I had just enough energy to take a shower once I arrived at E’s apartment in the center of Tel Aviv. It was a mistake to lay down after that because my eyes didn’t open for another five hours. It was the middle of the day in Israel and I fell asleep. This is not the way to handle jet lag.

This is my fifth journey to the Middle East and jet lag is something I’ve become far too familiar with. Sleeping all day is the wrong strategy. But what can I do? I could barely speak from exhaustion. My brain literally shut off without even asking me if it was alright.

The Israeli time zone is eight hours ahead of Chicago and I had not slept for more than a few hours in two days.

After waking up, E and I hung out for a while and went on a walk in the evening. She showed me the way to my school that will start on the 28th and I already began memorizing the area. I decided early on that my first week here should be used to walk the city as much as possible. This is not only for the joy of experiencing and observing a foreign country, but also for familiarization and safety.

I did very little besides try to pull my head out of America and into Israel (and snap a few photos). Tomorrow is another day.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Dear Las Vegas:

Thank you for a lovely trip but I must say, you sure are a sinking pit of madness.  Forgive my bluntness but you really need to do something about those slot machines.  People are supposed to win money on them eventually, right?  Also, your buffets really aren’t all they’re bragged to be.  At least it made me feel like I was back at home in the military.  (Food in troughs, unusual colors/smells, long line of fatties, etc.)

On a more serious note, do light poles really need 50 stripper cards rubber banded to them?  I mean really.  There’s enough pollution in the city without needing tradeable stripper cards scattered in the gutters.  But now they’ve got all these baseball size glossies littered everywhere.  Who cleans them up?  WHO??  The bums?  The crazies?  tisk tisk.

Lastly, I appreciate you making me feel welcome by offering me free Heinekins everywhere but why the hell should I pay for a valet to flag down a taxi for me?  My hand works just as well as his.  Free booze… pay for a flag down.  I think they’ve got it backwards.  Maybe I should just wear one of those cute little red jackets like they do. 

Thank you for making me ache for normalcy and wanting nothing more than the dinging of slot machines to get out of my head.

Sincerely,

Ms. Babble

P.S.  See ya next year. 

And now for my Vegas buds:

*fortuna
*zip zip
*choo chooooo!
*where u at?
*Got Milf?
*Those shoes are mine, betch!
 

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The trip was long, as expected, and I nearly didn’t make it on my flight out of Atlanta to Tel Aviv. When I landed in Atlanta, I had 20 minutes to go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal. And of course they are both on completely opposite ends of the airport. I landed, ran to Atlanta’s internal train, ran to the end of the international terminal and was greeted by a man yelling, “If you’re going to Tel Aviv, the doors are closing now!”.
Needless to say I was a bit out of breath as I stepped onto the plane. They were literally all waiting for me to arrive and I was greeted by the glaring eyes of the passengers. I wasn’t quite sure if it was because I was the only young little American girl or because I was heaving and panting down the aisle to my seat.

Fast forward 11 hours.

It was surprisingly smooth coming through Ben Gurion airport even though I did feel a bit nervous confronting the customs officer. “Where are you from?” “What do you do?” “Why are you here?” etc, etc, etc. They have a way with their eyes to make you feel guilty no matter if your answers are the truth or not. And I was stupefied by a question they asked on our customs form; “Father’s First Name“. huh?? I re-read it a few times thinking that my jetlag was already making me see things. I went over and over in my head why in the world that would make any difference for anyone. As E explained to me, “It’s an Israeli thing.” This answer accounts for a surprisingly great number of questions.

In Chicago, they made me check a guitar I brought with me. All other times that I’ve flown, they usually let people carry guitars onto the plane and stow it at the front. Apparently things have changed (as many things aren’t the same anymore in airports) and I was forced to check it as baggage. As I was waiting at Ben Gurian, it was the one piece of my baggage that didn’t come down the conveyer. I waited and waited and soon I saw that I had already been there for an hour. I knew that E and S were waiting for me on the other side and my cell phone wasn’t working for me to call and explain. So, impatient little me decided to go out of the secure area to meet up with them before panic set it.

How wonderful it was to see such friendly faces! E made up a little sign with my name on a guitar and in small print on the bottom, “Welcome to Iraq.” Ha. A couple of wise guys, I see.

I really was a bit overwhelmed. Everything felt just as surreal as when I came home from Iraq. It was an amazing mixture of both exhaustion and elation.

I explained to them what had happened with the guitar and S took such amazing control of the situation. He found the right number to call and spoke to the representative in Hebrew for me. I had to have my passport rechecked to go back into the airport luggage area and over to where my guitar was at. The jerks separated it as oversized luggage and didn’t tell me. It came out of the airplane on a totally different conveyer as the rest of the luggage which is why I couldn’t find it.

Even though I hadn’t slept in over 25 hours, I was still aware of a few differences on the drive into Tel Aviv. It always amazes me that other countries label official signs in more than one language. All of the highway signs are in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. Americans are so hard headed about this sort of thing. We’re just starting to put Spanish on some of our signs. (Like in public busses and stuff.) But overall, we’re a very “You wanna be in this country, then learn English!” sort of culture. I can really see how frustrating this can be considering that 41.9 million Americans are Hispanic. (Yeah, that’s right. Go Wikipedia!)

Other than that, the best initial feeling of Tel Aviv is that it felt like California. The fresh salt air. The palm trees. The 60 degree night. It felt fantastic. But after such a long trip (and considering it was already 8pm Israeli time) I ended up showering and going to bed. What a long (but well worth it) journey so far! I can’t wait to get started.

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