With Love, From Israel

I made it! I am officially Israeli and live in Petach Tikva (for now). I am totally exhausted but you'll understand why when I describe the past four days.

Sunday:

It was very hard to say goodbye to my family and friends, but I went ahead and got on the plane anyway...after a delay because of weather. The plane ride was terrifying because I was stressed I wouldn't have the courage to go through with this and it was 60% turbulence so bad the flight attendants had to strap up. When I finally got to Newark, two of my bags had opened in-flight. I still don't know how much I lost (it wasn't that much). I couldn't figure out how to stack all three on the cart so I ended up with my backpack on my front, a duffel on my back, two duffels on the cart (one kept rolling off, too), and my purse, pillow, and winter coat on the basket/handle. I went like this from one terminal all the way to the shuttle pickup...where I waited for more than half an hour for the hotel shuttle. (By the way, this whole time I was wearing rainboots, knee high socks, jeans, a tank top, and a jacket so I was HOT). Finally, I got to the hotel in one piece with almost all of my belongings (whatever I lost I decided not to worry about). I got about five hours of sleep, then...

Monday:
Monday was less eventful but still not exactly smooth sailing. Soon after I registered, our Misrad HaP'nim person had fainted and could not be cleared to fly until after we left. I made friends with a middle-aged Canadian-Chinese lady in our group (more on her later), and then met a bunch of the young singles who consisted of the majority of the flight (also the families kind of stuck to themselves).

A group of us, along with an Israeli who does advocacy work internationally, had a jam session while we were waiting for the security line to open.

After security, it was a lot of looking for Starbucks (which didn't exist), coffee in general (which was terrible), figuring out the WiFi, and Jew-ography on Facebook until the flight. When most of us were on board, they started to give whoever wanted little dixie cups of wine. When I took a cup, the flight attendant asked me how old I was before she poured any in...(sometimes looking 15 is annoying!) but she gave me a little when I said 19. As it turns out, I sat next to the Canadian Chinese lady (who changed her name to Kineret yesterday) and she kept trying to set me up with boys on the flight. At one point, she even told me to stop playing on my phone and give my eyes a break! (The perfect combination of stereotypical Chinese mom and Jewish mother.) We ended up being on the plane at least 12 hours (the flight was about 11) and I only slept 45 min (mostly I just pretended to be asleep to trick my body into falling asleep, which did NOT work). I was seated in the middle of the middle aisle between Kineret and a girl who had lived in Israel the past two years but was just making it official. Not a whole lot happened on the flight until...

Tuesday:

We landed in Israel around 6:30 AM. The told all Nefesh B'Nefesh olim to wait until everyone else had gotten off the plane and then put on NBN hats so they could "identify us" (beige and black...SO distinct!). When we got off, everyone was congratulating us and giving us Israeli flags and then we had to wait to make sure everyone was off the plane. Then we went to passport control and got these little cards but were told not to go through. We went to the bus to go to the Misradim (HaKlita and HaP'nim are in the same building), but that took at least half an hour. When we got there, it was already 9 AM and we were told we'd be done in an hour and a half.

Misrad HaKlita/HaP'nim combined offices on the airport campus.
Not shown: "Welcome Home" signs in eight languages

NOPE. At least two and a half hours later, we were all done but not everyone had their Teudat Zehut (permanent ID card) because the Misrad HaP'nim lady was still in the US. I didn't get mine at the Misradim, but when we went back to the airport and through passport control to baggage claim, they said mine was upstairs. So I get a cart and I can only find one bag of three. I told one of the NBN people and she took me to the El Al desk...but everyone was on break for lunch (yes, by then it was noon). Finally, a guy from El Al says come with me, let's check again. So what do we see when we look again? That's right, my bags! Someone had mistook them for theirs but realized later and put them back. When I leave baggage claim, everyone is still dancing and singing and waving huge flags and congratulating us! But I couldn't find Eliana anywhere! So I hand in my taxi voucher and wander around to try and find her (her phone was dead). Finally, I go to one last corner and there she is! She and her sister in law had been waiting (with a dead phone) since around 9:30 am, and it was about 1 pm. We waited for the taxi together and then took a very squished car ride home (there was another olah in the regular sized taxi with us, her guitar was across our laps and most of our luggage was on top of the car). I took the most amazing shower and then we walked over to this pizza place and destroyed all my fears of not having good pizza here. I slept while the dog kept me company and woke me up two hours later with her obscenely loud cries because she thought I had died (I guess I was sleeping pretty hardcore). When everyone got home, we had dinner and I gave everyone my presents from the States (mostly useful stuff). Around midnight, I let myself go back to sleep and slept for TEN HOURS.

Wednesday (today):

I woke up late and sat in bed for a while longer. I haven't done much today but I did take another 2-3 hour nap this afternoon and take the dog for a walk. I bought a sandwich from a cafe on our street corner and he asked me right off the bat where I was from. He was very impressed I made aliyah, but I can't wait until my Hebrew is good enough that I don't get asked that anymore. I am still very tired and might sleep again (!) but I've had the opportunity to talk on the phone with my dad, mom, and sister so far which was great. I've never owned dogs and here there is a dog and a puppy so it's lots of fun and I'm never alone, even when all the humans are gone. Usdi (the dog) has taken a special interest in me and I'm afraid I'll spoil her while I'm here (at least until I start working). Waya (the puppy) continues in his special interest in peeing on the floor. Starting tomorrow, I will have to take care of a lot of things, including opening a bank account, getting a permanent cell phone plan (Misrad HaKlita gave me a temporary SIM with 200 minutes!), and lots of other stuff. Then it's Shabbat and my birthday and at night a party for mine and Dovi (Shmu and Esther's brother)'s aliyah and my birthday! Next week I have even more stuff to do, including taking a trip to Tel Aviv for an interview with NBN career services. I have so much to look forward to!

I wish my Aliyah had been super emotional and awesome like a lot of people's, but since we had so much crap going on that it was mostly sitting around, it was hard to keep the adrenaline running. When we landed, we were already so exhausted they played music because nobody was singing (although we did clap).

No ugly hat could stop me from smiling walking off that plane!

Despite everything, I am so glad I am here. It was an experience, if an unusual one, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It hasn't hit me yet, but maybe once I wake up I will be more excited. I should be back to my normal (newly Israeli) self by Shabbat!

With Love, From Israel,
Shirit