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