My trip to Israel didn't start when I landed on Tuesday (May 8th). It started when I got to the gate at the airport. About 50% or more of the passengers on my flight were Orthodox Hassidic Jews. Not that I hadn't seen Hassidic Jews before, but I had never seen so many in one place. It was an interesting place to people watch. I noticed how quite the women were, compared to the men who all had questions and concerns for the Delta representatives at the desk. The men were all talking like they knew each other, however their wives and daughters did not. Eventually after about twenty minutes of people watching, a man came over the loud speaker. Just the same old stuff you hear before every flight; we will be boarding shortly, if you have infants or need extra time boarding please come forward... then I heard something very unusual. "If you have water or any other drink, please make sure you keep the receipt for boarding." What? I thought that was the whole point of buying a water after security, so that I could bring one on the plane? I didn't know I needed a receipt too! I usually throw out all my receipts, so I just chugged my water and threw it out. Still confused, I began to get in line for boarding.
When I got to the front of the line, I handed them my ticket and began to walk through two double doors, thinking it was, like any other plane, just an aisle to the jetway. But it was not the case, instead it was a small room with two rows security belts and a metal detector, the same as the first security everyone has to walk through. But everyone on this Delta flight to Israel had to go through these security measures again. I guess this made sense with the water bottle thing too, and why boarding started almost an hour and 30 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave. So we went through security again and finally boarded the plane. This was one of the biggest planes I had ever been on, it even had a second level, like something in a movie. Once everyone had boarded, which took a while, I settled in, buckled my seat belt, expecting we would be leaving soon. However, before we could leave there were a few little glitches. About 6 different men, all Orthodox Jews, had a problem with where they were sitting. Most of them just wanted to sit by their families, hoping to trade seats with Americans or other people traveling alone. One man refused to sit down because the seat next to his was occupied by a woman. The female flight attendant seemed very offended, and it was very hard to find a spot for him that was not near a woman, and where someone was willing to switch their seat for him. Finally someone moved, and he was happy. During this commotion, tons of other men began standing up, fixing their bags, or walking around to talk to friends and family. It turned out to be difficult to get anyone to sit down, they did not want to listen to direction, which became apparent throughout the rest of the flight as well. Finally, we were able to take off. When we had finished out assent, these men again began getting up and walking around, while the fasten seat belt sign was still on, and it was still unsafe to be up. I can't even tell you how many times they came over the loud speaker telling these people to sit down, as well as how many flight attendants came up to all of them and asked them to sit. This happened whenever the fasten seat belt sign was on, every time. The same things happened when they wished to serve dinner and breakfast. As part of their religious tradition, they must pray before every meal. However different people started to pray at different times, sometimes one man started as another finished. It took a long time for people to sit down again so the flight attendants could come through the aisles and serve the meals. It made for a very long flight, and for some very crabby flight attendants when ever I asked for more water, which was a lot.
Finally I head the words I had been waiting hours for, "we will be landing shortly." We landed at 2pm, or 7am in America, and I made my way to baggage claim, where I finally found other students from my group. From there we took a van, a cab, and a taxi to the Kibbutz where we would be staying. We checked in, settled in, and had an orientation meeting. At about 9pm, many of us decided to start our Israel experience that night. We took a large cab to Jerusalem to find a bar. We made our way down a narrow alley, not sure exactly where we were supposed to go, even with the directions from Aaron, our trip leaders son who lives in Israel. We found a small hole in the wall bar, probably a local place, because they looked shocked to see 15 young Americans walking into their pub. We drank, for me the first time legally, and began learning how to say things in Hebrew. We learned "toda" which means thank you, and "beera" which means beer, a very important one for us! Eventually we were joined by Aaron's commander from the army, who most of us call Commander. He took us to a more busy street with more bars. We found two different places that we decided would be "our" places for the next 5 weeks. I had the time of my life, and we all bonded so instantly it was almost unbelievable. We stayed out until 4am that night, even after flying all day and being jet lagged. The next day we were off to an archeological dig site...
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