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