two. Let's begin. Hi, so as I was explaining in the pre-episode, from June to December, it was like just half a year time lengthwise, although it felt like 20 years, because when you go through so much chaos and so much instability and survival, you know, time feels much, much more intense. Like months feel like years, like you don't even know how you're gonna survive them, you know. Every day comes with new situations or crises that you have to dive into and solve, and your nervous system is basically under a constant um hypervigilance mode where it can fully rest. There's no room to rest because it knows that something is gonna come up, or it it not it doesn't even know something is gonna come up, it's that nothing has ever settled yet, you know, for a long period of time. It's like nothing settling from the moment you wake up till the moment you go to sleep, things are messy, not just in your head, in your environment. So you know tomorrow is gonna come with more meh messy things and more cows because that's where you are at that time in your life. So we basically achieved to finally find a house in the Netherlands that was like a miracle, too, because from so much hotels and cows and moving, check-in, check out all the time. Crazy. Uh, to finally have a house, and you know, hotel rooms might have as per regular basis 20 meters squares, that's what hotels regularly offer as per space, and the house we move, a residential area, and have a house house, you know what I mean? Like a separate house for yourself, an entire house. But you still can have the feeling of house space, and uh architectonically, like you have all like it, it's I I I didn't feel like I had neighbors to be honest, and there were like neighbors above us and next to us, it was like a building, but it was so spacious, two floors, so many rooms, totally sunny, like it had a lot of light, and with a garden. I felt like I was in my own separated house, and we were in Amsterdam City, and the price was super sweet deal for the house we got, and that made me believe that a lot of you know families in Amsterdam and people in Amsterdam they can have much more space and quality housing compared to what you get in Spain, for example. So we got that sweet deal, we moved there. I still don't believe it's our house. We when we arrived, I was still like the same day I I checked into the house, I was coming from a morning of complete chaos, and the stay there was was better, of course, there was less chaos, but there was no it was so resent to to so much survival and cows that I was still my body was in a house, but my mind wasn't truly sure, or my nervous system wasn't truly sure that was real, you know. I could it couldn't settle, I couldn't really relax fully. Like I think something is gonna happen bad for me, no? Like um, I cannot relax even if I have a house. Um but we did have that space, that time to not check out. Of course, it was like a month, it was not so much time either, but a month of not having to check out from place when you've been checking out almost daily from all the hotels you've been to through so many months, it's like a paradise, of course. It's like a a deserved relief or rest, and um we got that, and the house was amazing, it was super cute. Uh the family even led us all the toys from their kids, so my kids had many toys and areas for play, and it was like wow, you know what I mean? It was like, can I be better served here? Like I was provided by so many things in that house, yet again it was still immersed in the chaos, you know, mentally or nervous system-wise. Um and also it was like in the summer when people have holidays, so and it was in the outskirts of Amsterdam, which is like um you know, there was like a very empty area, there was nothing to do, like for kids. There was like some you know, pool from the municipality when it was hot that never was hot in the summer 2025 in Amsterdam. We had two days that were hot, that's it. We even hung out into that pool, it was like chilling, you know. We had goosebumps in the pool because you know, it was not even warm to swim, to be honest. And the pool was so cute because it was like an aqua park for kids. It had a lot of like in Amsterdam also, like in Netherlands, they also have a lot of public spaces, like municipal um pools, uh parks, schools, everything that are so well built. You know, it's like you don't pay almost fees. Like I paid five euros to get into that pool for the entire day, and it was like nothing. And the pool was amazing. It was like the infrastructure was like area for kids with aquapark for kids, with plenty of slides, with a pirate, uh boat in the middle, fountains, colors, kids was like their paradise. Then they had another pool for adults to swim, and another pool, and more gardens, and areas to play sports and a bar. I was like, are you kidding me? That for this fair I got all of this, and it was like real, right? Also, here in Spain it's impossible. Even in Barcelona I tried this and it's not I don't find anything like that. I have to pay much more for entering pools, and they don't even have kids' spaces or aquaparks or anything, even if they are luxurious pools, if you want to call it like that, that they have some sort of spa with Jakuti or they are in a good area of neighborhood of Barcelona, they are much more expensive than that pool in Amsterdam, and they don't have the amazingness of infrastructure that they have in in the Netherlands. So uh infrastructure infrastructure-wise uh compared to the prices, the public system works much better there. You know, the Dutch government and municipalities are really effective in doing such things, and um of course we enjoy that. We we may, you know, uh we take profit of that too. And uh also we were staying in a Jewish area, it was a neighborhood that was also Jewish, a lot of houses or businesses they had the Mezuza and menorahs. Um I even found houses that had Israeli flags um just hanging in the windows that was in Amsterdam, you know, and a big, really big synagogue. So I will walk sometimes there through Shabbat and we'll see like all the just walking in, and it was like wow, like I I suddenly feel like I'm almost in in Israel, you know. And the first day that we arrived, the first day we like we went out of the house to explore the area. There was nothing basically, it was the outskirts, so we find like a forest or a big park, you know, like uh a very like huge green