Sitting in Frankfurt

Hey all,

I made it to Frankfurt and now have about 3 hours to kill before my next flight starts boarding.  The sucky part is: in the gate area, there is only one place to get food: Mayer’s The Brezel Bakers (Est 1902) and I was hoping for a bit more variety.  Lufthansa fed me breakfast on the flight up from Tel Aviv (that I proceeded to get all over my shirt) so I am not hungry yet, but 3 hours is a long time, people!

Speaking of food, the people we were meeting took us out to dinner last night at the conclusion of our F2F (that’s Face 2 face for you non acronym peeps).  The whole meeting was super productive…a lot more than I thought it would be and they seemed to be pleased about the progress too.  Dinner was at a Middle Eastern restaurant (kabobs) in a gas station (really) and was awesome.  The starters/salads covered the entire table.  It was tons of little plates with different things on them: hummus (yum!), cabbage with various treatments: simple dressing, sour and hot, other, Carrots with hot peppers, olives, spicy cucumbers, some roasted tomato sauce that I would have said was salsa if I was blind folded and had a nacho chip, and many many more.  It’s sort of family style and you reach and grab what you want both eating from the little plates and/or taking some to your own.  Then the kabobs came out (I had chicken skewers and beef kabobs) and they were AWESOME!  Man…I could (and did) get fat over here.  Love the food and the flavors.  Even the Intel Café had really good food every day we were there.  Of course, I suppose you get used to it and it becomes less of an awesome thing, but for a week of novelty, it was great.

Got up around 12:20 this morning so we could leave by 1 for the ~hour drive to Tel Aviv and the airport.  What with turning in the rental and the shuttle over, it was around 2:30 when I got in line for security for my 5:00 flight.  I would have to say, out of all the airports in the world that say “be there X hours before your flight” that I have been to, Ben Gurion Airport is not joking around.  They recommend 3 hours because the Israeli’s take security on flights to the nth degree.  They are probably the only airport in the world that didn’t really change their security practices after 9/11 ‘cause they were ALREADY hard core.

Normally, when you come over for business, you go through the people you are meeting to get an exit letter set up.  It basically covers all the pre-screening and lets the airport know you were indeed there for non-nefarious purposes and the security screening is pretty much a breeze.  Without the security letter (and heck, even sometimes with), you could be subjected to some fairly detailed and time consuming questioning.  Just depends.  Armen’s (my boss) mom made it through no problem and her passport has her being born in Syria.  Dani’s (my coworker) husband is from Costa Rica and generally a happy go lucky guy and I guess he was questioned for an hour when they left.  They all came early like I did but toured Jerusalem and Mosada and the Dead Sea rather than play with me in Eilat.

Exit letter…last time I was here (9 or 10 years ago?) we got an exit letter and were approaching the ticketing counter when security came and said we needed to go to another building to start the process and blah blah.  We broke out the letters and said showed them and the attitude changed, we were ushered to a short line and like 30 minutes later, we were through.  Totally awesome.

I put in for my exit letter this trip on Sunday when the meetings started but was informed on Tuesday that since I had been in Israel being touristy more than 50% of the stay, I didn’t qualify for one (neither did 3 of the 4 other people that came over).  That, along with the fact I had gone to Egypt for the dive trip had me filled with visions of getting taken into a room and being grilled like a mo-fo. 

Couldn’t be farther from what happened…or I guess it could be, but it was not a painful process.  Instead, I stood in the security line with everyone else and when it was my turn the guy asked me questions about what I was doing there (little bit of tourist and then business meetings), where I had been (Eilat, Taba, and Haifa), how long was I in Egypt (went in the morning came back in the afternoon), purpose of being there (diving), did I know anyone in Eilat (no).  Boom.  Thank you, please take your bag to the x-ray machine.  You also get a bar code sticker on the back of your passport and your luggage.  The bar code could flag for additional screening, might not.  I think it sort of does from what came in a bit, but before we get there…

