Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 13. We’re Not Going Home… Not Really. Part 2.
Where were we?
We started the walk back from Ben Yehuda to the hotel. I got half a sandwich at Aroma and Tzvi got a slushy lemonade. We walked some more and I bought some Nestle cereal that you can’t buy in the US [Tzvi: probably because it tastes like carboard and no one wants to buy it] and some Tony’s Chocoloney bars that aren’t kosher in America. Hallie also got ices, which she later spilled on herself.
We walked until we got to the I Heart Jerusalem sign. Unfortunately Madeleine slept through it, but we got a nice photos with Hallie. Then Madeleine woke up and we took a cab back to the hotel.
At the hotel my dad dropped off another suitcase and we tried to finish our packing. We came to Israel with five suitcases for the four of us, and we’re leaving with six. And they’re all full. So somehow we acquired another 50 pounds of stuff on this trip, and that doesn’t include the heavy metal puzzles that Tzvi is carrying in his backpack.
We felt pretty ready to go so we went up to the pool and got in a last swim. Madeleine had so much fun in her floaties again. It was a little cool but really nice.
Then we went back to the room, showered, really finished packing, and got ready for dinner. We had to be out of the room by 6pm, so we left all of our stuff in the lobby and my dad came and picked us up in his rental car. We drove to Mamilla and had dinner at Roladin with a lovely view of the old city. Madeleine got spaghetti, which she somehow managed to burn her neck on, so that was fun. I had a tuna salad, which was ok; it was a little wet (too much dressing). Tzvi had a shuk salad with felafel balls that Hallie ate, and we had multiple slushy iced coffees.
After dinner my dad dropped us back at the hotel. He ran in to use the bathroom while we waited for reception to bring a bag for him to take back to his apartment. While I was standing waiting with the car the security guard came up to me and said “This isn’t a parking lot.” I said, “I know, we’re waiting for something from reception.” Then he just said ok and walked away. Love that Israeli hospitality.
We had ordered a van from Avner to take us to the airport. We figured this time he would definitely send a van that was big enough since we didn’t have my parents, but once again the van barely fit everything! It ended up that the driver had to put down the back row and Hallie had to sit in the front row. So in the front was the driver, Hallie and Tzvi. So that was very safe.
The drive to the airport was fine. We got there early because we wanted to try to deal with the seat situation. Our driver unloaded all of our stuff on the curb and drove off. Of course there were no carts left so Tzvi ran all over trying to find available carts. Finally he did, and we made it into the airport. When we walked in thankfully the lines weren’t as bad as we had heard they were the previous day. The first thing they asked was if you had an Israeli passport. We said we all had foreign, but Robyn had Israeli, so they told us to split up, but we said no way and they just said fine and sent us all on the Israeli line. That was definitely shorter, except when we got to the front they told us to wait and kept skipping to the people behind us, until finally they sent us to someone at the front of the foreign line.
Next was the line for check in, which was another half hour. It was so long that they were giving out water bottles and chocolate. When we were almost to the very front Einav arrived to start her shift and pulled us off the line and took us to do check in at her own check in counter. It was really cute because she took Hallie behind the counter and let Hallie put the bar code stickers on the luggage and then press the button to send the bags away. Hallie loved it but Madeleine was jealous. Hope all of our bags make it.
Einav walked us to security and put us on the priority/disability line, which really annoyed some of the people, but I don’t really care.
It was so late at that point. It was like 12 o’clock. We first checked out the Dan Lounge but it was gross, so we just sat at the gate. Finally it was time to board. They had told us once we board we’d see our seats, and they don’t seat kids under 12 alone, so don’t worry. We could see that a bunch of other families had this issue as well, so it just made no sense. Finally the time came and we scanned our tickets. They had moved Madeleine and I to the last row on the right in a window and middle, Tzvi and Hallie about ten rows up in an aisle middle, and Robyn one row behind them on an aisle. None of these were extra legroom (and they still had our $500).
As soon as we boarded we told the flight attendants the situation. There were clearly a lot of people with the same issue, and the flight attendants seemed like they hadn’t been prepped at all and had no idea what they were getting. They said they’d see what they could do. Tzvi got Hallie settled and then was running back and forth from his seat to my seat. The plane was 3-3-3 across, and Tzvi was on a left aisle, so he kept running to the back of the plane through the flight attendant area to see me, and then back around to his seat. Tzvi was in a great mood… [Tzvi: At one point I was standing in the aisle putting something in the overhead bin and a religious man was walking up the aisle and tried to push through and I just turned and blocked the aisle and said “you can’t say excuse me?” he said sorry and backed away.]
We got Madeleine and her car seat settled into the window seat and I sat down in the middle, and finally who came to sit next to me but a pregnant woman with a lap infant. And the lap infant must have been at least one and a half. So I had three people* next to me in a seat barely big enough for one person.
* According to the U.S. Supreme Court. See Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (draft opinion).
Thankfully, about an hour into the flight they started moving people around. The last two rows of the plane didn’t have any people, just a bunch of supplies, so they cleared one row and moved the pregnant lady and her husband and two kids into that row, and then they put Hallie next to me and Tzvi right across the aisle. Except, this meant that Tzvi now had an aisle with an empty middle next to him! So after all of this, I was in the back row of the plane flanked by my two children and Tzvi was sitting comfortably. And by the way, Robyn was also in an aisle with an empty seat next to her! Why did this happen? Well, of course I had to be next to Madeleine, and then Tzvi wanted to be near me, and this was the only way. So I’m glad he got to be close to me.
[Tzvi: I still can’t figure out if I did the right thing. I would have been perfectly happy to be ten rows up alone with Hallie, but I thought Steph wanted us closer and I thought she didn’t want to be stuck in a middle seat with that annoying pregnant lady who didn’t shut up during the entire first hour of the flight about the seat situation. I thought she wanted this. I guess I was mistaken. I’m sorry.]
Anyway, I didn’t get up for nine hours because Madeleine slept in the car seat for a while and then wanted out and I had to hold her, and Hallie was sleeping on me, and by the end I needed to pee so badly and my tushy was going numb. I thought I was going to get pressure sores. It was just crazy. Overall the flight was fine, but it was just ridiculous.
Finally we landed and got off the plane. We were the last people off and by the time we got to passport control there was a sign that said it was more than an hour wait. Thankfully we went through global entry, which had no wait at all. Madeleine doesn’t have global entry, but we just played dumb and they let us bring her through. Getting to baggage claim early wasn’t actually helpful though, because we waited until every single bag had come off to discover that one of our bags was never coming off. They told us there was a piece of luggage that was scanned in Tel Aviv, but they didn’t know where it was.
While we were waiting our driver was calling asking where we were and getting more and more annoyed. This is the same driver who had taken us to the airport and who we had prepaid for the round trip. Eventually he called and said he couldn’t wait anymore and had a $300 fare in Manhattan, so bye. Thanks.
Robyn spent a long time on the foreign passport line, which was barely moving, but by the time she was done we were still dealing with the lost luggage. Finally we left the airport and needed to get two Ubers, which maybe we should’ve just done in the first place.
What a trip. Despite all the craziness it was a fantastic trip and we’re so grateful to my parents for bringing us along.
Epilogue
The suitcase that was missing turned out to be the one with all of Tzvi’s clothes. A day later we were cleaning up dinner and a random number popped up on my phone. It was a man saying he had our bag and would be there in five minutes. So, all’s well that ends well.
Next year in Jerusalem!