Beating A Hasty Exit
Crappy leaving of Israel.
I miscalculated how much time i would need to pack and stuff, so the Nesher sheirut guy called me to say they were 5 minutes away and i had barely started. It didn't help that he was almost half an hour early. So then i had to run around like a crazy person, packing, getting dressed, and sweating all over everything.
No time to clean up. So i left empty bottles and junk all over the place. Now my apartmentmate is pissed off at me. Of course, the sheirut driver was also pissed off at me for messing up his schedule.
And then the El Al security people flagged all of my bags, and had to open them up and look through them. Lucikly i try to be honest, so i told them at the beginning of the security questionnaire that i've got a whole suitcase of Not My Stuff. So they went through all the underwear and whatnot of my friend the Paper Cutter. I didn't mind, though, i had enough time and i was just cooperatively amused. I knew they would probably have to do an in depth study of the stuff, so it wasn't unexpected or anything. It was sort of fun. Not like getting interrogated by terrorists. They probably thought i was a freak 'cause i didn't yell at them or kvetch.
I bought Idan Raichel CDs and Swiss chocolate in the airport, but no food, since i still had my goodbye sandwich from the chef at Pardes. Speaking of food, for the dinner-type meal on the plane there was an option of Chicken with Quinoa. Quinoa! On El Al? It was spicy too. I got a middle-of-the-side seat. By the window was this Hhareidi woman who brought her own food and slept a lot. She was nice and gave away her special BaDa"Tz airplane meal to me and the guy sitting by the aisle, an Israeli tour guide who lived in America for a while and had a weird sense of humor.
On the plane, i spent much time reading Die Unendliche Geschichte (no not in German), and watched Mission Impossible III and Dr. Doolittle III
Then, when we were about to land at JFK, we got rerouted to Hartford, Connecticut to refuel and try and land at JFK later because of thunderstorms. So instead of landing at 8:30pm we got in after midnight.
I marked on the customs form that i was bringing food (cookies) and animal prodcuts (parchment) into the country, but the customs agent said it was unnecessary.
Then i got home and saw the pile of books i had bought over the internet while I was away:
Badass Horror, Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre and Scream Queens of the Dead Sea because of marlowe1; The Art of Biblical Narrative (Robert Alter), Fox's translation of Shemu'el and God Knows (Joseph Heller) for work; Night Watch (with Day Watch on pre-order); The Tolkien Reader; and the "conlang recipe book" Describing Morphosyntax.
I miscalculated how much time i would need to pack and stuff, so the Nesher sheirut guy called me to say they were 5 minutes away and i had barely started. It didn't help that he was almost half an hour early. So then i had to run around like a crazy person, packing, getting dressed, and sweating all over everything.
No time to clean up. So i left empty bottles and junk all over the place. Now my apartmentmate is pissed off at me. Of course, the sheirut driver was also pissed off at me for messing up his schedule.
And then the El Al security people flagged all of my bags, and had to open them up and look through them. Lucikly i try to be honest, so i told them at the beginning of the security questionnaire that i've got a whole suitcase of Not My Stuff. So they went through all the underwear and whatnot of my friend the Paper Cutter. I didn't mind, though, i had enough time and i was just cooperatively amused. I knew they would probably have to do an in depth study of the stuff, so it wasn't unexpected or anything. It was sort of fun. Not like getting interrogated by terrorists. They probably thought i was a freak 'cause i didn't yell at them or kvetch.
I bought Idan Raichel CDs and Swiss chocolate in the airport, but no food, since i still had my goodbye sandwich from the chef at Pardes. Speaking of food, for the dinner-type meal on the plane there was an option of Chicken with Quinoa. Quinoa! On El Al? It was spicy too. I got a middle-of-the-side seat. By the window was this Hhareidi woman who brought her own food and slept a lot. She was nice and gave away her special BaDa"Tz airplane meal to me and the guy sitting by the aisle, an Israeli tour guide who lived in America for a while and had a weird sense of humor.
On the plane, i spent much time reading Die Unendliche Geschichte (no not in German), and watched Mission Impossible III and Dr. Doolittle III
Then, when we were about to land at JFK, we got rerouted to Hartford, Connecticut to refuel and try and land at JFK later because of thunderstorms. So instead of landing at 8:30pm we got in after midnight.
I marked on the customs form that i was bringing food (cookies) and animal prodcuts (parchment) into the country, but the customs agent said it was unnecessary.
Then i got home and saw the pile of books i had bought over the internet while I was away:
Badass Horror, Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre and Scream Queens of the Dead Sea because of marlowe1; The Art of Biblical Narrative (Robert Alter), Fox's translation of Shemu'el and God Knows (Joseph Heller) for work; Night Watch (with Day Watch on pre-order); The Tolkien Reader; and the "conlang recipe book" Describing Morphosyntax.