Took my luggage to the X-ray machine and walked to the other end to collect it.  The screener came over to me and asked if I was going to Frankfurt and I told him yes.  He had me follow him over to the area where they were opening select people’s luggage and going through it item by item.  Crap.  But then he asked someone to take care of me (might be helpful if I ever learn Hebrew) and they led me to the front of this loooooong line at the Lufthansa counter to get my boarding passes.  Now either that long line was filled with people who were going on a later flight –or- they were getting my passes in case follow-on security was going to need more time with me.  Not sure which it was except when I got to the departure area, I had to go through a much more thorough carry-on luggage screening than most people did.  That’s why I think the bar code might indicate additional screening since the guy scanned it and directed me to that line rather than the other.  Of course, I might have been person 10 through that line and got luck of the draw too.  Either way, I got the whole wipe it and sniff for bomb residue action on my laptop, my nook AND my shoes (freaking shoe bomber…ruining it for everyone…although I didn’t have to take them off).

Anyway, I guess I passed everything (as I should) because they handed the stuff to me and that was it: done.  An hour after beginning, I was sitting at my gate.  The other 3 all leave at 11 (which is about right now) so I look forward to hearing how their experience was. 

I am heading to Vancouver, BC next.  I was thinking I wouldn’t have to go through customs until hitting Portland, but the ticket counter person in Tel Aviv said I “get” to go through customs in Canada too. 

Okay, I am going to try to send this out now.  The wireless claims you get 30 minutes free, but I haven’t tested that yet and they ask for an email so it might be all spammy and other things.  If that is the case, then I will send from Canada and you will know because I will probably add in bits about the 10 hour flight.  BTW, watched Jack Reacher on the way over here.  The one with Tom Cruise.  It was surprisingly entertaining and pretty good. 

I hope everyone is doing well!

Our time, people’s time!

Jim

My hotel room in Haifa

Hey all,

Not a ton to update about.  Day 1 of meetings is over with and up until about 3 in the afternoon, things were pretty non contentious.  That changed and the remaining 2 hours were fairly exciting.  So the agenda for the remaining days has been moved around and rather than presenting this afternoon, I "get" to present first thing this morning so we can all be baselined on where we are in order to make decisions on how to move forward.  How is that for business speak?  At least I didn't use synergy or inflection point (2 of my least liked phrases).

Anyway, I was originally put into a room at the hotel with 2 singles snuggled up to each other.  Sure it looked like a king sized bed, but you could only get into half of it at a time. Not quite the same thing.  While I was at work, they moved me to a new room that has a king sized bed and I walk into this:

Yes the wall is a window.

The view out my wall o' window

 

Night time is the right time.  Same view later that night

The room sort of faces northeast so I am now sitting in the room with the rising sun streaming in.  Not a bad time.  Nice and relaxing before going in to face the wolves :)

Oh!  I forgot an exciting (to me) tidbit.  After the last blog while I was waiting in the airport for John to show up, I realized I had left my passport in Eilat 4 hours away.  Yeah.  Not a good idea or feeling for that matter. I wasn't totally sure, but it wasn't in my back pack and I didn't remember specifically packing it.  John finally got in (Air France lost his luggage too, btw) and we made it up to the hotel to check in.  When I did, they called the hotel in Eilat and yes I did leave my passport which is now being couriered up here for the nice sum of 80 shekels, about $25 which isn't bad as far as I am concerned.  Thank goodness I didn't have to drive back down there to get it.  That would have sucked.

Well I need to get showered and head to breakfast (buffet style!) and then head out to work.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Our time, the people's time!

Jim

Hanging at the airport is boring...but gives me time to write!

Hey all,

I am sitting in the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv waiting for one of my coworkers to fly in.  Since I was already here, I volunteered to pick him up on the way to Haifa since Tel Aviv was on the way from Eilat.  Of course he missed his flight in NYC so is coming in 4 hours later than originally planned and although he DID send a mail in time for me to know had I looked, I didn’t…so now I sits.  Oh well.  I was worried about traffic from Eilat anyway since today is the equivalent of Sunday and all the vacationers have to be back to work tomorrow.  Israel work week is Sunday through Thursday.  So I sit here rather than near a beach…crap, you are right, I am an idiot.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.

