Israel Day 1: The Travel

I started on my trip to Israel on Sunday night, which for a time, it was uncertain that I would even get to Israel. If you have not read about the nature of my Israel trip, please read here.

At Albany Airport, there was mass confusion concerning the flights that were going to Newark, NJ. One flight was the 11:00 AM flight and the other was my flight at 5:50 PM. Both flights were showing delayed on the board but the gate agent couldn’t give a forward answer why there was a delay. Long story short, my flight was delayed an hour but that wasn’t a big deal to me as I had a 3 hour lay over.

I arrived in Newark without any problems. Newark is a busy and crowded airport so I headed to the United club with a free pass I acquired. After relaxing for a bit, I started to my gate. Amazingly, after going through Albany security, we had to go through gate security. Our passports were checked and our bags searched. Then, we all had to again go to the gate agent to have our passport looked at again. We loaded plane and started our journey.

The plane was full. There were many families traveling together to Israel. There were a significant number of babies and small children on the flight. I slept for about 6 hours of the 10 hour flight. The flight really wasn’t a problem. However, my feet swelled so much that I had to take my shoes off. Sitting that long really does a number on the body.

As we walked off the flight, I was questioned by security with some basic questions. I had heard of horror stories of people being denied entry into Israel and had to immediately take another flight. I was a little nervous but security let me go. Then, I cleared customs quickly.

We met with our hosts Amy and Todd. Amy is Jewish and an American. Todd is an American and is a Christian. They described the goals of our visit and the plan for the day. We introduced ourselves and why we were on the trip. I said, “Because who could pass up such an opportunity!”

We traveled about 2 hours into Nazareth and settled into our hotel. A nice and clean place. A standard hotel in the States, however, when I asked for an iron for my crucially wrinkled shirts, the only one the hotel had was broken.  So, for the next two days, I’ll have some lines on my shirts.

Dinner was at Tishreen, which is an incredibly eclectic and fantastic place to eat. We enjoyed what seemed like endless dishes of local takes on salmon, chicken, egg-plant, vegetables, and more. My favorite was a coffee reduction chicken dish.

Well, time to get some sleep! Tomorrow, Nazareth sites.

Israel Trip Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3 – Day 4 – Day 5 part I – Day 5 part II – Day 6 – Day 7 – Day 8