area with a canal nearby. So we had like a bar with canal that the days that were really hot people will go there to swim. You know, the Amsterdam people just swim in the canal when it's hot. There's no uh beach in Amsterdam, so you go to the canals because they're anywhere, uh everywhere, and they paddle surf too. Or you rent a boat or own a boat and go around the canals with a boat, of course. That are those are the best plans you can make in Amsterdam. Um so I was walking through this area, and a woman recommended us to go to a park called um Amstelwin. So what's it? Um Amstelbin, no, sorry. Amstel Park. Amstelbin is another area of Amsterdam, but that was Amstel Park, the name. Again, public park. Um super cute because it had another area next to the park. Like it had different areas, one area with animals, so kids can get in and you know check the animals. Like you will see in these countries like the Netherlands compared to Spain, for example, that they give much much more importance to the nature. So that the kids get more educated towards animals, nature, and they get in touch with it. So it's very irregular there, very normal that you know they have like uh places for animals, parks with animals like pigs, you know, um goats, um, chickens, you name it, and you know, kids go around and just even they they even play with the animals, like they touch the animals, they get used to the animals, and so they get used to nature and animals. It's not just like urban life here in in Spain or at least in Barcelona. I cannot even read about finding a single place where I can see animals, like kids can play with animals like that. And again, it's like free places or very, very cheap. That Park Amstel Park had also like an amusement park inside of the park, super cute, like little train going around, uh, carts, you know, car races for little kids, um, I don't know, other all kinds of you know, small games like amusement for very small kids, super cute, cheap, like you could buy different rides for I don't know, four or five euros. That's it. That was the nest. There was no even an entrance ticket, like you need to pay 20 to get in, nothing like that. It's just there was a machine, and you can um say how many rides you want for these activities. Like I will take three rides, four rides, one ride, even it's like two euros, three euros, five euros. So, okay, let's do three rides, four euros maybe, and then you got three um like three things for the rides, and you use them one for the train, another for care car racing with the kid, and another for something else. Well, you spend five euros and the kid had the time of his life, so it's like and it was super cute, super nice. It's not that it's cheap and it's bad, you know what I mean? Like one to like highlight this point about Netherlands or countries like Netherlands in Europe. Not because it's cheap, not because you've spent five years in the Muslim park and five euros in in the municipal pool, you got uh an horrible place, you know, a bad quality service or uh amusement park that sucks or a pool that is small and it sucks. No, no, you get something that it's worth more if they were to put in front profit than they put uh affordability for the families in the country and ensuring most of kids can access to these activities, you know, can get access to these activities. I think this is very important too. Um because in Spain I I keep finding places that are amazing, you know, like also like I find places for kids like kids' cafes or pools that are nice, but it's like five, like at least it's three, four, five times more of what I like I as a mom, like families in the Netherlands could get access to for much less, and it was not worse than Spain. It was even better sometimes. I was not for paying, you know, or was for paying something very um, you know, significative or meaning, like like you help with something to the company or whatever, and that's it, but you don't have to they don't have to make huge profit by families or kids, you know what I mean? So I think that's the culture in the Netherlands. Families and kids get to have access to very nice infrastructures, amusement parks, aqua parks by ridiculously low fees, you know. It's a win-win, I guess. I don't know, like uh kids um grow much more educated and happy and well taken care of, and families are also very um happy, they can provide so much experiences for their kids for without breaking the the you know the wallet. And I think that's um an important point when you are a a parent or a mother, you know, like you want to provide your kid with so many opportunities of things to do and and experience, exploring, and but you don't always want or are aiming to break your wallet by doing that. And sometimes you we live in a world nowadays that everything is extremely expensive, and sometimes it doesn't even pay back. Like, oh my god, I just spent so much for an activity that was nothing, you know. So I mean that was nice. We had the house, we had these things that were really nice surrounding us, and again, it was really really low uh fares, so we can go several days to the amusement park, several days to the aqua park, and it's something you can do regularly, you know, and it sounds like amusement park, aquapark in Spain. You will spend you will spend, I don't know, the aquapark, you have to pay an entrance fee, and it will be, I don't know, maybe 40-50 euros. Uh an amusement park will be like again, 30-40, you know. And in the Netherlands was like 5-5. So it's like, what is this? It's a joke. Contrary to that, the cost of living in the Netherlands was much higher, food was was much more like much more expensive than Spain, for example. Um so yeah, like what you don't spend in activities in kids, you might have spent uh in the supermarket, in restaurants, even paying rent. But um I don't know how to say it, you know. Spending a lot in food can you know feel bad, but you don't have a choice, right? It's like you have to eat. Uh same for rent, like you have to have a house or well, a hotel like me, but if you are not a person surviving out like I was in the Netherlands at the time, you will probably prefer to have a house. So it's like even if it's it's expensive, it's because of the cost of living, but those are needs you need to meet. And the other things like amusement parks, aqua parks. Sometimes for adults that have kids, you might feel like if they are tremendously expensive