A note to the you: If you have a limited amount of time, scroll all the way down and read the section titled "The Airport." That's not to say I don't recommend it all, but I just highly recommend that part... Enjoy!
Pre-Pesach and Pesach:
Over the past couple months I have had a ridiculously high
number of awesome experiences and adventures.
It all started on a cold Thursday morning in March, when I had the
pleasure of taking a taxi with my friend and madricha, Ronit Miller, at 3:30 am
to Ben Gurion Airport. No imagination
could have prepared for the character that picked us up. Imagine the most throaty smoker’s voice you’ve
ever heard and multiply it by four. Then
put it on a woman. “Boker Tov,” she
said. And we both threw our bags in the
trunk and got in the taxi to enjoy our most wonderful chauffer.
I had the pleasure of taking a couple hours of two different
planes to the beautiful island of Rhodes.
For those of you who don’t know, Rhodes is actually where some of my
family is from. And, it’s where the
tradition of my so treasured Ezra Bessaroth (synagogue) traditions come
from! And not only did I get to go to
Rhodes, but I actually met my family in the Rodos airport. What a cool moment it was to see them for the
first time in six months in the airport on the island where my family came
from. We spent a gorgeous four days
there, staying in a small “Pension” in the old city of Rhodes. The vibrant blue color of the ocean was
stunning, and the constant history around us was fascinating. We had a wonderful tour guide/taxi driver
named Nicolos, who had more information to share than any collection of books any
one person could ever own. My highlights
were seeing the old Jewish cemetery, the old synagogue, the donkey ride up to one
of the two acropolises (very Mamma Mia style), and the experience of
spending Shabbat together with my family in the old city of Rhodes. On the way from there to Israel, we had a 10ish
hour layover in Athens. Although I think
most of my family members will agree that it wasn’t the best 10 hours we’ve
ever spent together, it was definitely an adventure. We went to the Chabad Kosher restaurant, we
went to the first Olympic stadium- really cool!- we saw (with our eyes only)
the acropolis of Athens and the Parthenon, and we definitely walked around the
downtown area. Then, we made our way to
Israel where we’d spend Pesach together.
We landed at about midnight, and while my parents and
brother got in a cab to Jerusalem to go to our apartment I met up with some
very patient and awesome friends who had returned to Israel from Cyprus about
an hour earlier and we cabbed to our living campus together. I ended up spending the night there, and made
my way to Jerusalem in the morning to meet up with my family at our
apartment. What an incredible place it
was to stay. One of the best locations
possible- right off of Yafo street by the HaDavidka rakevet station, for those
of you who know the area- and a beautiful living space and view overlooking Jerusalem. This was the Monday morning before Pesach
started, so as soon as I got there we quickly shuffled out and towards the shuk
(marketplace) to make some purchases in preparation for Chag. It was fun to watch my parents and brother
try to figure out their way in such a hectic environment, especially because I had
gotten so good at that kind of navigation over the year. We had a good time with the shuk and the rest
of our Chag preparations, and we were lucky to have Adina Polack stay with us
for the first part of the holiday. It
was so great to spend the seder with my family, because I really missed our
customs and songs and it was so unique to be together in such a wonderful
apartment overlooking the holy city of Jerusalem.
On one of the middle days of the holiday we headed out early
after renting a car and made stops in modi’in (for some lunch), Zichron Ya’akov,
Akko, and Tiveria. The trip reminded me
of how much I love driving even though I couldn’t actually drive, and I really
loved how I had a sense of direction for the majority of the trip because I
have paid such attention to roads on any trips this year. It made me think about how lucky I am to have
had the amazing opportunities that I have over the course of this year, and how
unique my Israel experience has been. We
had a great day with all of that, and came home that night to get ready for
Shabbat the next morning. We had a great
Shabbat and last days of chag, and spent the day before my family left on an
incredibly informative and enjoyable tour of the Old City of Jerusalem and the
City of David. As we all packed our
things in preparation for my family’s departure, I realized that my pile of
things I got to take home with me was getting bigger and bigger- awesome! Free
stuff! When it was finally time for them
to head to the airport and me to go home, we filled a taxi to the absolute
brim. It’s a good thing one of my
favorite things to do is pack.
April:
The only awesome thing that I can remember about April is
that we finally graduated from Magen David Adom (the EMT volunteer training
program we’ve been taking all year) so the twenty of us were certified to
volunteer in ambulances. Unfortunately
for me there isn’t really enough time for me to volunteer at all, but I am
still really happy that I took the course because of the useful medical
information I gained. I guess there were
a couple other cool things in April such as Holocaust Remembrance Day,
Independence Day, and Memorial Day. I
also spent a couple weeks actually in school, which was weird to come back to
after having a month-long break for the Masa Leadership Summit and Pesach.
