August 13-14, 2012
Naturally, when things are out of your control, you hold on, follow directions as best you can, and hope that the people in power know what they're doing. Of course, this is the position I find myself in for my current adventure to Israel. The itinerary is planned. Our destinations are set, and I'm just hanging on for the ride.
I set out from my apartment in Greenwich Village just after noon, catching the subway a short three blocks away. To be prudent, I gave myself two hours to get to the Swiss Air Check-In, where we were told to meet our North American chaperones. The email indicated that we were to be there "no later than 2:05," four hours before our scheduled departure.
After a slight delay on the subway, due to construction, I arrived at the check-in at roughly 1:30. I noted several other young travelers scattered about, sitting on the floor, seemingly waiting, but there was no sign of the chaperones. At this point, my lack of control over the situation led to a small fit of panic. Did I not receive some crucial bit of information, or had the chaperones simply not arrived yet?
I called the "emergency number" for the trip group and was quickly assuaged when the respondent informed me that she was on her way and would be there by 2:00. I found this a bit odd that the organizer would arrive just before the "mandatory time," but who am I to pick such a nit?
At that point, I joined up with a few of the floor-occupying travelers, who I suspected might be in the same boat as me, and before long we had some thirty people gathering around sharing names and handshake bios. I'm always amazed how much friendlier people can be when thrown into these situations where everyone is meeting a new group of people. Everybody becomes open to conversation with strangers whom they otherwise might not associate with.
I certainly remember the difference between my freshman and sophomore year dorms. At the former I met many of my closest friends from college. Some in the first week and others later on in the year. Three of them became my roommates sophomore year, but when we tried to extend our hospitality to our new floor-mates for Thursday Potluck Dinners that year our invitations were always spurned—or at the very least not acted upon.
Regardless, I always enjoy this opportunity to meet a host of new people, and I soon found a few individuals that I liked spending time with, as we counted down the four hours of time till departure. I'm sure I'll find myself in a group--or clique, as it were--before long. The larger tour will parcel out into factions, but for the time being, I'm trying to not to spend too much time with any one set of people. I'll keep my options over for now, and the people I find most interesting will soon become apparent.
The flight itself was a smooth seven hours into fog-covered hills surrounding the same Zurich terminal where I arrived on my way to Florence three and a half years ago. I watched two movies—The Five-Year Engagement and Pirates! Band Of Misfits—and read some Sherlock Holmes short stories on the flight, powering through the evening without any sleep. As I found on my overnight train adventure from Florence to Nice, I can recuperate a lot of energy simply by sitting put, so when I arrived in Israel at 2:30PM, I had enough energy for another half-day of activities before a wonderful slumber.
Flughafen Zürich AG (Zurich Airport):
That remaining part of the day began with our flight to Tel Aviv, taking us right over the Alps, Venice (which I was able to pick out from the air before the pilot called our attention to it), and the Adriatic islands off the coast of Croatia. However, I eventually found myself listening to music and closing my eyes, which led to probably fifteen minutes of sleep in the middle of our extra-long day.
Customs in Israel was surprisingly easy. They asked me if I was part of Taglit (Birthright) while checking my passport, I replied "yes," and they sent me on my way.
We went over some rules and regulations with our tour guide at the airport: basically, don't consume alcohol unless given permission, don't use any public transportation or go venturing on your own without a chaperone, and embrace the Israeli culture. Then we were on our way, taking a two-hour bus ride north to our hotel in Tiberias, a lakeside town along the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). Although I've been in the Mediterranean before, Sicily's green hills looked nothing like the arid landscape of Israel along the bus ride. The land seemed divided fairly evenly between desert, irrigated farmland, and relatively new housing or urban nodes. The buildings were quite different looking, as they have mostly been built in the past century—not entirely like the urban sprawl around Italian city perimeters—and using different materials local to the region. In contrast to the stucco of Italy, everything here was limestone or at least bore that color.
We ate a nice meal at the hotel which was served in an open buffet style, so I'm not even sure what specifically each dish was, and there were more things than I could list here, but we were all so hungry and sick of airplane/port food it didn't matter. It was almost inconsequential that the food actually tasted good—which it certainly did.
Driving from Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv to our hotel in Tiberias:
Finally, we concluded the night with another ice-breaker, as everyone shared their reasons for going to Israel. I spoke of my previous travels to Italy and how that opened my eyes to different perspectives on life and got me even more enthused to learn about other cultures. In this case, I would be given the opportunity to find out not just a different culture, but one that has sprung from my own heritage. A few had similar stories. Most of us had heard about positive Birthright experiences from friends, and many were looking to find out the role Judaism played in their lives when they were transitioning from school to work. Two people had parents who had always wanted to see Israel but had passed away, and they were going both for themselves and to carry out the pilgrimage their parents were never able to make.
Around 9:00PM (Israeli time) we were finally given the chance to go to sleep and put a book end on this long day. For me, it was upwards of 30 hours awake before I closed my eyes with a full docket of activities planned for the following day beginning bright and early.
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