for your budget or in general, you know, um, you might get some way to avoid those and do something else that is cheaper, right? And it's a pity because the kids will enjoy more aquaparks and amusement parks and not going there, right? You want to also provide those experiences, but you don't want to spend, you know, a hundred euros or backs every time you go there or do it just one time and you cannot even go back because you know you spent a lot one day in the amusement park or in the aquapark that you cannot even repeat it. So if you do like the Netherlands, providing these spaces that are amazing and so cheap, you can go many days to the aquapark and the amusement park as a regular thing, right? That's the other point when things are this price. Um accessibility. Accessibility. Uh, we also had like a club of a tennis club in the area. It was like a familiar residential area, but it was really like silent. Like uh for me, it was a period of cocoon, you know, isolation fully. I don't know anyone there, I don't even meet people. Um, that's something I think I said in the other uh episode. Here in Spain, I get to meet a lot of people. My kid meets uh other kids, I met parents, mothers, and sometimes they they are not even from here. Most of the times they are like Ukrainians, Russians, like even my you know, the people are my best friends of my kid and the mom I meet with, it's like Ukrainian family. So yeah, I don't get to be in touch just with the Spanish at all. It's like people from everywhere, but the culture here is very open, socially speaking, very open, you know, and with my kid that is super social, it's even more easy. In the Netherlands, absolutely it's not like this. It's a country in the north of Europe, you know, the weather is pretty cloudy there, pretty cold. And so people are like this, you know, they have a cold character, they're much more distant, you know, social, not like not very open, not very close, not very friendly, like, oh, where are you from? Let's go here, I will show you. No, it's not this culture there. Of course, you can find someone that is from the Netherlands and it's really open, and you always find exceptions, but in general, the character there is more everyone in its own thing, you're right, you know. So I will have neighborhood neighbors and I will, you know, see people in places in the market, and that but I won't feel they are my family, I won't feel welcome in a way that I can go to their home or we can speak about many things. I will feel like they might say hi, you know. Maybe my kid will talk or they will tell me some things, but very, you know, small talk and bye-bye. And I don't I don't know, I don't feel like I flow there as much as I flow in Spain, socially speaking. So if you add the cows, the mess and the lack of feeling surrounded by people that are open and helpful, that's all another layer of difficulty and struggle in the country. And again, we we stop at a house in the middle of the summer, mid-July, mid-August is when most of the people in Europe just usually take their holidays. And it was a residential area already in the outskirts, as I said. There was like nearby forests, you know, like green spaces, it was not near the center of Amsterdam at all. We didn't get a bike, of course, for obvious reasons. We don't have a stability of staying there in any house or anything if I rent or buy a bike and I have to check out from a hotel or I don't know where I sleep local wise. How I will manage with a bike. I already had a kit to move with the luggage, with the stroller. How will I add to all of that a bike that I own by myself? So we don't go around by bike, which is a Another, of course, disadvantage because in the Netherlands everyone moves around with bikes. And would we have one? Would we be living in that house for months? And I was already settling there or living for longer with a stability structure. Of course, I will have bought one bike with a child seat, and we could have moved around the city, but circumstances were not really allowing us to settle so much, to feel so, you know. Um so like I don't know, structured. So like in the you know, right transport, we are only left by public transport, it's very far away the center, and Uber it's very expensive to just I don't know, go to the center and come back and pay 50-60 euros or more of Uber. I mean, I don't think it pays off. Um, so we stay most of the time in the area, or I sometimes maybe leave uh my kid with the nanny and I walk 20 minutes towards a market in another area of Amsterdam, but that's it. And it was really isolating, as I say. The summer was cloudy, it was pretty cold. The house was big, you know, literally it was like a family of five persons. I mean, they were a couple with three kids, and we were like me with my kid, and my kid was now, for example, he's three almost, and he's very social, he speaks a lot, he has friends, and I met so many parents and people because of him, so I don't feel so isolated anymore with him. Of course, I can feel, but different. But by the time that by that time in Amsterdam, he only was not even two years, so he was much less open, social, and so on. He was more like baby. So it was like me with my baby, you know, and that's it. No couple, no more kids, no more grown kids, like that's all of who we are, and the house somehow felt a bit um big, you know, like uh it was there was a lot of space there. It was like five rooms and we were only us sleeping in one room, and uh I had no friends to invite in that house. Um, you know, sometimes I I used to sablet um a duplex in Tel Aviv, you know, it was two um two floors when I was sharing with the owner there. Uh I mean in you know my prior mom times and I had a lot of friends, and I made like parties with my friends in the roof, and then but that period of my time was not a period of being social, a period of having people around the house felt big, you know what I mean what I mean? I mean there's no people being invited, there's no more adults in the house living with me. There's no even older kids that speak more with you and uh give you more company. There's like just one adult me with her small little boy, and that's it. And uh cloudy, cold, summer, um almost no neighbors, and if there were some very cold people or you know, not very open. So yeah, thanks for the to the aquaparks and amusement parks that were around the area because that were things that save us, and