After I last wrote, I took the A train all
the way from Manhattan to JFK airport.
There I met up with my 31 other cohorts, as well as our “chaperone” of
sorts, Daniel Klein of JNF. We gathered
in Terminal 4, waiting for El Al (the Israeli airline) to open it’s check-in
gate. Because of the time difference and
the volume of traffic, El Al is not open for flights all day. Rather, our flight out a midnight was the
first flight for them to check in for the day.
I’ve also been told that it was their last, but I am not certain.
We
all made our way through security and then into the terminal where the boarding
gates are. We grabbed some dinner and
continued to mingle with the 30 new faces.
Lots of iterations of the questions “Where are you from?... What’s your
major?... Where have you traveled in the past?”
There is quite a healthy size crowd of students from Northeast Florida
(JU, UNF, and Flagler). I assume this is
because of some of the generosity that comes out of our Jacksonville, FL
community to support the JNF and the Caravan.
I
am going to be terrible with names for a day or two, but I will also be
attempting to collect some photos with the friends I make each day- so you may
be able to put a face with the names! I
may have mentioned this, but one of the biggest things they want us to do while
on this trip is mingle with other students and learn from each other’s
ideas. There was certainly no lack of
mingling in the airport! It felt like
the first day of school, but in a much more fun way.
Finally
we boarded our flight at 11:30 PM. This
took QUITE a while. The flight was
completely booked, it seemed. It took
almost an hour from when they called our boarding zone to when the plane
finally was leaving. We sat patiently
until at least 12:30 AM. I was in the
middle seat next to a guy named Alex Banks (Flagler) and a girl named Abbie
______ (UNF). These guys are cool! Alex managed to sleep most of the flight, of
which I think we all were envious. Abbie
and I entertained ourselves by laughing at a large crowd of awkward teenage
boys on the plane. The flight felt quite
long. I may have slept for an hour or
two, but it was not very satisfying. I
think it may have been the warmest I’ve ever been on a plane, which was just
really uncomfortable.
We
arrived in Tel Aviv close to 7 PM.
During our descent from 30,000 ft, we were watching a sunset for a day
we had never lived. But I guess we’ll
get that day back on our flight home.
Definitely felt strange! It was
about 10 hours in the air total. Getting
admitted into the country was quite painless, and my luggage was NOT lost, so
that is always a win! We walked out of
the airport to find a large charter bus waiting for us with snacks. I wasn’t even close to hungry but I
munched. My body was still in
hibernation mode from the flight. We
loaded our luggage, boarded, exchanged money with a friend for a good rate, and
then met some of the counselors that will be traveling with us for the trip. The two main new guys are Iftah, who seems to
be our tour guide of sorts, and Rabbi Leor who will be facilitating our
discussions. Both are probably early
30s, very cool guys.
Our
bus left the airport to drive us to our first destination, which is called
Kibbutz. It is about two and a half
hours north of Tel Aviv, in a valley that is situated between Syria and Lebanon.
Pretty amazing! We are staying a
beautiful guest house that has plenty of amenities. We met briefly, ate a small dinner, and were
in bed by about 10 PM. I am posting this
just as our new day begins.
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