Thursday, June 29, 2006
Saying goodbye over the last few months was easier than I expected. It was the anticipation of saying goodbye that made me tear up. When I first moved to the bay area when I was 12, I cried at my father's side until I boarded the plane, and then made a bunch of adult strangers very uncomfortable by continuing to cry the whole way from San Diego to Oakland. That's what I expected this to be like, especially since my current transplanting seems much more extreme than from one section of California to the other. I imagined how painful it would be to say goodbye to my father again, to wish my friends well in SLO as they left for jobs around the country, to watch my mom walk away from my in-law's house the night before I boarded the plane.
None of that seemed real, though, not until I actually arrived at the airport on Monday afternoon. I warned Ariel a few days earlier that she had to heal from her sunburn because I was going to give her a hug whether she still had one or not. Giving her a hug, the words seemed to catch in my throat. I was really saying goodbye, not permanently, not even for a full year, but I was at the airport waiting to begin the rest of my life.
Lesson 1: The end is always in the beginning.
We spent 36 hours traveling, from 2pm PST Monday until 5am Israel-time Wednesday. When we arrived in Frankfurt with a 13-hour layover, we expected to lock up our bags and see a little of the town. I even dragged up German from the depths of memory so I could say clever things like, "Wir moechten nach die Juedenishesmuseum gehen. Wie kostet es?" Knowing that neither Anna nor I can sleep on planes, how did we figure we were going to be awake? We wandered around the airport for an hour, looking for lockers, looking for food. We started out in the terminal by our departure gate, and then proceeded to walk around like zombies asking each info booth exactly where were the lockers? We ended back in front of our gate after five turns, two escalators, and three walks through customs. The lockers were around the corner.
Now that our few carry-ons were safely stowed away in a locker, we tried to sleep. We stalked a bench or two by the restaurant in our terminal, and slept fitfully for an hour, trying to ignore the screaming children and multi-lingual discussions around us. It was terrible, and not at all restful. Finally, we walked down down down to the hotel reservations desk, at the entrance to our terminal, where we discovered that we could rent a hotel room for the day and sleep the remaining hours until our departure. As soon as our butts hit the bed, we were out like a light. The most we saw of Frankfurt was the Sheraton attached to the airport. It was nice.
On the red-eye flight to Tel Aviv, I practiced my Hebrew by watching the subtitles on "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" and seeing how much I could pick up without sound. A few Hasids applauded when we landed, but mostly everyone was just tired. Tel Aviv Int'l is gorgeous and grand, clearly built to inspire awe in travelers. As you leave the customs booth, you walk through a small hallway which opens up into the "meeting place." It's a wide-open hall, big enough for thousands and very overwhelming.
We knew from the handbook HUC provided that we could take a sherut (shuttle) to Jerusalem, so we looked for signs. We pulled our two shleppers into the elevator and headed for the 3rd floor, where the public transportation was. Not there. The sign said in Hebrew sherut [unknown] on the 2nd floor, but it translated that as "taxi." So we headed to the second floor, but no sherut. I asked a taxi driver, and he said head to the first floor. On the first floor, there was nothing except an exit. I asked the rental car guy where the sherut was, and he said "G." He pointed down and repeated "G." Back to the elevator with our two shleppers, hit the "G" button and FINALLY found our sherut to Jerusalem. Back where we started.
Israel doesn't resemble anything familiar. The undeveloped land along the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem looks almost like San Diego (inland, clearly) but it's just different enough that it leaves me a little confused. In Jerusalem, almost every building is made out of stone, so even the McDonald's looks straight out of the bible. Wood floors are considered an absolute luxury, and I was encouraged by an administrator to check out the one in the King David Hotel down the street. Yes, I am talking about wood flooring. The YMCA in Jerusalem, across the street from my school, is bigger than my entire campus and looks like it was modeled on Solomon's Temple.
So there we were in Jerusalem, in bed at our hostel at 6am on Wednesday. Within six hours, we had met a dozen students in my program, gone on a tour of campus (it's small and gorgeous), left for lunch at the Ben Yehuda mall, picked up my welcome packet, saw the library, ordered cell phones, had a debate on Jewish law and the role of the clergy, and listened to the Student Affairs director yell at my future landlord over my lease. People we were so excited to hear it was my first time in Israel, and everyone marveled at our bravery. To be honest, we surprised ourselves a little.
Everyone I've met is a little confused, no one is fluent in Hebrew, and we're all figuring it out. We help each other out and offer our skills whenever possible. We got help moving out luggage, I've offered up some computer-repair skills, and we're having a good time. We're viewing our apartment tomorrow morning, just to be sure that it's not run down or anything. We have cell phones and an address, and we'll send out an email with that info soon.