that I had a nanny, I could keep going to the gym for me that time. The gym was my sanctuary, every time I was facing chaos, lifting weights was saving me. And I was also recording the podcast. Although the time was to speak about my journey in Israel. Now it's to speak about that time of my life, so it's crazy. If we think it, if we think things like this, you know. And what else to mention or highlight? I was paying the last installment of my DNA case with the Israeli lawyer I had on that case. Uh the results were already out two months ago or even more, but um paying the last installments take a bit longer. I I closed uh what was remaining, and when we were going to leave the house by the end of the sabla time, um there was like the process of registration somehow. We were supposed to register Benjamin through that law firm. After some mails back and forth, I was just left ghosted, no one registered my kid ever from that firm. Um and we moved, of course, like the sablet arrived to its end, and we couldn't live in that house permanently if we had a termination date, and the Dutch family were coming back and it was their house. It was an option to stay any day longer there. So I found like a hotel with studios because I wouldn't want to go back to the same um chaotic dynamic of the arrival in Amsterdam with you know hotels in the center of Amsterdam that were all the time packed, so I have to check in, check out because the next day there's no um availability anymore, and they provide you with small um rooms and etc. etc. I wanted more space if possible, more outside of the city doesn't matter, but I need more space, more stability. So I just found um a really good chain of hotel that offers studios but in the middle of nowhere. You know, the house was in the outskirts, the house we suppled in the summer. But that hotel with the studio was completely in the middle of the now of nowhere, it was even more outside of Amsterdam, it was already another town, we can call it a town because it was there was absolutely nothing there, you know. It was a lot of contrast because there was like the hotel with the studios was like huge. There was people coming from business, leisure, etc. And it was like a good hotel. I I'm not gonna mention which with uh which hotel chain, but if I say the name, you will be like, oh my god, that's one of the best uh hotel chains in the world, and it is. We left this uh hotel, it was like abandoned, like there's nothing around us. Some companies they have like Dutch companies or other tech companies, they they some sort of had like their head the head uh quarters there, but it was like a ghost like city, like no one living around, you know, like just headquarters of companies. Um Forest, there was like a tennis, golf club, also the Dutch people, and you know, Europeans in the center north of Europe tend to practice much more sports than here in Spain. Like they they uh again, as I said before, they give much more importance and value more uh time in nature, uh exercise, uh being in touch with the sports, kids being in touch with nature and animals, these things, you know. Um not not to mention how they do it in in Switzerland. When I was in Switzerland, it was amazing. Like, you know, the people in Switzerland they have the culture that work is important, but it's not as you know, it's it's not half important of leisure, not because they only want to leisure, just because they they want to like enjoy life, you know. They know life is not just for work, and it's not a taboo thing, it's like the official uh mentality of Switzerland people. I'm saying this because I'm talking about how many like not uh Dutch people were like in doing sports, they had a lot of tennis, uh, courts, and and and golf clubs, and they were all around the country. It's a lot of it's also a country Netherlands with a lot of green spaces, you know, to profit for building these tennis cars and these spaces for sport. But it reminded me of to the Swiss people that I stayed in Switzerland for a month in 2022 and it was like winter time, and in the I don't know, midday Friday, everyone left their jobs, like literally, no one stayed at the office at 12:1 or 2 pm latest, and everyone packed their skis, and everyone was traveling to the mountain to ski, to go skiing. And I'm not joking, or they were like swimming in the lakes, even if it was freezing because it was January, you know. Or they were, I don't know, like they were leaving the office to have a lot of free time in the afternoon and do a lot of sports. So like it's a culture, and in Amsterdam they had uh a lot of culture of that. So you will find these tennis courts, some heads, uh head uh quarters of companies. We even had one um refugee house for um refugees, you know, immigrants, not like immigrants. Like I met once one woman that told me that she was coming from Gaza, and I was like, oh my god, I'm not gonna talk about Israel now, no, because they are gonna kill me here if they can. But she was like, Oh, we're gonna leave this place because it's horrible, we're gonna find a house. And it was like, maybe, oh my god, like I'm this like this woman from Gaza, like I don't have also a house, and I need to find my own house in this country. Like, I was really in despair. Now now it doesn't sound like, but I was really struggling so much. Um there was nothing we had to walk like 20 minutes for the first supermarket. Uh, it was like a small, teeny, tiny shopping mall, and also it was like a Jewish area. A lot of houses with medusas, uh, kids were in Kippah everywhere. It was like an Israeli restaurant in the shopping mall. The area was called Amstelbeen, and that's where we stayed after the house in the summer for another three weeks. And I was staying there, I was like, you know, sending the mails for registering my kid in the Mississippi interior as an Israeli station because we just proved he was Israeli. I mean, the fact that the biological dad was Israeli just uh implied that too, and it never happened. Like this went, yeah, this were happening and I was not receiving more mails. So I could feel like my god, this is not happening, like this is not working. Um they give me the option, you know, theoretically, that I can uh register my kid from abroad, like I was in the Netherlands, so in the Netherlands. But time was happening in the in the city of the act, actually, and nothing happened. So I was getting tired and I decided I might