Around Christmas last year Cindy & I were informed about a tour of Israel that was being put together. We talked it over and decided this was the time to do it so we registered and readied ourselves for what we hoped would be a very meaningful and spiritually enlightening experience. The following entries are pages from our trip.
Monday, February 26. 2007- Day 15:30AM wake up call at our hotel in Washington, DC. We had arrived in Washington to spend time with Matt before leaving for Israel. Cleaned up. Walked to the Metro with Matt. Got to the airport ready for our 9AM flight. It had been canceled the day before because of the bad weather plaguing the east coast. We were put on the 11AM flight which meant it was going to be very close getting to our EL AL flight on time. We made it but just barely. We were the last to board. But before we were allowed to board a young security agent took Cindy & I aside and began asking us questions like “Have you ever been to Israel before?” , “Who are you traveling with?” and so on. I had heard about EL AL security and finally was experiencing it. This was only the 1st of many levels of security we went through. While at the EL AL ticket counter an unattended package was discovered. My immediate thought was it was bomb that someone had left and that it had to be ready to go off. Someone from EL AL approuched it and looked at it but didn't touch it. Now I KNEW IT WAS A BOMB! Another agent came over and picked it up and took it away. Well, I guess it wasn't a bomb after all. So maybe I was a bit uptight. After getting through all the other checkpoints we made it to the gate. It was there we met the rest of our group. Our leader was Walt Wiley. Walt and the others had just been praying for our safe arrival.
We boarded and spent almost an hour preparing for our departure.The plane was huge. It was a 777 which seats 9 across and stretches on forever. I bet there were 350+ of us on board. A group of Ashkenazie Jews (black hats that don’t seem to fit, black suits, curly locks) had prayer shawls draped over them and were bobbing back and forth facing the side of the plane. Well I found out later that like the Muslims they are called to pray a number of times a day facing Jerusalem.
We took off at 1:30PM for our 10 hour flight. I got some reading done, watched a couple of movies, ate a good meal, and got "to bed" for some sleep of about 3-4 hours with the help of a little sleeping pill. Cindy slept or at least rested also. I sure hope I didn’t drool and snore. After another meal we arrived in Tel Aviv at about 6:30AM. All in all it was a good flight.
And there was evening and there was morning – the first day.
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