Naked without my Yarmulke
I'm on my way to Tel Aviv. It's an extremely warm, crowded flight, and my knees pushed against the seat in front of me before he reclined. His twitching is causing my laptop screen to wiggle violently. The similarly spastic child behind me at one point launched into a kick fest until a shot him a very cold look.
We're only 3 hours into a ten hour flight. El Al has real airline food, like all airlines used to have. The fact that it was Kosher had little impact on its airline foodness, except perhaps for the unfortunate choice of spicy eggplant as a side dish. They're not big on ice. My water was ice free, the tomato juice had two small cubes. Outside the plane it is -50, you'd think they could harness that.
The passengers, with the exception of the twits surrounding me, are about as sedate and clean as one could hope for in an over-crowded plane. Despite that, I've been using zycam and drinking water as burnbitter has advocated. Although there is little overt orthodoxy, me armrest allows me to summon a woman or a not woman, it appears. Also, the -/+ controls are all -/up-side-down-T, no crosses on this flight.
Traveling as a non-Jew, alone, with a new passport, got me special attention at the terminal. My handler tried to assure me that it was typical, but of the 300+ people that boarded the plane, I seemed to be the only one with a personal security escort that walked me from the Israeli security area to the gate sat with me until the plane boarded. My usual penchant for arriving early served me well, since the individual attention my baggage got took an additional 45 minutes.
He did explain to me the sporting event that resulting in all of my host's choices of hotels being booked, and the resulting hotel room a block from the US Embassy, against the US Government recommendation. Apparently it's something like the Jewish Olympics, where Jews from around the globe come to compete.
I suppose I should sleep, except I'm unable to convince myself that it isn't 1 in the afternoon, or shape my body into anything resembling a sleeping position. When I get in, it will be 6:15 am.The El Al boarding area was devoid of anything interesting, anyway, especially wireless networks, so I'm unsure what to expect when I get in. Hopefully nothing drastic has developed in the last day.
We're only 3 hours into a ten hour flight. El Al has real airline food, like all airlines used to have. The fact that it was Kosher had little impact on its airline foodness, except perhaps for the unfortunate choice of spicy eggplant as a side dish. They're not big on ice. My water was ice free, the tomato juice had two small cubes. Outside the plane it is -50, you'd think they could harness that.
The passengers, with the exception of the twits surrounding me, are about as sedate and clean as one could hope for in an over-crowded plane. Despite that, I've been using zycam and drinking water as burnbitter has advocated. Although there is little overt orthodoxy, me armrest allows me to summon a woman or a not woman, it appears. Also, the -/+ controls are all -/up-side-down-T, no crosses on this flight.
Traveling as a non-Jew, alone, with a new passport, got me special attention at the terminal. My handler tried to assure me that it was typical, but of the 300+ people that boarded the plane, I seemed to be the only one with a personal security escort that walked me from the Israeli security area to the gate sat with me until the plane boarded. My usual penchant for arriving early served me well, since the individual attention my baggage got took an additional 45 minutes.
He did explain to me the sporting event that resulting in all of my host's choices of hotels being booked, and the resulting hotel room a block from the US Embassy, against the US Government recommendation. Apparently it's something like the Jewish Olympics, where Jews from around the globe come to compete.
I suppose I should sleep, except I'm unable to convince myself that it isn't 1 in the afternoon, or shape my body into anything resembling a sleeping position. When I get in, it will be 6:15 am.The El Al boarding area was devoid of anything interesting, anyway, especially wireless networks, so I'm unsure what to expect when I get in. Hopefully nothing drastic has developed in the last day.