move to the city of the ack anyway uh already because I don't know, I feel like this is I'm getting stuck, you know, in this situation in the country. Like I'm I don't like this area, I'm very like um, you know, like in the middle of an hour literally. I prefer cities, and I'm supposed to do this registration, they are supposed to do this, so let's move to the ag. Maybe they will send me the official meeting day in the embassy so we can finally do this. I moved to the studio of the ag. I face there are more chaos because I'm already in a city, it's not the same as the outskirts of Amsterdam. There's no like I got a studio, but you know, it's like I stayed three days and then it was fully booked in the weekend, so I have to move out from that studio. So I had to know do more of like move from a place from one place to the other. Uh I was already tired from many months of chaos already. I was staying in hotels for a very long time already. I had chaos for a very long time already. So the city of Vyag was like I like the city, I don't know how I could like a place when I was so devastated, tired, exhausted, desperate, you know, to just function as a regular person and not having to solve a crisis every morning. And um I also faced the grief of not of finding out that I was not receiving more news from the legal office in Israel about registering my kids. It was like another vision that I had, something that I wish that I deeply care of, but it was not happening, that was not materializing. So I cried and I grieved a lot that um the fact that that step of registering my kid was not uh met, you know, like the the the step was not met, you know. The the thing that it was supposed to happen, like it was legally binding, like my kid is really, we should register, get the document. They they weren't doing that, and I was like, I don't understand this journey, I'm crying, I'm desperate, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, you know. Uh I became 31 years old, I was still in that situation. We were in the city of Yaak, of course, in a hotel. We didn't have a house yet, another house, because at the end I found finally another house for short-term supplet again in the Netherlands in Amsterdam. But it wasn't in between the house of the summer till the next house, which I think was like uh two months and a half of no housing again, you know, in the middle. So exhausted. Um, it was so long that I was spending all that I could have of money in hotels and survival, that I couldn't even spend money in clothes or self-care. I was like feeling like I was lacking space to build a life that was functional. I don't know, like I was lacking enough clothes, enough space, enough um I don't know. And in the middle of all of that, on top of all of that, uh the fact that my lawyers didn't register my kid, and I had to find new lawyers. And I even did a meeting with these new lawyers, and I was already like, you know, past like I was not staying stuck in registration or DNA, I was already asking for child support, was approaching the con fact that I was contacting those lawyers to tell them that I want to ask for child support as the main uh motive, not just registration. And when I they sent me the deal, the legal deal, the legal fees deal was like a crazy deal, a super expensive deal. They had to like they made me pay, like they intended to make me pay. I didn't I never hired them, to be honest, but $8,000 um dollars just for negotiation period that I know, process that I knew I wasn't it was not going to be fruitful with the that of my kids because he's never been cooperative, so of course he's not gonna negotiate a solution with me. So unless someone forces him to respond to their to his responsibilities, he's not um by his free will, he's not be he's not gonna be willing to respond just because he's only once, you know. And they sell me this uh process of negotiation as completely necessary when afterwards I with my current lawyer we override this process. Um so it was not necessary. I mean, if one lawyer can override this process, it means there's no complete necessity of anyone undergoing that process. So it felt like they wanted to really like uh like I'm a friar, you know, in the Israeli world means like someone from outside that doesn't know the laws and we can sell her, you know, expensive like a process as necessary and expensive, so she cannot skip to pay this, you know. So I didn't feel I didn't feel convinced by them, but I was like, oh my god, you know, I feel so stuck because I mean I cannot move forward to secure counsel for a child support claim that will secure more financial stability for me and my kids. And I'm also feeling trapped of lacking uh the housing um situation. Like I cannot secure a housing, I don't find a house in City of the Act. I try to find a houser. Because I because that is it, I genuinely like the city, very dynamic, very um with a lot like the institutions are there, but it also has a pitch, you know, city of the act has pitch, yes, in the um in the Netherlands, and we went and we swam and it was like uh warm enough, and it's very dynamic. I don't know, it had something that I liked. That city I liked more than Amsterdam. Uh so I didn't really want to leave the act, but I couldn't find housing there. There was no reliable ads in Facebook from real people posting um sablets of housing as there were as opposed to Amsterdam, that there were a lot of people that were reliable there. Uh so the house market became very difficult, impossible for me to find anything. What uh which at the end uh forced me, forced us me and my kid to go back to Amsterdam. Uh because in the end of my stay in the city of the AC, a landlord from Amsterdam wrote me. She actually replied a message that I sent her. I don't know when, like I think weeks ago I forgot about that message, and suddenly she saw it, and she was like, Oh sorry, I just saw your message. Things like this that happen a lot in life, you know what I mean? And she said, like, yes, uh, the the flat is available. She was sending me the post so I I can know which post it was, and I you know when you feel like oh my god, this might work, you know? And we were talking and she was open to negotiate and the flat looked nice and the area was very similar to our area of the house in in the summer that we had in the summer. The house literally had a park in front of the house, so I had a kit, and you know the house is in