Mostly May:
The best part of April, though, was probably the last
day. Tuesday, April 30th was
the first day of our program’s week-long trip to the Northern part of
Israel. We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday hiking on various trails to or involving waterfalls, which was
gorgeous and heavenly. We also went on a
zip-line, visited a chocolate factory, went rafting down the Jordan River, and
spent a night in Tiveria. We slept at
this beautiful hotel which overlooked the Kineret, which is one of my favorite
bodies of water, and provided us with wonderful food. On Friday we rolled out and spent the day in
Tzfat. We saw the candle factory, a
glass-blowing museum/factory, and a place where Torah scrolls and texts for
mezuzot and tefillin are written. We
also had a lot of free time to walk around or hang out in the hotel rooms. We spent Shabbat there, and had a great
Shabbaton. On Friday night I went with
my Sephardic Rabbi, Rabbi Menaged, and a couple friends to this beautiful
Sephardic synagogue. On Shabbat morning
I woke up bright and early, just like the last time I was in Tzfat, and made it
to the Sephardic Ari Z”l’s synagogue for its start at 7:30. After, we all met back for Kiddush and lunch
a while afterwards. I decided to take a
short nap after lunch so that I could be awake for some classes we had
available later in the day, but somehow my one hour nap turned into a six hour
sleep… So I didn’t exactly make it to the classes. I did wake up in time for Seudah Shelishit,
Arvit, and Havdalah. We had a band play
for us for havdalah, and had a great time dancing around once Shabbat was
over. We made our way back home after that,
and I got to sleep at about 2:30.
The next morning there was an optional trip the K’nesset,
which I went on. So cool! We met with a member of K’nesset as well as
the J-Post leading correspondent (I think that was his title?), and got a tour
of building. I was surprised at how few
of us decided to go, but I guess that was likely due to the late time at which
we got home the night before. I then
spent a couple days in school, and on Thursday morning (May 9th)
returned, via taxi, to Ben Gurion International Airport. This time, with a new destination: Spain. My grandparents had been on vacation there
for about a week, and early this year offered to fly me over during their
trip. Luckily and thankfully we were
able to work it out, and amazingly the time had finally come. I first flew to Barcelona, then made my way
from there to Seville where I met my grandparents and our tour guide for the
day Moises. We spent our time with
Moises touring the old Jewish quarter of Sevilla, which was awesome. Similar to my experience in Rhodes, I was
amazed by how much knowledge our tour guide had and I was so appreciative that
I had the opportunity to learn from and meet him. Going into Spain I wasn’t exactly sure what I
was going to do for Kosher food, but Moises really helped me out. Apparently, every time he travels to America
or Israel and he flies back tens of kilos of Kosher food in order to combat those
difficulties in Spain. He kindly gave me
plenty of food for lunch that day and the next, and later returned with a
frozen Kosher chicken meal. SO amazing
of him!
My grandparents and I spent a couple of hours on Friday
driving South from Sevilla to Marabella/Malaga, where we spent Shabbat in a
beautiful Crown Resorts. I spent a lot
of time hanging out with my grandparents, sitting in the sun, and we even took
a great walk to the beach on Shabbat afternoon.
I was fascinated at how un-attractive the beach was, especially in
contrast to my expectation of a gorgeous white sand experience. For those who know Seattle, it was like the
beach at Alki. Super rocky and very cold
water. The difference between that side
of the Mediterranean and the side which one experiences on the beaches of Tel
Aviv is like the difference between any beach on the Washington Coast and
Hawaii… Definitely not what I was expecting.
We spent Sunday driving North to an hour outside of Valencia. It was literally 500 miles, and about nine
hours of car time. Although I was
impressed with my grandfather’s driving, I won’t hesitate to mention my constant
questions regarding allowing me to drive.
Sitting in the back seat I was actually experiencing pain in my heart because
of my desire to drive. I guess it’s good
that I’ll be home soon, because I have got to get myself back behind the wheel
of a moving vehicle! We spent the night
there, then made our way on Monday morning to Barcelona. When we got there we hung out at the hotel
for a little bit, then decided to take a double-decker bus tour of
Barcelona. I definitely loved it. Not only did I get to just relax and enjoy
touring the gorgeous city, but I got to get tan while doing it. Argue with that, I dare you! I made my way to the airport, and slept on
the plane from Barcelona to Tel Aviv. I
made it home by a little bit after 5, and managed to sneak into my room without
waking up my roommate before sleeping for a couple more hours.
