Today I celebrate my fourth aliyahversary—the anniversary of the day I officially traded winter boots for Naot, salted icy sidewalks for Mediterranean sunsets, Starbucks for “ice café,” davening facing east for davening at the Kotel, and a Canadian wind chill of -4°F for a sticky 90°F.

Time, which in Israel is measured in military hours, has absolutely flown by. Missiles, drones and bomb shelters aside, life here is wonderful.

But if I am to be honest, I sometimes feel as though I’ve wandered into the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.

Not “The Cat in the Hat.” Not “Hop on Pop.”

“There’s a Wocket in My Pocket.”

Like the Geeling on the ceiling and the Jertain behind the curtain, my life in Israel thus far has been colored by curiosities of a different kind.

There are the neighbors’ clucking chickens that interrupt an otherwise peaceful afternoon. The women who sit outside hair salons with full heads of foil. The pharmacist probing a little too deeply into why I need the prescription I just ordered. The passenger facing me on the train who props her bare feet on the seat beside me. The fellow shopper who scolds me for not using the 10-item-checkout aisle even though I am over by seven items. The cashier sporting a perma-scowl who suggests I buy another brand of rice because it’s easier to cook.

That’s the kind of land I live in.

There are the uniquely Israeli mysteries: building addresses that seem to have been assigned by lottery. Dates written day/month/year instead of month/day/year, leading me to arrive punctually for appointments that took place a month earlier. A local Y called “The Countrrrrry” that bears zero resemblance to an actual country club. Pizza topped with corn and served on cardboard slabs. Non-refrigerated eggs. Jeans at weddings. Baking ingredients packaged in dollhouse-sized quantities. Pistachio-flavored desserts that have somehow become a national obsession.

There are also the creatures: cockroaches, lizards, slugs and bats, none of which appeared in the aliyah brochures.

Some days, these are the moments that make me question my sanity.

And yet, much of life here feels equally Seussian in the best possible way.

There is the brilliant lemon tree beside our house that has inspired dozens of lemon-based dishes and enables me to perform the mitzvot hatluyot ba’aretz of terumot and ma’asrot dozens of times.The magnificent grapevines growing in our backyard. The ability to visit Jerusalem any time I want or hop over to the beach on a whim. The cringey but memorable commercials whose jingles I somehow know by heart. The Jewish-themed holiday displays and kosher food at Ikea. The ubiquitousness of pomegranates and passion fruit, which, in my past life, were reserved for an annual shehecheyanu. The tiny pedestrian mall—about a two-minute walk from end to end—that serves as our town’s entire downtown core.

The Muslim shopkeepers who wish me Shabbat Shalom every Friday. Jews of all hashkafot who exchange Shabbat Shalom wishes on Saturday.

There are the strangers who help carry strollers up bus steps and load luggage on to trains. The inadvertent town mascot, dressed head-to-toe in fluorescent yellow, who always greets me with a smile and asks about my well-being. The flamboyant woman at shul who cooks meals for soldiers every week.

Then there was Mrs. Herskowitz, who happened to be sitting at a nearby restaurant table during my very first week in Israel.

An American who had made aliyah over two decades earlier, she overheard my phone conversation in which I mentioned that I was a new olah and, after apologizing for eavesdropping, immediately invited me for Shabbat.

I never took her up on the offer, but her number remains in my phone to this day, a reminder of the generosity and warmth that are woven into the fabric of this country.

The feeling of belonging. Of brotherhood and sisterhood. Of knowing you are never alone. Of caring deeply, even after cursing one another out at a traffic light.

The things that once made me shake my head are now often the very things that make me smile.

Somewhere along the way, amid the quirks, surprises and frustrations, Israel stopped feeling like the place I had moved to and became home in the most deliberate and meaningful sense of the word.

Yes, that’s the kind of land I live in.

And I hope I never leave it.

Aviva Engel is an award-winning freelance journalist, proudly living in Zichron Yaakov, Israel.