front of a park, you know, in front of a school. It made sense, so that made me actually like very, very fast take the train the next day from the Amsterdam. Go visit Fastboy because you know it's the house market, you know. If you've been house hunting, as I did, I I haunted it for everything, you know, childcare, housing, finances, legal counsel, everything. But if you did these two, you'll know like you can have a nice offer or possibility of a house one day and the next day it's gone. Like if someone goes faster than you and closes the deal with the landlord, you're out. You know what I mean? That's why I moved fast. Like I want to see it tomorrow because if I like it, I want the deal now. I mean, I was also desperate, you know. I don't like to admit that, but it's the truth. When you've been without uh stable housing for almost a year, you know, months and months and months with a kid and in another country and financial trauma like stability and crisis and troubles, and of course you are desperate for for some stability, some four walls that don't disappear in the next day, you know what I mean? That you can literally and fully stay and live there. So I move fast, and that's how I get the deal myself. Also, you will know if you are a house hunter or someone who did a lot of that. Housing doesn't come with just pay the rent. It how it comes with paid deposits and so on and so on. You need to have a lot of funds to secure housing to it's like you have to have a lot of funds to secure legal counsel for child support and these things because lawyers don't get paid after they work, they get paid before their work. So they usually need at least in my experience. Uh maybe I had a favorite uh treatment by my last lawyer, which I think completely I did, but at least 2,000 euros, which I don't think it's uh that much, but not everyone can you know pay in advance uh 2,000 euros to a lawyer just to get started with the job. I'm not saying it's the final total um price of the legal council, you know what I mean? Just as a start, as a start, as a as a first payment, you know. Same with housing. I mean, at least if it's a short housing as I did, you might not necessarily need so many deposits or months ahead of rent. But if it's long term, you'll know it's it's more money that you need to put in it. You know, it's like you need funds, funds, funds, you know, to pay in advance for all these things, to secure housing, level council, things that give you the stability that you are um aiming for, you know, stable stable housing, stable finances, whatever. So gladfully I could get those funds and secure that house. The landlord agreed in everything with Scars and close the deal. She even gave me the keys after I paid the deposit so I can get granted that I get access to the house. So that's a way to get more trust of it. And then I get another wait. Like I found the house, I closed the deal, paid the deposit, but I couldn't move the next day. And I had I think uh two weeks and a half of wait until I moved there. It sounds like time is relative, you know. When you say two weeks and a half, for someone that has a functional life, it's you know relatively low waiting time. If you're in survival, in the edge of yourself and in life every day, to have to survive two weeks and a half, it's like uh 17 or 18. 18 more days of cows, lacking housing, and um surviving basically your day a day with more cows, you know it's gonna happen. So it's not that like it's not that it's not like a short wait anymore, you know. Two weeks and a half of wait for me were like I was in my end, and more because I knew that I had a house waiting for me, I could feel more sick of the hotels, you know what I mean? When you don't know if you like if you don't have a deal of a house upcoming, you don't have a house you know you're gonna be moving in and you're living in hotels, you endure hotels better because you don't see any origin of that situation ending, or something better being a possibility for you. But since you find something better for you and you know it's for you already, and you're gonna move there, but you can still not move there and you cannot gap the time, you cannot, you know, override two weeks and a half and be already physically in the apartment. You need and you know that you need to go through those two weeks and a half of whatever it comes in your life until you move there, you cannot skip that weight. Uh for me it was like, oh my god. I even reached a point where I was counting like a countdown. I was waking up in the hotel and was like seven days until the home. So I can cope with another fucking day of that nightmare, you know. Uh also it was getting very cold in the Netherlands. Um I was traveling by a you know uh luggage I I took from June, it was like summer. Honestly, I didn't buy like a I didn't have like a coat of winter coat. I I was paying a lot of money in hotels and surviving. I how can I get a coat? And I don't know, it was like travel, no? So without a ha a house, uh you know, you feel that you are all the time in the street, you don't have a space in the hotel, it's like a small room. Where can you be warm enough with enough space and relax? There's no nowhere, you know. You need to be out in a coffee place that's warm or in your room or in the street with the cold, and it gets more difficult to be homeless somehow without that, um without that uh full house or or you know home when like the weather outside in the streets is getting tougher and tougher and you get more worried. Imagine like it starts you know snowing or whatever. How can you cope with housing uncertainty with those conditions? I mean you cannot even be in the streets and you cannot even do anything outside of uh like you really start valuing so much a space that's warm, that's your home, that you can woke up with a coffee and slow morning, you know, and it's cold outside, but you don't have to get out. So, yeah, it's like I was counting down seven days for the house, six days, five days, and I was even touching the keys. I mean, like, oh my god, you know, I I can't I was picturing myself so much entering into that door and uh settling there, even if it was a month and a half of a stay, again, short period, not like half a year, or my housing uh problem is solved forever. I mean, it was just like a small bridge of relief. But for us, of course, after so much cows, even 30 days, 40 days when you've been without house