The lyrics to Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" keep running thru my head. Getting here took almost as long as a road trip.
We got to O'Hare at 10AM on Thursday June 14. Our flight to Philadelphia left at 1150, so we should have had plenty of time to sit in the Admiral's Club and relax. Except the guy who checked us in was a moron, and I don't suffer fools. It took him about 45 minutes. He had a confused look on his face, and I expected him to say something about a flight being cancelled or not being able to check our bags through. But no, he was just slow.
The flight to Philly was fully booked, and since I no longer have Gold status, we were in boarding group 8. As they boarded group 7 they announced that there was no more overhead space and all roll-aboard bags would have to be gate checked. Great. No way was I going to go along with that, particularly when the gate agent said they'd be checked to their final destination. Forget it. I had all my valuables in that bag. I begged and pleaded. I negotiated. I was willing to have the bag checked as far as Philly; we had enough time for me to get it from baggage claim and go back through security, but he said it has to go to the final destination. In fact this wasn't true. His colleague told him he could tag it to Philadelphia. Another idiot. Finally I told him I had medications that couldn't be in the heat and he relented, and a flight attendant actually cleared me a space in an overhead bin.
So we got to Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. When we landed Sid realized he had forgotten to bring a change of clothes for the long flight to Prague. No worries, he said, there must be a souvenir store where I can buy a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Sure, at airport prices, I thought to myself. Well, I've never seen anything like the mall at the Philly airport. I don't know what motivated them to do this, but there's a shopping center in the terminal with stores like Brooks Brothers, Johnson & Murphy, The Gap, Mac, Victoria's Secret etc etc etc. And The Gap was having a sale ... imagine that. Problem solved. And then we went to their very nice Admiral's Club. For 4 hours.Yes, that long a layover. We could have taken a later flight out of Chicago, but flying at this time of year is actually more delay and cancellation prone than during the winter. Thunderstorms and lightening are not good for airplanes or the people inside.
The flight from Philly to Prague ... American is trying to out-do themselves in hiring idiots. We were in business class, where you get treated better, and there are certain things that you come to expect. Such as, when you board a flight attendant comes around with a tray of water, OJ and champagne. One of them did come down Sid's side, but not mine. I had to go to the galley and ask for a glass of water. Then the purser came around to get everyone's dinner order. I had pre-ordered - red snapper for Sid and a stuffed portobello mushroom for me. But Sid and I switched seats, which totally threw the purser; he just couldn't figure it out. And he kept referring to the fish as salmon. I thought maybe they had to change the menu for some reason. But in fact it was snapper. As far as my order, they kept bringing me multiple versions of vegetarian meals, which were for other people. Finally the flight attendant gave me something that was identifiable only by the covering of spinach on top of something that looked like oatmeal. No, this isn't what I ordered, and I showed her the menu that was very clear - PORTOBELLO MUSHROOM STUFFED WITH BULGAR WHEAT. How does that even remotely resemble spinach? Another confused look, but she finally brought the right item. I don't know who got stuck with the other vegetarian meals; maybe the crew. And the plane was a retrofitted 767 which should have been retired 20 years ago. I know, I'm a snob. Welcome to my pity party.
We landed in Prague and fortunately didn't have to change terminals. Just one thing ... the departure board doesn't give gate information. It says A, B or C, but no gate number. We asked two people, both of whom said the gate is A2. Having flown El Al many times and being very familiar with their security procedure we expected the gate to be open; it was 2 hours prior to departure. But no. No sign, no info, no staff. Nothing. We parked ourselves right across from the gate, and I took a little walk, just to move around after the long trans-Atlantic flight. I wandered into a Moser store, which makes Baccarat look cheap in comparison. You can buy a cordial glass for about $400. Absolutely the most stunning stemware, bowls and plates in Europe, if you can afford it.
The gate finally opened. It seemed everyone was waved through except us. Most likely it was because we were in transit. So we got asked the usual security questions (who packed your luggage, did anyone give you anything, who do we know in Israel etc) until we convinced the security officer we were trustworthy. We even had to identify our luggage, since we checked in at O'Hare; the security officer showed us a photo of our bags on his cell phone. Are these yours? Yes, and it's nice to know they hadn't been lost.
