One long day...

And so it began. After a long wait, my trip to Israel was a reality. It began on a cloudy and rainy day in Detroit. In our new Prius I drove through the rain and construction and got to the airport just in the nick of time. Due to the rain, the flight after mine to New York was cancelled, but very luckily mine was not. We actually made it to New York in record time. Well, atleast record time for me flying on that route, and I have flown it a few times in the past 12 months. We got to NYC in 1 hour and 8 minutes, pretty stellar flying, if I must say so myself. A bumpy ride from the weather to start off but then we cruised our way there with no delays. Then, it was off to JFK, and I made the connection easily. The bus listed it would take an hour to get there, and I knew that it was probably impossible to drive that slow to make it take an hour. As expected, it was about a 20 minute ride once we left the airport.

Well, I got to JFK, and I was one of the first 10 people in line, pretty nice. I had to wait about a 1/2 hour for check in to start, and then I went through the typical security screening for going to Israel.
Most hilarious question asked:
Agent/Mossad guy: When was the last time you were in Israel?
Me: Yeshiva, last year.
Agent: Oh, what did you learn there?
Me: Tanach, Gemara, Halacha
Agent: Can you tell me the five books of the Torah?
Yeah, I told him. But still, pretty funny.

Since I had plenty of time once check in was finally done, which by the way probably took me close to an hour because of their various computer problems, I headed down to checkout the concourse. I walked the length of it and couldn't really find a spot to sit. At the way end I found some tables and sat down. Just for fun, I decided to turn on my laptop and check to see if there was free wifi, which I highly doubted. What I didn't know was that right above me were the Business Class Airline Lounges, so about 10 networks showed up. Most were password protected, but then I saw the one for Northwest Airlines. They owe it to me, I'm a Detroiter. So I "borrowed" wifi from the World Club for an hour, no harm done. Security was a breeze, as was boarding, which seemed to continue forever.

My plane was not owned by Israir. According to a flight attendant (this may or not be a reliable source) Israir oversells alot and enough to make 2 flights so they rent this plane frequently.
After a small delay and a really long time taxiing out to the runway, we finally left JFK a little over an hour late. The flight was 10 1/2 hours. Time for some decent movies, I hoped. Well, I was wrong, very wrong. All 5 movies were terrible. Started with Harry Potter 4, then an older movie that takes place in Detroit (they got it all wrong...) called The Man, followed by Monster-in-Law, and 2 other movies I can't remember their names right now, but trust me, they were bad.

So, I never liked the people that daven on the planes. I've flown El Al a few times, and it always happens. When the people gather together at the front, its as close to a chillul hashem as they can get, except that everyone is Jewish, in my opinion. People daven loudly, block the aisles, and sometimes the movie screens, whatever I just don't like it. I still took part, and after Maariv over the Atlantic a nice boy who just graduated MTA (YU's high school) started talking to me. We stood in the same place for about 10 minutes chatting and then comes hilarious moment #2. The older guy behind us says "quietly" to his wife, "I guess these guys just didn't pay enough for a seat." Well, the plane was full, but c'mon, honestly, that's just not safe. So, I ended the conversation, I'm not sure if the kid heard, and I headed back to my seat.

The flight attendants were hilarious. On a real Israir flight, I heard they make dumb & corny jokes the whole time, I can only look forward to my return flight. On this flight, they had 2 genuine Israir flight attendants. The guy and the girl both wore polo shirts and jeans (well she had a jean mini skirt, whatever same thing) as compared to traditional flight attendant garb, it was quitter different. There were then a few genuine non-Israeli flight attendants, one American who spoke "American Hebrew" and 2 Israelis working for them. A very interesting mix of Israeli attitude and normal decent flight attendants.

The most interesting part of my day was my nearly 2.5 hour sherut ride through every part of Jerusalem possible. I was #9 of 10 dropped off, always wonderful. On the way I talked to this non-Jewish guy from Nova Scotia. Hold on, I'll let that sink in, yes there are people in Nova Scotia apparently. He was the typical non-Jewish tourist and I along with the guy next to me pointed out stuff along the way and in Jerusalem as he was very interested. He asked a lot of questions. After an overly long tour of Jerusalem, I got to my Yeshiva and well, that's where I still am. I saw my good friend from home Ian Robinson who has been in Israel already for over a month (read his blog, its pretty funny). Now I am going to try and sleep, I have a semi-weird South African roommate for the next week, hopefully it will work out alright. I hope I have successful killed off most of the jetlag by staying up til 10 PM here in Israel. Yes, I have slept 2 hrs in the past 32! Not good. But, I should be fine and hopefully un jetlagged tomorrow morning.

Wow, this was a really long post. I even made an outline half way through, so I wouldn't forget the funny parts I wanted to include. I hope I remembered everything and I will put it in later if I forgot something, and I promise my next ones wont be this long!