for so long, it's like paradise, you know, it's like complete relief. So I was picturing myself again, like opening that door with a key and leaving my things and just living there. Five days to go, four days to go, you know. The closer we were getting to the checking into the house was like the worst was the day in that hotel. I was like, I cannot take it anymore, I cannot take it anymore, I cannot take it anymore, I don't have clothes, my you know, self-care products, I'm running out of self-care products. I am you know sick of eating from deliveries. I'm sick of my living room being the lobby of hotel where you know literally thousands of people cross over the week, if not the day, with their luggages, checking in and checking out, coming from the airport, living, and they are not in their house, they have their houses, and we are here as if this is our only house. So sick of the situation. Trying to see by all means how I can secure legal counsel to improve uh my financial situation. Um, I don't know, like so worried about lack of stability of important things and and counting down, you know, like three days, two days. And the day that moving to that house arrived was like the landlord was leaving the country and she was traveling very early in the morning, like at 5 a.m. And I remember my kid was also waking up, wake up very early, like 5 or 6 a.m. And we were staying in the room, and there was a moment, you know, in my head, in my mind that crossed me that the question of why are we still in the room? Even if check out is until 12. Do we need to even spend another hour in a hotel when we already have access to the house? Because the landlord is out. She already told me I can move in as early as 6, whatever a.m. in the in the morning. Because she's not there anymore. It's you know, the the start of our rental is starting, you know, it's it's it's I have the keys, the address. We only need an Uber to, you know, my stuff, of course, everything was packed. So let's take our stuff, our luggage, store and everything, you know, order an Uber, check out from the hotel, order the Uber. Get into the house, you know, with the keys open and settled. I was like, yes, let's let's do it, you know. So I said to my kid, let's go, you know, no need to chill in the room or whatever, or stay in the bed. Like, let's go to the house, come on, you know. Um at least wow, and um and yeah, and we went. Um you know, when I was younger without this crazy situation, I used to love traveling and my taking off in life, so to ha so to say, was the day I had uh not the housing check-in, but um an airport check-in, you know what I mean? The day I was traveling. I was going to the airport to take a flight and go somewhere else. How much life has to traumatize us and how much we have to endure and things change for us. So we instead of aiming and desiring and wait for the day that we check in in the airport, our stuff, and leave to another country for adventures. We are waiting for the day we get the check-in into a house that's for us with proper structure and comfort and comfort with our kids to rest and to live with functionality and without the chaos and crisis of hotels. And I was like, wow, this is such a huge shift in my life. I just realized at that moment that that thing happened to me. I was a bit shocked, but I was like, okay, I mean, for whichever reason is it is what it is, and uh, when we arrived at the house, I was I think I was as happy as when I used to be this traveler woman non-stop that was checking in her luggage into the airline in the airport and finally, you know, taking off somewhere uh exotic or uh remote or starting a new adventure. You know. I was really actually happy, really, really happy to leave my staff. The house, it was like a landlord, uh woman from the Netherlands that bought it and just renovated everything to make it Airbnb after us. And we just to be honest, like it was the we were the first people to use that house. It was all new. The kitchen was new, decoration, everything was new. Uh just the sofa was old, but the TV, like everything was new. It was recently bought and everything worked perfectly. Uh you know, that houses again. Uh the house in the summer, that other house we we got, it was like end of October already. Uh very well equipped, very modern. I don't know, like uh the quality, you know, there was like a quality there. Um we got a roof, uh uh a yard, not a roof, sorry, uh a yard back in the house, uh a backyard. And we didn't have two floors this time, but it was pretty uh pretty big and very nice and very modern. And uh I don't know what else to say to be honest. We just started to like and enjoy so much hanging to the sofa and do nothing, you know what I mean? It was like hot with a lot of heating. Um we were in our space, it was nice. I I felt completely home. It was not just a place we ran, but okay. No, no, it was like a really cozy uh house, and I enjoy every bit of it, you know, every corner, and and my kids too, and we enjoyed being inside, and we left, of course, to the park and do some things, but I couldn't I don't know, my tolerance to be in the street was very low because we didn't have a place for a very long time. So I may be in the park for a while or around the street, and we'll think like, why am I outside when I have a house? Let's go to our house, right? Let's go to our home. So, of course, you appreciate and value more things when you didn't have it for a very long time. So that's what we did in that period. Um, and you know, it also was the start of the winter, so it makes sense that you want to be more inside. Um, but it was not just because it was a winter, to be honest, it was more because of chaos and lack of housing and nervous system also dysregulated of so much uh crisis survival constantly. So, you know, basic things, but not as obvious to have in your daily life as waking up without the need of checkout, without the worry of how much of the night is gonna be tomorrow or when I'm gonna where I'm gonna go. I just stay in the same space. It's for me, it's for us, it's for my kid and I. And having you know your own coffee machine that was an amazing coffee machine, it made like Latic cappuccino, everything, you know. Uh made your own, I don't know, X shakes, whatever you enjoy, you know, your protein, whatever. I even put like songs in there was like um speakers, or you know, with Bluetooth I put like a relaxing song, some