It has been THREE YEARS since were on an airplane. We have missed two whole winters of travel to foreign destinations, and this year was going to be a third one because I had a knee replacement scheduled for the middle of January. I was never excited about that timing but these surgery dates are hard to get, and I waited about four months to get that one. I got through all the various pre-surgery hurdles, until the very last one, a covid test a few days before the procedure. Failed that one, to my surprise. I have never felt like I had covid but every single cold symptom makes you wonder. So, the whole thing was put off indefinitely and they told me to isolate for five days. Even though Jon and Rebecca and I had been in the same house for months and years and none of us has ever had covid, I wore a mask for several days, and they wore masks until they decided it was pointless. We all tested negative and just had to continue to wait out the quarantine.
So, of course I thought it would be a long time before another appointment opened up and I started to re-think the plan. Decided I would rather travel now and get a new knee later in the winter. By about Day 3 of the quarantine, I had a new plan. Cleared it with my doctor who was very sorry about the delay and apologetic about how little they know about covid, even after all this time. He said the anaesthesia people do not want to take chances so they want a big buffer between a covid infection and a surgery. Fair enough.
Less than a week after I tested positive, and then negative, and had no symptoms and infected no one else, we packed our bags and headed off to Dulles Airport. The security layers were impressive. At the last gate, one more stop through passport control and then each of us was directed to our own table and inspector. Jon sailed through, and I had a long conversation with a security guy. He said, "did you take any medication?" I said, yes, I had ibuprofen a few minutes ago. He asked if Jon had taken anything. I said yes he did. He asked me what he took and I remembered the names of the two meds that Jon is on right now. He seemed impressed by my answer, indicating that it matched what he knew. I said, "he told you what he took?" and he said yes. I wondered why that conversation ever happened. He said I was sweating a lot and I said, "it was a long walk and the bags were heavy and I am fat." He protested that I wasn't fat, and I told him that indeed I am, and that is what makes me so hot. The whole thing was very odd, but friendly. He tested my bags with the explosive-detecting swipes a few times, he took notes, and he let me go.
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| Note the pick-up minyan in the back of the room. |
The waiting area was filled with large families, women in wigs and long skirts, toddlers looking like mainstream American toddlers, men praying over on the side in a standing group. A direct flight to Tel Aviv. We were in the minority, me in pants and a tank top and Jon with no kippah. All the English was spoken with American accents, and all the Hebrew was fluent. Every seat on the plane was full. The kosher meals were delivered first, and there were dozens of them. We were on our way to Israel from the minute we got through the last security check.
The flight was uneventful except for two medical emergencies. Don't know how they were resolved but two different people needed attention and we were told to say out of the aisles.
We figured out that the last time we were in Israel was February 2015, much longer ago than we realized. When we got to the airport, it was very familiar and didn't seem culturally overwhelming, even though there were no specific directions in English about doing the passport control thing yourself with the camera. We found out where the train was, got a ticket from the machine, got on the right train (believe me, Jon is nervous about every step of this, and so I am not) and got a seat. Jon talked to Benjamin and found out I had chosen the wrong station in Haifa, but he told us the right one and it didn't matter. No one arrested us on the way out.
Benjamin picked us up, we went to his in-laws' house to pick up Mika. Haifa is a hilly town with winding streets, lots of cars parked on both sides of the street, and I felt glad that we were not in a rental car for once. Benjamin was whipping around the corners. These are his winding, hilly streets.
When we got to the house, Mika was still in her high chair finishing her dinner, and she wasn't in a hurry to be removed from the table. But she did seem surprised to see us, and it seemed like she was looking at her four grandparents all in the same room -- for the first time ever -- and wondering if we all knew each other. We saw her a month ago, so she remembers all of her grandparents right now. She is still chattering away in her own blended language, and still looks mighty pleased with herself. As she should.
Jon found us an Airbnb that is just up the street from Benjamin and Yael, so after we saw Mika for a few minutes before she went to bed, we walked up the hill to our little apartment. We didn't see any pigs in the yard, but that's because they have a tall fence. There are wild pigs that roam through Haifa, like the deer that roam through the US suburbs. Pigs can be problematic, digging up gardens and lawns. Pretty sure we are not supposed to feed them -- but if wild boars were not scary, it would be almost perfect to have a roaming garbage disposal moving through the city.
No good pictures today because it was dark by the time we got off the train, but these photos are for documentation purposes.
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