There's more, a lot more, but I'm tired from hauling our luggage to our second hostel. There's a lesson: if you have to do a lot of walking, do it early in the day. At 3pm, it's just too damn hot for hauling luggage around town.
Wait till we tell you about the shuk. It's awesome.
None of that seemed real, though, not until I actually arrived at the airport on Monday afternoon. I warned Ariel a few days earlier that she had to heal from her sunburn because I was going to give her a hug whether she still had one or not. Giving her a hug, the words seemed to catch in my throat. I was really saying goodbye, not permanently, not even for a full year, but I was at the airport waiting to begin the rest of my life.
Lesson 1: The end is always in the beginning.
We spent 36 hours traveling, from 2pm PST Monday until 5am Israel-time Wednesday. When we arrived in Frankfurt with a 13-hour layover, we expected to lock up our bags and see a little of the town. I even dragged up German from the depths of memory so I could say clever things like, "Wir moechten nach die Juedenishesmuseum gehen. Wie kostet es?" Knowing that neither Anna nor I can sleep on planes, how did we figure we were going to be awake? We wandered around the airport for an hour, looking for lockers, looking for food. We started out in the terminal by our departure gate, and then proceeded to walk around like zombies asking each info booth exactly where were the lockers? We ended back in front of our gate after five turns, two escalators, and three walks through customs. The lockers were around the corner.
Now that our few carry-ons were safely stowed away in a locker, we tried to sleep. We stalked a bench or two by the restaurant in our terminal, and slept fitfully for an hour, trying to ignore the screaming children and multi-lingual discussions around us. It was terrible, and not at all restful. Finally, we walked down down down to the hotel reservations desk, at the entrance to our terminal, where we discovered that we could rent a hotel room for the day and sleep the remaining hours until our departure. As soon as our butts hit the bed, we were out like a light. The most we saw of Frankfurt was the Sheraton attached to the airport. It was nice.
On the red-eye flight to Tel Aviv, I practiced my Hebrew by watching the subtitles on "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" and seeing how much I could pick up without sound. A few Hasids applauded when we landed, but mostly everyone was just tired. Tel Aviv Int'l is gorgeous and grand, clearly built to inspire awe in travelers. As you leave the customs booth, you walk through a small hallway which opens up into the "meeting place." It's a wide-open hall, big enough for thousands and very overwhelming.
We knew from the handbook HUC provided that we could take a sherut (shuttle) to Jerusalem, so we looked for signs. We pulled our two shleppers into the elevator and headed for the 3rd floor, where the public transportation was. Not there. The sign said in Hebrew sherut [unknown] on the 2nd floor, but it translated that as "taxi." So we headed to the second floor, but no sherut. I asked a taxi driver, and he said head to the first floor. On the first floor, there was nothing except an exit. I asked the rental car guy where the sherut was, and he said "G." He pointed down and repeated "G." Back to the elevator with our two shleppers, hit the "G" button and FINALLY found our sherut to Jerusalem. Back where we started.
Israel doesn't resemble anything familiar. The undeveloped land along the highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem looks almost like San Diego (inland, clearly) but it's just different enough that it leaves me a little confused. In Jerusalem, almost every building is made out of stone, so even the McDonald's looks straight out of the bible. Wood floors are considered an absolute luxury, and I was encouraged by an administrator to check out the one in the King David Hotel down the street. Yes, I am talking about wood flooring. The YMCA in Jerusalem, across the street from my school, is bigger than my entire campus and looks like it was modeled on Solomon's Temple.
So there we were in Jerusalem, in bed at our hostel at 6am on Wednesday. Within six hours, we had met a dozen students in my program, gone on a tour of campus (it's small and gorgeous), left for lunch at the Ben Yehuda mall, picked up my welcome packet, saw the library, ordered cell phones, had a debate on Jewish law and the role of the clergy, and listened to the Student Affairs director yell at my future landlord over my lease. People we were so excited to hear it was my first time in Israel, and everyone marveled at our bravery. To be honest, we surprised ourselves a little.
Everyone I've met is a little confused, no one is fluent in Hebrew, and we're all figuring it out. We help each other out and offer our skills whenever possible. We got help moving out luggage, I've offered up some computer-repair skills, and we're having a good time. We're viewing our apartment tomorrow morning, just to be sure that it's not run down or anything. We have cell phones and an address, and we'll send out an email with that info soon.
There's more, a lot more, but I'm tired from hauling our luggage to our second hostel. There's a lesson: if you have to do a lot of walking, do it early in the day. At 3pm, it's just too damn hot for hauling luggage around town.
Wait till we tell you about the shuk. It's awesome.
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Sounds like quite an adventure. Reading this was one of the first times I really realized that I miss not being there as well. Well, mah la'asot? Teri and I wish you two all the best in this great undertaking.
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