I am writing this on the airplane. It’s about 9am Israeli time, 2am Atlanta time, and 11pm yesterday San Diego time. Looking at the navigation on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me, it seems we are flying over some eastern area of Canada right now. Like, almost to Quebec. We’ve got a little bit of turbulence and my ears just popped again. It’s very, very dry. By the time you read this, I’ll not be on the plane anymore of course. There is no wifi on Delta’s international flights. I’m just passing the time before we land in Atlanta.
It’s strange how once you enter an airplane and are flying to your next destination, you also enter a bit of a no man’s land as well. You’re not really on the time zone of where you left from, and the time zone of your connection flight doesn’t matter much except for the takeoff time of your connection. Your body isn’t yet on the time zone of your final destination and so it all sort of wigs you out and you’re not sure if you should sleep on the darkened plane or stay up watching a movie or, say, writing a blog.
Back in Tel Aviv, I was so tired and hungry when we got to the airport, that I opened up my shwarma early and sliced open my lip on the foil wrapping, stupidly. There was blood everywhere and it is still uncomfortable.
We visited the duty free shop in the terminal and I once again found that elusive Royal Jelly Honey that I had purchased on the last trip here and had confiscated when going through security again (check the archives if you missed it). Only problem, Delta has rules about bringing liquids on the plane … at all! Yea, we’d already gone through crazy security to enter the terminal in the first place and we were in the safe area. According to Delta, you still can’t buy say, a bottle of water - at the airport, and bring it on the plane. This is, thanks to America being stupid and terrorists winning, Delta’s policy and possibly the stupidest thing I ever heard. (Delta is a United States airline and therefore holds by such silly standards. The rest of the airlines, like Israeli ones who know what they’re doing when it comes to terrorists, don’t do this!) On the bright side, there’s nothing for overly zealous and pointless TSA agents to chuck on the off chance we get forced to go through security again because of another airline screw up.
You can see that I have little regard for people who work in airports in general. I especially loathe TSA. “Why?” you might say, “They’re keeping us safe!” Horse manure! They are not. Wake up. Stop gobbling up those candy coated lies your society and government are force-feeding you! The rules are enforced based on who is on duty that day and how sadistic a bastard that person is. Furthermore, the rules themselves are retarded! It’s the equivalent of turning around 3 times and spitting over your left shoulder to keep you safe. It’s an illusion! A game! And it’s mostly an excuse to rifle through your panties and claim it’s all in the name of air safety. You wanna talk about safety? How about doing things that actually making sure Nigerian freakazoids don’t strap explosives to their genitalia and light themselves on fire in the cabin! No, the best way to avoid that is to strip search someone who is pale as day and doesn’t speak a word of arabic while every Ibraham, Muhammed, and yes sometimes Larry get to go through. Good going, America! This is why I prefer Israel. You ever heard of anything like that happening on an Israeli airline/flight? I didn’t think so.
Once we got to the gate at Ben Gurion, I tried several times to get better seats than those that were assigned. I told the sadistic bitch at the gate that I have issues with air sickness (true!) and wished to be changed to a window if possible. She said there was nothing that could be done because the flight was full. I told her that I might throw up and she then smirked and told me that on the bright side my seat was near the bathroom. Bitch. Thus, I was assigned to the center seat in the center row of seats at the very back of the plane. I gave Michael the isle. Worst seats ever.
A few hours ago, the creepy guy next to me began sleeping loudly on me. What is with people and sleeping on small, unsuspecting people who are easily agitated? Michael and I switched seats because, though I love him so and want to give him the aisle, this creeped me the heck out! On the bright side, Michael said he has more legroom now than before, surprisingly.
So now I’m in the isle seat in the center row and Michael is in that center seat. An even shorter time ago, Mr. Creepy Guy woke up pissed. So he started yelling at me in Hebrew that my husband is taking up his arm rest (what was MY arm rest when I was sitting there that Mr. Creepy Guy was taking up) and he was listening to his movie too loud on his ear phones. Mr. Creepy Guy could not sleep, or so he claimed. Funny part is, Michael was asleep already two hours.
To me, it looked like this guy was sure doing a really good job of sleeping soundly for the last 8 hours, not to mention how much of a party for him it must have been for the first 4 hours while he was sawing logs directly into my ear. I super duper don’t care if he’s upset right now. He went back to sleep but every so often wakes up to shoot me the stink eye. It’s ok to sleep on top of someone else’s wife, but if you have to sit next to them instead, there’s gonna be stink eyes!
After a long day back in Israel of shopping and tying up loose ends -- before that barely sleeping and then waking at 7am sharp to loud construction and banging -- we packed a lot into the day right before going to the airport. That was now officially yesterday by American and Israeli standards. We went shopping at the Shuk to get Rugalach (3 kilos of it!) and cheese (wait ‘till you see this!) and candy (I’m excited!). We also picked up shwarma and falafel for the flight, which was good because the salty turkey balls (not to be confused with the ones I ate in Eilat) they served when we took off tasted like it was time to eat shwarma instead. Once my lip became more stabilized, I was able to manage half of my shwarma.
When we’d finished shopping, we headed to the Kotel for one last time. Fog began to roll in over Jerusalem and it was rather cold and wet. A nice goodbye, really. I got some really great shots! After that, we high tailed it to the apartment and finished packing and got our tushies out the door and onto the curb. Michael’s wonderful cousin Karen had called the shuttle for us and told them when and where to pick us up because we gave his uncle Mark back the phone the other night when we visited him. YAY KAREN THANK YOU! We got on the shuttle with all our things and bid the Holy Land goodbye. I fell asleep on the shuttle because I was simply too exhausted.
And so here we are. On a plane. Sitting. With nothing to do. The camera is packed up so I don’t really feel like getting up to get it and upload the photos. I will do that for my next and/or final post, I believe. I played a little Plants vs Zombies on my computer for a bit and watched a few podcasts. A baby is crying up ahead. He or she is not a happy camper. One of the stewards just walked by and muttered something about, “this is why you carry benadryl!”
You know, on second thought, we really shouldn’t complain. We’re in the air on a magical sky bird and we’re alive. I saw a video once about that from some comedian. It’s true. For all my complaining, I am at least grateful that G-d willing, we’ll land safely soon and be back in our own beds with our own sanitary shower and surrounded by all of our numerous possessions. We are lucky.
Looks like we’re about to enter US airspace.
Sitting in my bed back at home is possibly the weirdest thing. It feels both like I never left home, but also like I've not been here in forever; as if I've been living someone else's life or woken up from a beautiful dream. 
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