Had a pretty good couple of final dives yesterday.  Nothing like the life I saw on the Egyptian dives, but I did have my camera so there will be photos!  Not a whole lot to report on the dives other than one of the guys ran out of air on the safety stop.  No biggie as all of us were sort of clustered together and he buddy breathed off another guys octopus (all of us have 2 regulators: one for the diver and one for the diver who runs out of air).  Really the dive master should have been paying more attention to everyone’s air supply cause he turned around later than he should have.  On the other hand, right at the turn around I saw a nudibranch and took a picture so I was happy we went that far. 

The other slight bummer is I saw this little white eel which, according a quick Google is a young moray eel.  I was maneuvering in to get a picture when I guess I scared if off and it went under the stone it was peeking out from.  But I got to see it at least so that was pretty cool.

Heading to Haifa this afternoon after John gets here.  Not sure I will write much more since it’s going to be meetings and then dinner.  Maybe there will be something exciting to share.  Let’s aim for at least one more….and until then, some photos!  As always, click to embiggen...although you might need to click twice.

Some fish hanging out around an outcropping of coral.

Nudibranch!  This was down around 18 meters.  White balance is your friend in the water :)

While the anemone is pretty cool, if you embiggen, you can see the shrimp hanging out on one of the tentacles in the  middle

Derpy looking starfish. 

Thought this was some kind of scorpionfish, but apparently not.    I forget what the dive master called it and I don't have my log with me.  Oh well.  Pretty cool looking either way

Check out the two lower teeth on this dude.  Nothing like being able to eat some coral!

Spotted sting ray.  Could have framed this better, but there was another  diver directly above him trying to get a photo too.  I didn't want to include the other diver :)

Parrot fish!  I swear, every time I try to take a picture of a fish, it turns the wrong way.  In this case, I got a nice side shot!

Yeah...the drive from Eilat to Tel Aviv looks like this for at least half the trip. 

I figured the camel sign was worth a picture.  I took it while driving past  so its not the best photo...oh well.

Love to all

Out time, people’s time!

Jim

I like it Eilat!

Hey all,

Well, day 2 coming to a close with no clothes.  I checked with both the United website and called their number here and the site says it has already been delivered while the dude on the phone gave me an “of course” when I asked if it was going to be delivered today.  To be slightly fair, even though I don’t want to, that is the usual answer to a question here in Israel…but when it’s given, it usually DOES mean “of course” and whatever it is said in reference to is a done deal…except in this case.  So United = sucks now.  Plus I get to vote with my wallet since I will probably be coming here every 6 months or so. Sure, not a ton of money out of their pockets, but every little bit helps.  I realized tonight that not only is my camera case in there, but my Dramamine is too.  Yeah…boat dive tomorrow.  Hopefully they have some on the boat *burp*.

I did the 2 dives today with one being a refresher dive since I hadn’t been diving since last April and the other was a normal dive.  The refresher was your typical recover your regulator (what you breathe through), take your mask off and put it back on, buddy air techniques, etc.  It’s basically done to make sure you are a safe diver when you do the follow-on dives.  The one weird one of this was when we took the mask off (and then put it back on), he said an optional thing to do was a farmer’s blow (hold down one nostril and exhale through the other).  I had never had anyone suggest doing that before (maybe I am sheltered?) but I HAVE had some mucus build-up from time to time while diving and since your nose is inside the mask, not being able to blow it has proven to be a pain in the butt.  Now I have a remedy!

We wandered around after I had done the tasks just to check out the local scenery.  It was pretty dull until a spotted sting ray decided to swim through.  It was pretty cool looking.

