The Trip to Israel

Tuesday morning we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get ready for our trip to Israel.  We hadn't had much sleep the night before and we ate nothing until right before we left.  We took the train to the airport checked in our bags and made it through security with little trouble (except for finding the tiny Air-Canada line, haha).  Our flight was a little delayed so I was able to call every single one of my siblings including my parents before the plane took off.  I even talked to Matthew!

I told everyone that I had a 20-hour flight sandwiched in between two 3-hour flights, but we realized later that we had not accounted for the time change.  So it was really a 9 hour flight, which wasn't so bad.  We flew from Minneapolis, to Toronto, to Istanbul, then Israel.  I had to pick up a Canadian chocolate bar, while in my country of birth. 

The flight from Toronto to Istanbul, Turkey was the longest one.  The plane was huge with three rows of three all the way down the plane.  I was very much preoccupied with staring at the unique faces, and listening to all the different languages being spoken.  People are just beautiful to me, and it makes me feel most alive when discovering new cultures. 

They served us two full meals--dinner and breakfast.  Everything \was beautifully packaged and made me feel like I was eating a gourmet lunchable for adults.  They served chicken and potatoes, with a side of shrimp on some lettuce with a weird tartar sauce, cold green beans marinated in tomatoes and olive oil (yum), and a super-sweet cheesecake.  Even the silverware package had a slice of cheese wrapped up in it with butter, moist towelettes, and salt and pepper.  It also came with this package of lemon and olive oil, which I doused all over my salad with salt and pepper.  We were so exhausted, but we couldn't sleep for more than hour intervals.  Then suddenly it was light out and they were serving breakfast: strangely textured egg mixture with a par-boiled tomato, cheese and a fruit cup!  My sleep-deprived stomach wasn't sure about the eggs.  (I'm weird about eggs in the morning).

On the way down, we were fascinated by the mottled farm landscape.  In the states you have mostly squares.  Here it was all kinds of shapes.

We transferred in Istanbul quickly since our flight had been delayed.  Security for getting on the plane to Israel was insane (though understandable and appreciated).  There were at least seven people posted checking passports and boarding passes.  Dustin and I had printed off our tickets at home, so one girl stamped the paper, another guy ripped off the scan bar and kept the paper, the third girl was confused since the stamp wasn't on my ripped off corner of a scan bar.  She had to give it to another security guard who found the other half of the paper and matched it up.  But he wasn't sure if he had the right paper, so he asked for my passport again.  All the while, the other guy who ripped the paper was saying, "It's okay, it was stamped.  It's okay."  After staring for quite some time, he said, "okay." and handed it back to me.

We piled in a bus and got on the final plane.  I felt so tired.  We watched a red-haired rabbi vent his frustration to a stewartist, saying  that his family of six had been given seats too far apart because of flight confusion.  We were served another dinner a la Turkish Airlines.  This one was chicken with masala spices, red lentil patties, cooked eggplant (marinated like the green beans), another salad with the yummy olive-oil/lemon mixture, and chocolate mousse.  It was all cold.  The eggplant made me a little queasy, not because it tasted bad, but I think I might be allergic or something.  We also tried a turkish drink called "ayran", which to our dismay was milk with salt.  I'm too used to milk drinks being sweet.  That caught me off guard.

We got off the plane and entered customs.  We chatted with a funny couple from Brooklyn, New York, the husband looked like he was a rabbi of some sort.  Of course we were surrounded by rabbi-looking men (with the curls and the hats… I'll learn what all those thing are called soon). 

The passport agent asked us many questions.  We could barely hear him so we kept looking at each other confused.  When we told him we were staying for three months, he kept asking why.  Apparently visiting friends and touring Israel seemed "suspicious".  He mentioned something about another suspicious situation… He wasn't being forthright about it, but we got the idea that he thought we had mal-intent based on something that happened recently with other people staying for three months.  He kept saying, "I know you're not here to work, so why the three months?"  We just kept saying, "Our summer vacation is three months long…"

So he sent us to the director of internal affairs (or some title involving internal security).  We sat feeling pretty terrible because we thought they might not let us in.  After  a minute or so, the agent who questioned us earlier came in, handed our passports to the internal affairs head, and he asked Dustin to come in.  He asked the standard questions and let him go.  They didn't question me, they just gave us both out passports with 3-month visas in them. 

Then the agent came to us and said "I apologize for the confusion, I thought you might be involved with something, and we had to check on it, but we were wrong.  It's nothing personal.  I apologize."  He reached out to shake my hand.  I shook it and smiled, "It's alright."  As we walked out he said, "A little advice, when coming to Israel, or any country, just tell us where you are going and why right at the start."  He may have mistaken our hardness of hearing for suspicious behavior.

What stuck out to me was that he apologized.  Being a Canadian in The US, and traveling across the border many times in my life, I have never encountered a nice border patrol, Canadian or American.  I have even been mistreated at times.  I understand border patrol has to act tough because they are enforcers, but there is a limit, and most people never treat you nicely, and they never apologize when they've put you through heart-attack inducing stress.  I was very shocked by this man's gesture of humility, and I very much appreciated it.

We drove home in the dark, frayed nerves and all, in a shuttle bus called a "sherut" (which happens to be a homonym for bathroom in Hebrew, so I was a little apprehensive to ask for a bathroom in the street… I had to ask a lady at the desk to make sure I had the right word…).  I had fun trying to decipher the Hebrew that the driver was speaking to various passengers.  I know very little, and I got excited when I understood.  

So we haven't really seen Israel yet; just the night lights that make it resemble any other city.  Although in Jerusalem, what we could see of the architecture was beautiful.  Marj and Dave greeted us like we were their own son and daughter and showed us our room.  The apartment is fairly high up and we can see a view of the south of Jerusalem.  I can't wait to see it in the day time.  I'm sitting on the couch at 2am (6pm Minneapolis time) and I can't sleep.  Even after all this sleep deprivation…  You'd think I'd crash.  But alas, my time-zone prevails...  I was laying there in bed with my mind spinning.  So here I am getting all these thoughts out, hoping this will help me sleep.  I wanted to get all the details down. 

People are beautiful.  It truly brought me joy to see all the new faces and to get so many glimpses of foreign culture.  I am really excited to live here for the next three months.