Assimilation and Driving

How long can you live in a place before it's starts to affect your personality?

It's been over two years that I've lived in Israel and only now do I find myself morphing into an Israeli. It's not that I actively tried not to before, just that I never found myself intensely affected by the difference in culture one way or another. but how strange that I should begin to mimic exactly what irritates me the most.

Simultaneously to raging vociferously (inside my car of course, with the windows tightly shut and sound muffled) about the Israeli need to beep when the traffic light turns orange, or of driving too fast or compulsively needing to change lanes to fill any available gap and get to one's destination that much faster, I drive the exact same way. And the thought of driving any other way makes me rage even more.

Thankfully, I still believe in the sanctity of indicating, or as the Americanized Israeli's put it, 'putting on de blinkerrr', a lost skill that has nearly disappeared from the Israeli road. My parking is also faultless, though I try not to read too much into my obsessive need to stay within the lines. But I wonder how long it will be before I too decide to park on a slant, taking up two bays and sticking my vehicular rear-end into the lot, and before my 'blinkerr' turns off, once, and for all.