The second dive was a bit better than the first one, but there wasn’t a ton of life to see.  There was a pretty good variety of fish, but it was nothing like Thailand.  I am sure it has a lot to do with all the tourists that come through here and I hope tomorrow’s dive is more heavily populated.  I did see a sand dollar (first time since my certification dive in Monterey Bay) and some colorful fish so it wasn’t a total waste.  The dive was 35 minutes, but relatively shallow (around 25-30 feet) so I came up with over half a tank left (take THAT Sophia [even though you would have come up with 7/8ths of a tank due to your gills]).

Tomorrow is a boat dive further south so hopefully it will be awesome and chock full of life.

I went to dinner tonight at a seafood place right across the street from me.  Apparently they are good…or at least their prices indicate that is so.  I had my first encounter with a whole fish (“whole” without the innards, of course).  Lots of little bones involved and I had to pick them out of my mouth occasionally.  While it was really good, the bones sort of sucked.  I have to assume there is a much better way of stripping the meat off the thing than what I did, but I will say I did a pretty dang good job. Got pretty much everything short of gnawing on the bones pork chop style to get the last remaining bits. 

I happened to glance at the bar and saw Marci’s old Brazilian nemesis: Cachaca!  For those of you who don’t know, that is liquor distilled from sugar cane and is the main ingredient in Caipirinhas!  In your honor, Marci, I asked if they made them and they said they didn’t.  Super sad.

Day 3 dawned with no magical overnight delivery of clothing.  I say “dawned”, but I am still screwed up from the time change and woke up about 1am and then lay there shifting positions for a couple hours before I said screw it, and got up.

Today was diving in Egypt day.  The dive shop up here gave us a ride to the border and dropped us off to walk it.  The hotel with the other dive shop was literally right across the border so it wasn’t that big a deal except for Egyptian customs.  We got through the Israeli side with no problems.  Oh, I keep saying we.  There was a couple from Holland that coincidentally is staying at the same hotel but also booked this trip through the same dive shop.  Anyway, the last guy on the Israeli side, chatted with the Dutch couple about when the best time to go is for $$$ (September…or after August) and if the light rail and busses ran all the time (they do, 24-7) so he could stay out of city center for cheaper. 

With that out of the way, we were able to head into Egypt.  We entered the Welcome Hall and it was empty except for one guy who ran into another office to grab the operator of the x-ray machine (you have to put your baggage through it).  We made it through that point and wandered over to the passport checkpoint that was also abandoned.  We about walked through since there was no one there but a custodian came after us and said we needed to get the stamps.  Apparently X-ray guy wasn’t authorized to do that since he remained seated at his end of the hall while we waited.  A good 10-15 minutes later, another gentleman came in and gave us the entry stamp.  It was so bizarre.  I mean after the efficiency of the Israel side, we were in a total hurry up and wait mode in Egypt.  The Dutch couple was worried the boat was going to leave without us (it didn’t…we got there and had to wait some more…there may be a theme of that in Egypt…not that it is a bad thing if you are expecting it).  For sure there are not a lot of signs with “go this way” on the Egyptian side, but there are a lot of armed men who will politely point you in the correct direction if you start going the wrong way.

I was on the dive boat before I remembered that I didn’t have any Dramamine.  I tend to get seasick (or at least have the one time I went without in the Dominican Republic and the boat was rocking back and forth in the surge) so I was a little worried, but they had  never heard of it before.  Luckily, it was a calm day, the boat was going about 2 miles an hour and there were no queasy feelings.  Heck, I even ate lunch in an enclosed area while the boat was moving.  Cured?  Maybe not, but less worried about it.

The dives were pretty good.  I mean there were some dull parts, but I got rid of my “I want to see something totally awesome every dive” mentality when I was on sabbatical and dove every day for 4 weeks (except for days before a flight, of course).  If I ever find myself thinking “boring”, I kick back, sort of slap myself and look around again.  I am under freaking water and swimming amongst fish!  How awesome!

