Israel: Day One

February 17, 2008

Okay so this starts my dad and my journey to Israel. During the ride to the airport I soon found out that the weather isn’t going to be the sunny sixty degrees he told me it’d be, it’s going to be much colder. In fact Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have gotten snow! Oh well, it’s a good think he packed an extra fleece and I forgot shorts!

So right now i”m writing this portion on the plane from JFK to Madrid, we have a two hour lay over there. My dad and I are seated separately, both in our own isle about ten rows apart. Everything has gone fine today, everything is packed and the airport was a breeze… Except…

My dad takes a little longer at security check points because he has a pacemaker– meaning he cannot go through metal detectors. Usually this isn’t much of a problem, that is until we met Bertha. Now I’ve chosen to name our friend “Bertha” partially because phonetically it sounds brutish and partially out of boredom on the flight. Now our friend Bertha is a seventy year old woman standing behind us in line for the metal detectors. She starts to become impatient and starts nudging my dad and me, hovering just a little too close. We both are about to go through the metal detectors just taking our shoes off at the last minute and filling those stupid gray bins when Bertha pushes a little too far. The good news is that Bertha is momentarily slowed down by her husband, “Be patient honey..” The bad news is that she picked right back up again about five seconds later. We know who wears the pants in that relationship! “I don’t have to wait,” said Bertha. Well she didn’t expect this: “Everyone has to wait. Listen to your husband or get out of line,” yup, Mel hit his boiling point.

Anyways this flight is about seven hours long, only six more to go. I’m going to start reading my book, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. It’s funny, I read this book a few years ago and hated it, now I love it!.

….Ten minutes later: okay so they’ve just started to serve dinner on our flight. Now there are people in front of me and behind me, all eating. The problem here? I’m not eating! It seems that I’m the only row they’ve skipped. To make matters worse the stewardist elbowed me while serving the people BEHIND me! And to add insult to injury now they are passing out extra dinner rolls. When I did try to ask for some food and a coke she completely blew me off. I’ll give them about five more minutes before I start cooking the cow myself.

Ok so impatient Aaron got his beef and rice, it tasted wonderful. THere’s only about another hour left in the flight. So far the plane ride has been okay. There was a great movie, originally in Spanish, but I watched the English dubbed version. It was called “Life of Sissou.” I really liked it. I’m still crazy excited for Israel! The photography is going to be amazing. During the car ride to JFK my dad was telling me the only place we may have trouble is at the outdoor markets. Apparently since many vendors sell without paying taxes, theyr’e not too fond of cameras. He told me that my cousin Netta had a vendor “offer” to not break her camera if she left right away. He told Netta, “I’m sure if anyone made aaron that offer he’d raise it with, ‘how about you don’t touch my camera and I don’t break your face?’”. It’s funny just how well my dad knows me!

So now we are on our lay over in Madrid. The airport is neat, it’s architecturally very interesting with bent wood, exposed piping, tons of lights and color everywhere. Even more interesting is our friend Bella from Belarus. She’s lived all over the world. Truly a character!

As I write this now it’s about twenty to midnight and we’ve just gotten back from a wonderful dinner and a rendez-vous with Channah, Avraham, and Dafna. Between the failing GPS, crazy Israeli drivers, and lack of sleep my nerves are shot right now. Pictures are below, I’ll try to give them worthy captions. Stay tuned, I’ll be updating again tomorrow.

-Aaron Snyder