That’s it. Israel’s done. I’ll get back to SBW, now.

Day 12, Friday, Oct 22: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

photo credit: irina slutsky

The taxi was prompt. A good sign since, so were we. Thankfully, they sent a big one this time.  No problem fitting us and the kid and our us-and-kid-crap.

On a side note, if you are up for using a taxi, Friday (the first day of their weekend) is an excellent time to travel in Israel.  There was absolutely no traffic on our way to the airport.

They take their security pretty seriously.  Before we could get to a check-in counter we had to put our checked bags through an x-ray security.  Then, take the car seat for more security (since it was odd-shaped).  After check-in we went through regular security.

Wonder of wonders, we didn’t have to remove our shoes!  I think TSA needs to get with Israel because it is so gross to take off your shoes in an airport.  Though we may need to stay diligent for terror attacks I feel it is safe to say Israel has higher odds than we do of an
attack.  So, if they’re okay with us wearing shoes I think America should be too – at least flip-flops!

All in all, it did not take that long.  The car picked us up at 6:30AM.  We got to this point in our check-in and security saga by about 8AM but that was about as much of that as SBW was willing to take.  We thought it was okay.  As normally this would be when you go find your gate.  But, no.

We turn the corner from the security check and, after that we had to go through customs to leave the country.  Will lost it.

This was maybe the one time in losing-it history that it worked out in our favor.  One of the airport officials pulled us aside and let us go through the crew line.  Awesome.

Though, as a blanket generality, Israelis could use a healthy dose of smiles and common courtesy injected into their society (I think it’s because they’re so much cooler than us), on more than one occasion we were accommodated for having a young child – more so than we would have expected at home.

As of this writing, we’re somewhere over Germany, we’ve gone 1771 miles and have 4244 miles to go. That’s eight hours and thirty-four minutes left until Newark, a couple hour lay over and then another three plus hours to Houston.  It will be another really long day.  But, one that I’ll gladly take for the experiences we earned.

Thanks Israel, it was great!

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