Well, we made it through our first day as Israelis with only a few glitches along the way.
We had a great send off in New York thanks to Matt's sister Ilana, Stef's parents and brother and all our friends who came by to wish us well. It took us two NYC taxis to get all of our luggage to JFK airport (thanks to Stef's parents for chaperoning the second cab) and then we played a long game of "hurry-up-and-wait." After standing in many lines followed by lots of sitting, we took off for Israel only an hour and a half late.
About 60 people on our flight were also making aliyah. Families, singles, couples, young and old - there was a big range. As soon as we arrived at the airport, one of these people looked at Stef and said: "hey! weren't you my counselor at Camp Ramah?" Turns out this kid was my camper when I was 18 at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. So goes the Jewish world.
Our flight started out peaceful. We sat next to a girl who was making aliyah to get married (she brought her wedding dress as her carry-on). While we didn't have the hi-tech movie screens where you can chose your viewing options by touch-screen (boo), we still had some good movies (although I couldn't tell you what they were called). As they were beginning to serve dinner, I (Stef) shifted around in my seat to get comfortable and all of the sudden my chair gets kicked so hard that my seat shoots forward to the upright positions and I feel as if I'm flying forward! I quickly turned around to see what happened and the man sitting in the window seat behind me (I was in the middle seat) starts screaming at me. He blames me and the girl next to me for ignoring him when he asked us repeatedly to move our seats forward and now I was pushing even further back squishing his wife. While I tried to explain to him that we hadn't heard his initial requests because both of us were wearing headphones and watching movies and that if I had heard him I would have gladly moved to accommodate him and that it was not ok to kick someones seat like that, he just continues screaming at us. With a little chutzpah, I sat back in my seat and reclined again. And surely enough he smashed into my seat, once more sending me flying forward. This time I lost my cool, turned around and yelled right back at him, "It is NOT OK to behave like this!" I mean seriously, this was a 60 year old man kicking my seat! At this point we called over a flight attendant who attempted to call everyone down, but ultimately told me she can't control how passengers treat one another. Turns out the man and his wife behind us were also making aliyah, so lucky us, we got to spend many more hours with them even after the flight.
As the plane touched down, Stef felt a little emotional, but ultimately the process was pretty anti-climactic. After a few hours of getting shepherded around the airport and receiving tons of information and paper we were ready to get into our free taxi ride to Haifa. Our cab driver met us inside and told us to follow her (yes, HER). As we headed outside, the front wheel of Stef's cart got caught and all the luggage went tumbling to the ground. The cab driver impatiently yelled at us to hurry up as we scrambled to get the bags back on the cart. The bags only fell off one more time before we arrived at the car. Matt took one look at her taxi, and remembering that it took us TWO cabs to get to the airport in NYC, said: "There isn't going to be enough room!" The cab driver snapped back with: "Don't you tell me what there is and what there isn't!" She then proceeded to strap 4 of our giant suitcases to the roof of her car and, indeed, we fit everything in. We left the airport just in time to hit rush hour traffic in Tel Aviv and 2+ hours later arrived at our temporary apartment in Haifa. Turns out, in true Israeli fashion, once we were in the cab, the driver was really nice! She proceeded to tell us her whole life story in which she even lived in Chicago for 4 years. We had lots to talk about, but eventually we both fell asleep (thankfully the driver stayed awake).
The apartment is good, nothing special, but it will do the job until we find a more permanent place of our own. A couple that we had been put in touch with invited us over for dinner, so as soon as we dropped our bags off we headed right back out. Dinner was lovely and it felt good to get to know other olim (immigrants) who live near us. The husband took Matt with him to shul after dinner and the wife sent Stef a bunch of job postings that she thought would suit her. When we got home we went right to sleep and actually got a full night's sleep! Matt even made it to minyan on time in the morning. Even though it was hard to get up in the morning and we were still so tired, we wanted to get started with the day. There is a nice cafe close to our apartment where we came for breakfast (and where we are sitting right now since we don't have internet at home). Soon we will head to the grocery store to pick up some basics and get ready for our first Shabbat. The couple we met last night even helped set us up for Shabbat meals, so we are all taken care of.
Next on the itinerary: open a bank account, get phone plans and start looking for an apartment.
Shabbat Shalom,
Stef and Matt
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