Home at last! Sort of - Snoopy in Israel

(the view from Snoopy's plane window)

Shul of Rock regular, Snoopy, has just landed in Israel for what will be one of the most amazing years of his life. His personal blog, Life through the lens, is usually only viewable if he is in your MSN list, but here we have an exclusive peek into the life of Snoopy as he recounts the hardest part of his journey - flying across the world. Enjoy.

Thus begins my first official correspondence from Israel. Time to get this started.

Welcome one and all, punkers and rockers, slackers, soldiers, voice actors and all the rest. My, currently, short tale begins with a hectic repacking of my bags at Pearson International Airport. This whole bag weighing system is way out of date. They have to stop weighing only the passenger's bags and start weighing the passengers. It's not that I wasn't able to take everything with me, but I shouldn't have had to open my checked in luggage just to take 4 kilograms of stuff out of my carry on. I had to take out my knapsack (which I feel shouldn't have had to have been packed into another bag in te first place) out of my carry on and put it into one of my checked bags. All this right in front of the check-in point, with all those people in the other lines watching!

Nonetheless, I did, quite thankfully, get all of my stuff on the plane. That includes my tripod, which my parents said I would never get on the plane unless it was packed in something. And after a brief pass through security, where they do "the test" (where ya from? what's your name? can you speak Hebrew?...) and checked bag X-ray, I was off to the boarding gate, that is after another brief pass through security, metal detectors and carry on X-ray. You know, they say El-Al has some of the best security in the world, now you know why.

After all the security checks and picking up and putting down and rolling my luggage around, I was finally able to make my way to the boarding gate. A quick look at my ticket, and I was off, down the seemingly endless hall on two extremely long horizontal escalators (to my knowledge they don't have another name, so please let me know if there is one). Of course, I did end up reaching the end of the hall, only to find myself lost because there were no more directional signs and my gate was nowhere to be found. So I decided to venture forward through an unguarded door that was straight ahead of me. I figured that since there numbers were still going correctly in order before I got to that point. Lo and behold, as I passed through the door, there were more gates to be found and, to my amazement, one of them was mine!

The wait for boarding was quite uneventful, save for a few calls from other airlines about switched gates and passenger stuff that for some reason sounded like it was coming from my gate's comm system, me taking a ginger tablet for my stomach (the supposed natural equivalent of Gravol), and one other thing. As I was sitting and waiting, playing around with my camera, since I didn't really have much else to do, I took the occasional glance around at the people who had also made their way to the gate, and I was shocked to find that walking towards the gate was someone I know. I had not expected to know anyone on the flight at all. This was incredible. So, I got his attention, he walked over, sat down and we started talking. He told me he was also going to Yeshiva a week early and that he was in fact returning for another full year devoted to Jewish studies. He also mentioned something rather interesting that I, during my previously mentioned occasional glances, hadn't noticed. The gate seemed rather empty for a flight to Israel. "Hey, maybe we'll get bumped to first class", he told me jokingly. I told him I doubted it and at best we'd get business, if anything. Then came the boarding call.

I picked up my things and prepared to get on the plane. And as I did, an almost entire plane's load of people came rushing down a staircase on the other side of a window that was between the gate and the boarding tunnel. As it turned out the plane wasn't quite as empty as we had thought. My flight was apparently stopping over in Toronto, not originating from there. As I later found out from some of the other passengers, including the guy sitting next to me, an Israeli named Roii (that's pronounced Roh-ee, stress on the ee for all you non-Hebrew speakers), the flight had come in to Toronto via L.A. and it was only a direct flight for those boarding from Toronto. I had no issue with the plane being packed. So I didn't get bumped to first or business class, or have an entire row to myself, big deal. I was on my way to Israel.

The flight started off alright, like every flight I've ever been on in my life. Since I had a window seat I decided to take advantage of it and take a couple of pics (shown below). Unfortunately, the flight being alright didn't last for very long. About one or two hours into it, post dinner meal, I started feeling my usual air sickness coming on. I think I should take the time to mention this only happens to me on flights to Israel, not that I've been to any other overseas countries, and also, the airplane food El-Al serves is damn good stuff, so the usual airplane food jokes and stereotypes don't apply to this situation. Either way, I had about 9 or so hours left till we touched down in Tel Aviv, and my stomach was telling me it wasn't really in the mood to hold out for that long. I knew I had to do something fast. First, I dropped another couple of ginger tablets. Next, I got up and headed to speak to the crew. They were all rushing back and forth doing their thing, trying to make people sit down because the seatbelt signs were on due to turbulence. I managed to get their attention and point out my problem. Their immediate perscription; lemon slices. That's right people, lemon slices! So, I took a bunch of lemon slices in a cup, sat down, and made due till the seatbelt sign shut off.

I don't know how, but I managed, with a steady supply of lemon slices and Coke (ugh I hate carbonated drinks), to calm my stomach, well enough, for the rest of the flight. And once we had decended past 5000 feet and were nearing Tel Aviv, I was completely fine. I was also able to get my camera out again and snap some pics from above the clouds and from our landing (also shown below).

I had arrived! Tired and a little ill from the flight and being up all night taking care of my stomach problem, I was looking forward to doing a little walking and sitting at good old ground level. The new terminal is so beautiful, it's a marvel of Israeli architecture and design. I made my way through the maze of people, signs and security points all the way to baggage claim, where I sat waiting for my luggage to pop onto one of those big oval conveyer belts that every major airport seems to have. Once I grabbed my luggage and passed through customs, I was out in the main waiting area for arrivals, where my cousin and two of his children were already waiting for me.

So here I am, sitting in Haifa, drinking lemon Prigat and typing away on a keyboard to tell all of this to all of you. Last night, I enjoyed myself at a barbeque with my cousin's friends and watched a movie. Later today I'll be heading to my cousin's brother's place for Shabbat. And on Sunday, if all goes well, I'll be back in Haifa and hanging out with none other than the Joey Lightstone!

That's all for now. More to follow in the coming weeks and months,

Snoopy