When I woke up I had about two hours to finish getting ready
before our bus would be leaving towards Jerusalem for Shavuot. Before I left to Spain I had already packed
most of my things, but I had a couple things to finish up. We got to Jerusalem, and I spent the
afternoon hanging out with some friends and doing some work before Chag would
begin. Once it started, we had Arvit
then dinner. After, the all-night
learning began. First, I learned about
the first all-night learning on Shavuot with Rabbi Menaged. Then, we all had a class by Rabbi Kahn titled
“(un)common decency.” Then, a class by
Rav Nissel about how to maximize Shavuot learning. And finally, a class by my eim bayit Melanie
about middot (character traits). At 4:00
am we all met in the lobby to walk to the Kotel. I spent the walk learning with one of my
Rabbis, Rav Ari, which I really enjoyed.
It was so amazing to see that as we got closer and closer to the Old
City more and more people were converging on it. And when we finally got within the walls of
the Old City, most everyone was making their way down towards the Kotel. There were hoards and hoards of people, all
going towards the same place. We got there
a little after 5:00, and prayed Shacharit there independently. I walked back and made it to the hotel at
about 7:00, and slept until 1:30 when it was time for lunch. We had lunch, some learning in the afternoon,
some hang out time, and a little bit of a closing ceremonies to end it off
well. Those who were keeping one day of
chag went home, and the twenty of us who were keeping two days (or a variation
of it) stayed the night.
In the afternoon we walked to the Israel Museum, which was
really cool. I saw the Herod section,
most of the Art sections, a model of the second Beit HaMikdash, and the Dead
Sea Scrolls. I really enjoyed walking
around, and after a while I headed back to the hotel with Adina to hang out for
the afternoon. Chag ended at about 8:10,
which was good because I had arranged for this taxi service to pick me up at
9:00 to go back to- you guessed it- Ben Gurion International Airport.
The Airport:
I was a little bit annoyed, though, because from what I had
understood my flight would not be leaving until 1:35 am, which would mean that
I’d have about 3.5-4 hours to kill at the airport. And unfortunately, since I decided to take
this group taxi service instead of an individual taxi I’d be saving about $60
by leaving at 9. So I really had no
choice. But, I figured I would be able
to make use of the time somehow and headed towards Ben Gurion once the taxi guy
picked me up. This time I was leaving to
spend a week in Pennsylvania, on behalf of Sephardic Adventure Camp, at a
conference called Cornerstone which is put on the by the Foundation for Jewish
Camp. The way the times worked out,
though, I’d be spending the Shabbat before and the Shabbat after in New
York. So anyways, I got to the airport
at about 10:00 and wasn’t as annoyed as I’d usually be to see a humungous line
to get to the primary security from El-Al.
That line probably took about twenty minutes, when I finally got to a
place to put my one checked bag through a security machine. By the time all of that was done, I finally
got to stand in another line to actually check my bag and print my boarding
pass.
Now let me tell you all a little something about my
suitcase. So, over the course of this
year I have luckily been able to acquire somewhat of a library of books. Of course, something that has been in the
back of my mind all year is how on earth I’d get them all home at the end of
the year. Luckily for me, this beautiful
opportunity arose and I decided to take a suitcase full of books to New York-
where I’d be able to keep them until I return for Stern in August. I most definitely spent an very large amount
of time packing and weighing my bag, as well as calculating overweight baggage
costs, so as to prevent the issue of unnecessary baggage costs at the
airport. If I may say, I did a wonderful
job and had my bag at just under 70 lbs- at least according the scale I was
using- incurring a relatively minimal fee when factoring in the e-ticket
discount I would receive.
So I finally got to the counter, and all was fine and dandy
until I actually put my bag on the scale.
Apparently there’s something really wrong with the scale I used, because
instead of the overweight baggage maximum 32 kilos, my bag was actually 37
kilos. And for the mathematically
challenged American bunch of us, that’s approximately 12 lbs overweight from
the overweight maximum. She was actually
kind of impressed. Lucky for me, as I
mentioned earlier, my most favorite activity is packing challenges. So I moved to the side, and tried to make
some trades with my carry-on in order to fulfill the weight requirement. When I was finally pretty confident that I
had done my duty, I weighed my suitcase on the scale which wasn’t being used and
was wonderfully impressed to see “31.5” come up on the screen. BOO-YAH!
I love my packing skills.