scent, uh smells, you know. The environment is yours and you make it yours, and you feel like relaxed and you start your day with relaxing vibes slowly, and you put some you know cartoons in the TV for your kid, and you don't worry much, you know. It's like um you restore yourself after so much survival. And that's what I want to say. And regarding to the to the sentence of God uh always provides, that's something I also saw. Um it wasn't steal of the act again, very you know, extreme exhaustion, survival, worried about the tomorrow, you know what's tomorrow gonna bring, if survival, you know, if we're gonna survive. And then I saw this sentence of God always provides as a way to remind me, God's with you, and will provide for you tomorrow, you know, even if you don't think so now, even if you're worried now. And I think that's how I kept surviving all this crazy experience and moments of my life in the Netherlands, you know, because God kept being by my side and he kept providing for us enough mana, you know, in all the senses, so we can keep having a decent roof, even if it's a hotel, or sometimes, uh luckily enough, uh shorts, uh housing supplet, and enough food, and you know, sometimes some extra clothes, some extra self-care, anani, things like this, paying legal bills, whatever it comes around, and that's it, you know, about the the lawyers in Israel, the first deal. I don't like it. I also explained in my legal series recently about these experiences I went through for the child support claim. So I never hired them, but I didn't give up about finding someone that represents me and to finally get that support. The second liar I found, I hired him in that house. I was doing the first meetings, talking with him through WhatsApp, and I even prepared my financials so to know how much I have to ask in the court. But once we because after we left the supplet in in Amsterdam, that was our end of the period there, there was so much cause I didn't want to stay longer. We left and we came back to Spain. Once back to Spain, the lawyer did put much problems for claiming because to file the claim because I just moved. You know, I told him I was living in the Netherlands and suddenly I was living in Spain, and it's like something normal that can happen for a circumstance like mine. I mean, at least I didn't lie it, you know. I told him like where I was before and where I am now, and I because I just moved, you know, I can't do this, you know. This is my life. And he went like, oh no, no, you know, we have to have very clear where you are raising the kid, you cannot raise him in two countries, no, or something like this. And it's like, why not? I mean, there was a lot of friction with that, and I didn't like him. Like, I didn't like the fact that he's not claiming and that I or I, you know, find the rental agreement in Spain, or I cannot claim self-support. And it was like very unfair, no, because I went through so much instability that he was through so much housing instability that he was to ask me to suddenly you know solve your housing crisis that was caused because of the father not also not paying nor providing anything for the kid. You know? So uh I fired him and uh like very happy enough I found what I was looking for, you know, the right counselor for me and my kid. And that's how I can uh close up this part saying then this makes me turn my personal exile into institutional change. You know, because I went back to Spain and I found this partnership. The lawyer was not just it's not just a lawyer, it's just like a partner, someone that gets me, that sees me, that understands the circumstances, that um thinks different than most lawyers also in Israel. And whereas I'm still in exile because I don't went back to Israel yet, I'm still in deportation from 2025 to January 2025. Um the aim to change the Israeli legal family framework and system is the core vision of you know of creating this, it's one of the of the core visions of the claim too. And and so we can create a legal person for the non-Jews in Israel, and that's something that we are working with with this claim, with this lawyer. So it means like I am still exile, but I'm not using exile to complain, or I'm not using exile to just wait passively that something will change uh with my situation or with Israel. But I am using it as a place where even if I'm not in Israel, I'm not allowed to go there now, I'm not allowed to be part of the society now, and still get to get to have a voice and representation and and and a thing to claim into the system uh through my lawyer. And I'm not just claiming for support for my rights, the kids' rights, but the way that I'm doing it, based on how the system is being designed in that country, it's uh really a uh like it's a way, it's it's it's a way to push the system for deciding about something that's maybe uncomfortable for them, and you know, depending on what they decide and how things unfold, the probability and potential for my case as a non-Jewish mother with a kid from there in a situation like us, that is crazy and very uncommon to create a precedent in the nation for my more non-Jewish parents or mothers, or even non-related to family, but non-Jews that want to live in Israel. It is there, you know. The potential is very clearly there. Because by winning this case, I think I'm not only getting child support, which of course is pretty important for me, make it, but I think the lawyer has also a vision of entrepreneurship, legal entrepreneurship, making person. It's something she also seeks in her uh legal uh firm ambition and goals professionally to you know challenge the system and break a precedent, you know, and and achieving something for us, for Mekit and I, that's a solution that can finally be given for many other people that are left behind in the system in Israel because they don't belong, uh as perhaps the system has been designed there. So that's the main take, you know. I can be exiled, but I'm not defeated. I think that's the way I will close this chapter, this episode, and again, uh very grateful that you are here listening to all these stories. That that means a lot for me. Thank you for listening. And do not forget to share it with uh to share the episode with friends or family of people that can get hopeful that they can survive whatever they are going through right now. If I could survive what I would survive in the Netherlands, and see you in the next episode.