As per the request of my mother and one of my teammates on BomBARDment, I have reinstated the use of my Israel blog. This time, however, I'm returning on a trip that is turning out to be half vacation half work. I'm doing research for my senior project at Bard on Ultimate Peace, an organization whose mission is to build bonds of friendship through Ultimate Frisbee, especially between kids in conflict zones. It's a pretty sweet and interesting idea, and this month, I'm going to be traveling with volunteer coaches to each of 7 communities, some in the West Bank, some in Israel, to participate, observe, take notes, and hopefully return to interview some of the kids and coaches.
It amazes me that I have yet to be in Israel for a full day, and yet I feel like I've been here for a week. It seems like this entry resembles the first entry of this blog, because what I'm about to recount was a pretty hellish flight experience, not unlike my trip from EWR to Heathrow and from Heathrow to TLV. Let's rewind quickly to January 3rd at around 5:30 pm. I'd just gotten back from seeing The Tempest at Drew (which by the way was great) and I wanted to check in online. As I was putting in my information, I noticed that my flight was recorded as being delayed. No, it wasn't just delayed, it was pushed back 7 hours and 10 minutes from 10:50 pm to 6:00 am the next morning. I was now scheduled to arrive at 11:20 pm. Great. Just what I need, another long shitty flight to Israel. I kept tabs on the progress of my flight and low and behold, it stayed the same. To add on to that, when I called Continental Customer service the last time, the southern man I spoke to informed me that Terminal C was on lock down and everyone had to be evacuated and go back through security. So not only was my plane delayed because they were "switching equipment"-- what they really mean is they switched our plane and made us wait more-- but the Terminal was craziness. Luckily I only live 10 minutes away from the airport, so I got there around 2:15 am. For a 6:00 am flight. The kiosk, I was informed, wasn't supposed to open until 3:30 am. Keeps getting better. However, they opened it just for the Tel Aviv flight and about twenty minutes later I was sitting outside of the security zone of gate C-138. Long story short, the flight got moved back again to about 7:50 am take off time. Apparently there's a curfew at Tel Aviv that shuts off any planes from landing between 1 and 3 am. Something about needing to process the people from international flights who arrive before then. Well, people jumped to conclusions with this informationg, got angry, mob around the desk, people yelling, and the captain eventually came out and clarified that this meant we were going to try to land BEFORE 1 am, around 12:30 am. He told everyone "no one is disseminating false information." I just sat there chuckling to myself.
The plane boarded and I had a great seat, 18A, window and close to the exit of the plane so I wouldn't have to wait to get off when it landed. I walk up to my seat and there's someone in it. "I think we've been double booked." Girl sitting next to person in my seat, "Oh, actually I booked my ticket late and wanted to sit with my boyfriend, would you mind trading seats?" "I mean... I guess. It's a long flight, you two should be near each other." "Are you sure?" "Yeah... it's fine" (while thinking in my head just great). "Where's your seat" "Oh, it's in the back, 44f"
44f was the second to the last row in the middle. ARG. Last time I do that. I ended up switching to the row next to me to a window seat. We had to keep the blinds shut most of the time but it was still worth it.
When I got in, it was 1:20 am. Passport control lines were fine but of course I got stuck in the one that had a broken computer. I probably stood there for fifteen minutes with one person in front of me without moving. Finally moved, my bags came off the conveyor belt within two minutes, which was fantastic. I found a sheirut and I made it to Rehavia, to Aliza's apartment by 3:30 am. Fell asleep at 4, woke up at 8:40 am to start my day. And that will be a story for tomorrow.
PHEW
I'm here. I'm excited. Get excited
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