Before I continue on with this story, I’d like to do a
little bit of thinking with you all. Let’s
imagine my one checked bag, one carry-on roller suitcase, and one purse
scenario. If I start with 37 kilos in my
one checked bag, and we all know that 5 kilos can’t fit into a purse, where
must it go?
For some reason the El Al checker lady can’t do the same
math that you and I can, because after printing my ticketing info and receipt
she asked me to put my carry-on on the scale “just in case.” I hope you’re as confused as I was, because
she JUST told me to transfer 5 kilos out of my suitcase… where in the world
could it go aside from into my expertly packed carry-on? Nowhere! So when she told me that my carry-on was 7
kilos overweight, I really just didn’t know what to do. Here I was standing with a woman who told me
to transfer 5 kilos of weight out of my checked bag, but was surprised when my carry-on
was 7 kilos too heavy. Dumb. I’ll spare you all the details, and say that
she very kindly spared me from the one hundred extra dollars I would have had
to pay and only charged me for the first overweight bag.
Luckily for me I was then lucky enough to get back into line
to send my new checked bag through the security machine, which of course took
another too many minutes. When I finally
exited the entry plaza of Ben Gurion, I got to introduce myself to a new
counter! One where bills get to be paid
and a plethora of screaming customers can be found. As I approached the counter I noticed a
middle-aged woman who looked like she was about to have a heart attack. I knew that was a bad sign for my near
future, but sucked it up and proceeded forward.
Thankfully a different woman was available, and as she twiddled her
thumbs and complained about how my receipt didn’t make sense I listened to the
heart attack woman scream. Basically,
for some reason or another she was being forced to pay a total of $1300 for her
and her husband to take their flight. I
guess they missed it or something weird happened with their luggage, because
they had an upgrade fee, a no show fee, and a flight change fee which added up
to some $650 each. Oy. Thankfully I wasn’t in that boat, but after a
solid twenty minutes of nothingness I got to pay my baggage fee and continue on
my merry way.
The next big line took place at security. Contrary to any security experience I had
ever experienced before this year, positive and quick security experiences have
come along with all of my seven flights this year. Unlike those seven flights there was a very
large number of people in the security area.
I was happy, though, because of how much more efficient Israeli security
is than American security, and I wasn’t freaking out because I still had about
two hours to go until my flight at 1:35.
When I finally got through, I spent a couple minutes talking on the
phone to some friends and slowly made my over to the Aroma café where I bought
a salad. Thinking that I had a lot of
time to kill, I really wasn’t focused on eating and took my time in order to
enjoy the experience. At some point I looked
at my watch and saw that I had exactly an hour until my flight, which made me
think that I should start making my way towards the gate and maybe stop to buy
some water and gum on the way. For some
reason this flashing sign caught my eye, so I checked it out. What I saw was that it was the “last call”
for a couple of flights, and I thought about how much it would suck for anyone
to miss a flight. Then, I happened to
notice that one of the “last call” flights was to Newark and that its departure
time was 12:35. For a second I thought
about how weird it was that there would be two El Al flights out of TLV to
Newark within an hour, and then it hit me.
This image flashed into my brain which read “00:35.”
OH. MY. GD. That
means 12:35; not 1:35! I grabbed my
things and took off running, somehow managing to check my gate on my boarding
pass while doing so. After getting out
of the food court area, I noticed an El Al stewardess standing with a clipboard
at the beginning of the hallway which I needed to go down. All of the sudden, “are you Julia?!?!” she
screamed, “We’ve been looking ALL over for you! Where have you been? Your flight is taking off!” And we sprinted together for a solid minute
and a half, before reaching the gate.
There, about four other El Al staff members stood with excited faces
throwing questions at me left and right.
I pulled out my passport and boarding pass mid-sprint, and the woman
ripped my ticked and pointed us in the correct direction. When we made it onto the plane, this flight
attendant man said, “four hundred people have been waiting for you, where have
you been?” As I shuffled past him and
found my seat, I took a deep breath and felt the plane start to move. I couldn’t even believe that I was not that
person who the whole flight had to wait on, and that they actually waited an
extra ten minutes to find me.
In reflection, I am so inconceivably happy that the taxi
service guy could only take me at 9:00.
I also realized that I need to read my ticket better in the future, and
internalize the fact that 00:00 means 12:00 midnight. I am SO happy that I made my flight, and can’t
wait to spend Shabbat with the Yossi and Judy Azose family in West Hempstead
and then spend my week gaining and sharing a tremendous amount of Camp
knowledge at Cornerstone in Pennsylvania.
More from Cornerstone and my New York experiences to come,
but until then I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom!
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