To be fair, though, I did see something awesome on each of the 3 dives yesterday, but sadly, there are no photos.   But here is a quick summary:

Dive 1: Cool nudibranch that was blue and orange.  Watched it crawl along for a bit.  A cuttlefish!  I saw one on our first dive in Thailand and didn’t realize what a treat it was.  Instead I was thinking “why is the dive master watching this thing for so long”.  I now understand.  It was pretty cool to watch.  A scorpion fish that totally looked blue.

Dive 2: Place was called Aquarium and it was: tons of fish.  I saw a cool black looking lion fish and a stonefish that was walking along the seabed on its fins.  Crazy…it would sort of hop along pushing itself.  Crazy.  And about the time I was thinking “all this place is missing is turtles and it would be as good as Thailand” we came across a giant turtle!  Easily the size of the ones in Hawaii.

Dive 3: This one was one of those “not much to see here” dives until towards the end.  Still cool to be down there but not a ton of excitement until we came across an octopus that was out and about.  We scared it a bit and it changed color and shape (they can make themselves look spikey) so that was cool to see.  And as we were doing our 3 minute stop at 5 meters (it’s a dive thing to help get some nitrogen out of the body and to make sure you don’t get the bends) we saw a spotted sting ray.

All in all, the trip was a success.

Leaving Egypt, we entered Farewell Hall (which was really the other half of  Welcome Hall) to get our exit stamps.  This time, they were actually manned and we made it through fairly quickly.  On the Israeli side, there was a tour group (it seemed like..they all had matching colored hats) in line in front of us so it took a while.  I think my leaving Israel is going to be a little painful because they now have me entering at Taba, Egypt rather than the Tel Aviv airport so I am anticipating some questioning: “Why did you go to Egypt”, “Where did you stay”, etc.  Fun times.

Getting back to the hotel, I checked to see if the luggage had arrived and it hadn’t…but they did say they had called and were delivering it in like 30 minutes!  Sure enough, my luggage finally made it.  Fresh clothes are awesome…as is deodorant.  I mean I was going all Matthew McConaughey for the past couple of days letting my natural manly scent make itself known to the world.

I went down to the tourist section of Eilat last night for dinner and to walk around.  I ate at an Irish bar, drinking Belgian beer while eating a curried chicken sandwich (Indian) while in Israel.  Man of the world, that’s me.  For those of you interested, shots of alcohol were in the $10-20 range.  Patron Silver - $20! Anejo was in the $30 range.  Yeah…ouch

I also walked along the boardwalk and tourist crap is the same the world over!  Cheap t-shirts and jewelry.  Awesome.  I did get an aux cable for my iPod to hook it up to the car’s stereo cause that drive out in the middle of nowhere between here and Tel Aviv got down to 2 terrible radio stations.  Now I can listen to my iPod instead…as long at the cable works okay.  Since it’s Israeli, the signal may be going from right to left instead of left to right (thank you, I was proud of that one).

Slept a little better last night and went out for a little run this morning because I could. It was already hot so I only did a 5K, but I am happy I did.  Today is another couple of boat dives at a place called Japanese Gardens so hopefully we will see some good stuff.  This time I have my camera so hopefully there will be photos to break up the wall o’ text.

Enough!  I hope all are doing well

Our time, the people’s time!

Love to all

Jim   

  

Made it to Israel

Hey blog fans!

I had to come to Israel for some business meetings and decided to come a little early for some fun.  In this case, the fun (hopefully) diving in the Red Sea in Eilat, the southernmost tip of Israel.

Short story: I made it to Eilat alive and well although pretty zonked out from the travel.  I went to bed early last night and, of course, woke up way too early this morning so you get this note.

Long Story:

Tam and I went to see Tony Bennett Sunday night.  We already had the tickets when the travel to Israel came up and I have always wanted to see him so I scheduled my flight out on Monday….at 6am.  Yeah, probably not the best decision ever made.  I keep forgetting I am getting old and sleep = good.  3am came about early on Monday morning.

