Day 1 in pictures.

The grand adventure started when I woke up at around 8 a.m. Thursday morning, March 9th. After breakfast, the group boarded one of the LETU buses and we were off to DFW airport.

While we were waiting for our flight, I got to ride the SkyLink tram system, which was fun. There were a few delays with the plane, but nothing too bad and soon we left for Newark, NJ to connect to our flight to Tel Aviv. This was my second commercial flight, and I’d never been in something as large as a 737, so it was all pretty impressive to me. Those jet engines have quite a kick, at least certainly more than LETU’s Dutchess I’ve flown in with Igloo.

For the flight, I sat next to a really nice guy who was flying home to Newark from a business trip. He works for the marketing department (I forget his title exactly, but it sounded pretty high up) of a global flavors and fragrances company. I didn’t know this, but apparently companies like Frito Lay, Listerine, some toothpastes, etc. don’t make their own flavors for their products, they all go to this guy’s company. It’s a $2 billion industry.

We got to Newark just fine, with plenty of time to make the flight to Tel Aviv. It was nighttime, so we couldn’t see much of New York City, but I did see the lights of the Empire State building. The next part of our trip was on a 777 with a particularly loud paint job. I, of course, was even more impressed with this plane. We got two meals, dinner and breakfast, each of us had our own LCD screen (I watched Walk the Line, the movie about Johnny Cash), and there were other large screens scattered throughout the plane that gave status updates of exactly where we were, how fast we were going, and when we would arrive. I even got a decent amount of sleep.

Getting through customs went smoothly (the lady I talked to had “Abu” for her last name!) and we got our bags quickly enough. Immediately after that, we exited the airport, boarded our tour bus, and started getting assaulted with facts about the area by our new tour guide, Mishi.

On our way to Jerusalem, we were briefly accompanied by a large police escort for what Mishi thought was probably someone important in the Palestinian Authority.

Before even going to the hotel, we went to the Western Wall (formerly known as the Wailing Wall) to watch the Jews usher in the Sabbath. The Western Wall is the most holy prayer site in the world for Jews, particularly Orthodox ones. The experience was amazing. Orthodox Jews praying, singing and dancing surrounded us. Most of the talking was in Hebrew. Their clothes and hairstyles were very traditional. Most of the group, myself included, went up to the wall for brief prayer.

Then it was off to the hotel to check in and have a traditional Sabbath dinner. Mishi blessed the food and drink before we started. I don’t know what half the things we ate were, but it was all very good.

Despite Mishi telling us that the city would be very shut down because of the Sabbath, we decided to go out exploring anyway. Dr. Hummel used to live here, so he knew his way around pretty well. Mishi was right about the activity level, there was almost no traffic at all, and not very many people were around. We walked around the area near our hotel, then we went to the Old City through the Jaffa gate. The Old City was similarly dead except a few vendors that tried to sell us their wares. We explored the walls, and walked around part of the ramparts that was open. Then, we finally came back to the hotel.

Now it’s finally time to sleep. The local time is 12:30 a.m., the time back home is 4:30 p.m., and my body is very confused.

Day 1 in pictures.