Israel. Summer 2022. Day 2. Better Safe Than Sorry, I Say.
Well, I’m not sure what day it is, but I think it’s the end of Tuesday, and Wednesday hasn’t officially started because we haven’t landed yet. But, it’s been a day.
I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm at 6:40 am, got ready and went downstairs to meet Jennifer at 7:15. I may have left a Gourmet Glatt bag with a bar and an apple in the room, or I lost it somewhere else along the way. Oh well.
We grabbed coffee and an Uber and took the 6 minute drive to the airport. Our Uber driver had never heard of El Al before and was very confused. “KLM?” Well, we made it around 7:33. This was before any El Al personnel had even arrived, but some families were already there. At the airport we were met by Alex, Alicia, and Andrea, three of our Floridian colleagues. They were there to help get everyone their “swag” and assist with check in. There was also this guy from the Travel Agency who really was interesting, and he actually flew from NY for this, just the airport part! I think El Al people arrived around 8:30 and the check in process started.
From there things started to slowly spiral. First I couldn’t find my entry form, so I filled it out again, only to find both confirmations in my junk mail. The woman doing my security interview was in training so it took three times as long as it usually does and she kept going back to check with her supervisor. At least she now knows the tuition at AMHSI and that I am looking forward to the holidays of the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha Bav. At the actual counter I asked about moving my seat to an aisle, but the woman said nothing was available in the extra legroom seats. At that exact moment I heard the guy checking in Jennifer say that he could put her in an extra leg room aisle seat, so I actually yelled over and asked if there were more seats. He took my boarding pass and moved me to the middle next to her, but we were the bulkhead now.
We hung around for a while as the kids checked in. The Consul General of Miami arrived with Zohar (obviously). I should mention that the entire El Al staff knows Zohar and they kept asking where he was. We also met some guy who was the head of El Al in the airport and he said he would work on finding me an aisle seat. Apparently if there had been premium or business open he could have upgraded us but there was nothing open.
Jennifer and I decided to go through security at 10:40ish as boarding was supposed to start at 11. There were still kids that hadn’t checked in, but the rest of the team would deal with them. There was an Earl of Sandwich so I bought a sandwich (that I never actually ate) and then corralled the kids to start boarding. One kid cut the entire line and then was surprised when he saw I was looking at him. The back of his sweatpants also said “fuck you.” I’m sure he’s a gentle soul.
We all boarded. Then about a minute after they closed the doors a kid realized that he lost his medicine pouch. Well, can’t go back now! Not sure what they are going to do about that. We are 186 kids out of a total of like 205 seats. I feel terrible for everyone else.
The flight was scheduled for 12:00 but I don’t think we took off until closer to 1:00. The flight is 11 hours and 40 minutes from Miami to Tel Aviv. Painful.
These past 11 hours have been a blur. We didn’t sleep at all. We basically just had to be up and down telling the kids to sit down. It’s like some of them haven’t flown in their lives.
“I didn’t get a meal”
“Is the seatbelt sign going to go off?”
“I’m hungry.”
I watched that Jennifer Lopez – Owen Wilson movie, Marry Me, except I think I missed the last ten minutes so I don’t actually know if they ended up together. I also watched some Harry Potter.
At some point Jen got a message that there was a girl who was vomiting, so she got to deal with that. Now that we’re almost there we basically have to remind them to find their passports. God forbid someone leaves it on the plane and we have to spend extra time in the airport. I will say we already found out that six kids luggage didn’t make it on the plane, kind of like when we flew back from Israel in April. They said they’ll send it on the next flight, but they have to register with lost luggage which is just something else we have to do at the airport.
Jen is going up and down the aisles now and just found a condom on the floor. Better safe than sorry, I say!