The flight was full, seats were small, overhead space crowded. That didn't bother us. The 3 women behind us, who never shut up, did. They talked nonstop during the 3-1/2 hour flight and they were loud. But to give you a sense of the contradictory nature of Israelis, when we landed and got up to get our bags from the overhead bin, the first to offer to help us were those women. We arrived at the far end of the airport, where the maintenance hangars are. That's what happens when you take a cheap airline. (We were on UP, which is the budget version of El Al.) We had to be taken by bus to the main arrival terminal, about a 10 minute drive. We got through immigration in no time, and our bags were priority (another perk of business class) so they came right away. And someone at baggage claim helped Sid grab them from the conveyor and put them on our carts.
Next came the rental car counter. There were 3 clerks taking care of 3 customers, so it should have taken about 5 minutes. Except the couple in front of us was trying to figure out the cheapest way for them to handle their cars. One of them was Israeli, meaning she has to pay VAT. The other was American, meaning he doesn't. I think they had to develop an algorithm to figure this out. When one of the other customers finished, Sid made a bee line to the open clerk. She had all our info, since we've rented from Eldan before, and it really did take only 5 minutes.
At last, we were on our way to Jerusalem. It was around 6PM and there were very few cars on the road. Within 15 minutes we were almost at Beit Shemesh when we hit the first traffic jam. It took 25 minutes to get through. It was a very bad accident; the car was completely burned up. We hadn't gone another 10 minutes when we hit the second traffic jam - another accident. Finally, traffic cleared and we sped our way to Jerusalem, only to discover that in the 6 months since we were here last, traffic patterns had changed but they hadn't gotten around to putting up directional signs. We took our best guess, which turned out to be right, and within 5 minutes got to the apartment. The landlord met us, gave a quick orientation, helped us get our luggage, and 5 minutes later we left to have dinner at Batsheva and Eli's.
Food, glorious food. They pulled out all the stops, as they always do. Everyone was there, all the kids and grandchildren (except Nir, who will be back from the States in 2 weeks), 15 in total. The girls, Hila and Talia, had a growth spurt. I think both of them added 6 inches. To give you an idea of how thoughtful Eli and Batsheva are, they sent us home with food for breakfast, knowing we wouldn't be able to go shopping till Sunday.
Neither of us slept well, tired as we were. Sid was up at 230 and for some odd reason, starving. It's a good thing we had food. I woke up at 345, tried my best to get back to sleep and failed. I got up at 530 and for some odd reason I too was starving. When you're wide awake at that hour, there's not much to do except unpack. At least we made good use of our time.
There was a sharav (sirocco) on Shabbat, which is a strong wind that starts in the Sahara and brings heat and sand. The temperature hit 105. We ventured out anyway, just for a 10 minute walk, which was as much as we could handle.
Finally around 3PM we were able to nap.
We spent the rest of the day in the apartment, which is very nice. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, totally renovated, and a nice garden. The landlord supplied us with milk, eggs, jam and ketchup. Yes, an odd combination. He also gave us a nice bottle of wine. It was like a welcome amenity at the hotel. Photos will be forthcoming.
Again we had a bad night last night. We both woke up at 3, tried to get back into sleep and couldn't. We finally did what we should have done on Friday - we took a sleeping pill, and slept soundly until 1130AM.
We had two objectives for today. The first was to go and see the US Embassy. We couldn't park. As soon as we slowed down guards shooed us away. Telling them we voted for Trump didn't matter to them. We managed to take a photo. The second was to provision the apartment. We went to my new favorite store, Osher Ad, which is like Costco. $350 later we returned home.
My next project was figuring out how to pay for parking. There was a 100 shekel ticket on the windshield when we got into the car today, In many parts of the city, even residential areas, parking has to be paid for from 8AM to 6PM. Unlike what we have in Chicago, where you buy parking from a vending machine, here everything is automated. Once upon a time you could buy parking stickers and put them on the dashboard. Not anymore in Start-Up Nation. Luckily there was an ad for two parking companies on the sign that tells you the parking hours. I called and spoke to a very nice agent who walked me though the various options and set up my account over the phone. We'll see tomorrow morning if it worked. I don't want any more tickets.
Tomorrow we resume our regularly scheduled programming, which I'll report on in my next post on Friday.
Shavuah tov - have a good week - from Jerusalem,
Peggy and Sid
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