I got to the airport fine but any hope I had of changing my middle seat to an exit row or non-middle seat went up in smoke with the long line at United.  However, after making it to the gate area, my name got called and they asked if I would give up my seat so a family could sit together.  Not a problem and I got upgraded to economy plus (still in a middle seat, though).  When I got on the plane, there was a couple in the row and the lady was already seated in the middle seat giving me the window.  Yay!  It’s the little things.

Made it to Newark a little early and wandered around the bookstores I passed to see if I could find Marci’s book.  No luck.  Newark doesn’t like Marci.

I had already upgraded my seat on the flight to Tel Aviv to economy plus (3-4 extra inches of leg room and the seat reclines a little more) and it turns out my row was one of the few that didn’t have someone sitting in the middle.  Time to stretch out! Even with the extra space, while I was more comfortable, I didn’t sleep much if at all.  Man I wish I could sleep on planes.  As a side note about United, they are one of the few (only?) airlines that does not provide complementary alcoholic beverages on international flights.  Sucks…but the cool flight attendant gave me my beer I had for dinner free anyway!

We made it to Tel Aviv on time even though we did a few circles out over the Med because the airport was closed for some reason.  Made it through passport control with no problems and got to the baggage area only to sit through the entire cycle with no view of my luggage.  Yes, even though I was in Newark for about 2 and a half hours and was able to eat, check out 3 book stores, and slowly wander over to the gate and still have an hour left before boarding, my luggage couldn’t make the same trip.  According to the nice gentleman at the desk, it was on the next flight set to arrive at 4 (it was about 11am at that time).  I, however, still had a 4 hour drive to Eilat to do before I could crash.  Supposedly the luggage will be delivered to me today…we will see.

The kind Hertz people complimentarily upgraded my rental to a Honda.  Still a dinky car, but it looks cool.  I guess there is some kind of master car theft ring going on in Israel because on top of the normal key and lock, there is an electric lock on the engine such that I have to type in a code on a little keyboard on the dash before inserting the key and turning the car on. On top of that, the car has a key slot AND a start button so you have to insert key, turn it and then push the start button to get it started…and this is after punching in that code.  Thankfully they had a guy walk me to the car and walk me through these steps so I was able to start the car and then get the heck out of there.

For those of you interested, to get from Tel Aviv to Eilat, you take the 1 to the 6 to the 40 to the 90 and you are there!  340-something kilometers from your starting point.  The signs here are all in Hebrew, Arabic and English so you just have to scan them to find the language you prefer.  One of my favorite signs said: “Beware camels on the side of the road”.  I didn’t see any camels, seedy or otherwise, but they apparently got tired of writing all that and soon the signs were white warning triangles with a red border and a silhouette of a camel in the middle.  Sort of like a deer crossing sign, but for camels.  The drive was fairly pleasant with occasional signs of humanity until about 2 hours into it.  At that point, you hit a desolate section that has no signs of life and is basically dirt, rocks, and more dirt (piled up into interesting hills at least).  Luckily the Honda powered through that section and I made it to Eilat.

 

View from my hotel room.  That is the Red Sea.  The land on the other side is Jordan and if you followed the road (that is 90, btw) to the right you will hit Eqypt. 

Got checked into my hotel and then bought a cheap swim suit and par of flip flops so I can go on my dive this morning (remember, no luggage).  I look like Jackson and Travolta did in pulp fiction after they had borrow clothes from Tarrantino’s character.  Luckily I did my certification through PADI so they can look up that I am indeed certified since my card is also in my luggage (along with my camera case, mask, etc).  Today is just a refresh dive and then a dive at the local reef.  Tomorrow is a boat dive to maybe Egypt (I have to bring my passport) and then on Friday it’s another boat dive somewhere that a passport is not required. 

And that’s about it.  The sun just came up, we are 10 hour ahead so I subtract 2 from the hour and flip AM/PM for west coast.  So you central people are 8 hours behind me now (subtract 4, flip).  Other time zones, you are on your own.  Anyway, my body thinks its 8PM and it’s really 6AM here.  I wonder when breakfast is served….

Love to all, our times, people’s time!

Jim