Travel to Israel

We flew from San Francisco to New York on American Airlines for 5 hours and then flew another 10 hours from New York to Tel Aviv, Israel on El Al airlines. We did have a three hour break in New York’s JFK airport. This gave us time to change terminals and have a small lunch (5p.m. EDT, 1p.m. PDT).

At the El Al ticket counter they gave each passenger a grilling to see why we were flying to Israel. They asked why we were going to Israel, what synagogue we belong to and what my Jewish name was. They use this information to screen passengers. We seem to pass.

We did sleep 4-5 hours, after taking a sleeping pill, on the El Al flight, which was a big Boeing 777 airliner. We watched a couple of movies. I watched “Mall Cop” and “Bride Wars”, which were fun movies but not very challenging. They served a snack, dinner and breakfast on the 10 hour flight. The food trays for each meal had every item wrapped in plastic and then the whole tray wrapped in plastic. They called it double wrapped for protection. The hot dish was separate and also wrapped in foil and then in plastic. It was a struggle to get everything opened without a knife or scissors. There was also lots of trash to pick up after the meal. This is not very ecological friendly, but it does add safety.

We finally woke up on the plane to be served breakfast and saw some land with a few snow capped mountains as we flew. We later could see the Mediterranean Sea as well at the boot of Italy, Sicily, Crete and many other large islands. It was on a clear day as we flew down the center of the Mediterranean Sea to Israel. As the flight landed in Tel Aviv, Israel we could see many farm fields nearby.

In Tel Aviv we got our luggage went through customs and we decided to take a train to Jerusalem. The automated ticket machine did not list Jerusalem, but only the station names. A kind young man help us get the tickets and on the right platform and track at the airport, to a station in Tel Aviv and then to change trains for a train to Jerusalem. Jackie and I had trouble lugging our suitcases up the stairs to get into the train, but we finally managed to get off and on.

The train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem took us past farm fields, many with sunflowers growing in them as well as wheat and corn. We saw “Jewish” horses, sheep and some cattle. The train also took us though a gorge with rocky hillsides and old man-made stone walls along the embankment, as we got closer to Jerusalem. The train was not a fast train and it took an hour and a half to make the journey, but it was very scenic. Many of the signs are in three languages, Hebrew, English and Arabic, so most people can manage to get around

We arrived in Jerusalem almost 24 hours later, if you count the time we left our home in California to the time we arrived at the hotel in Jerusalem. There was also 10 hours of time zones changes.

Our hotel room is modest for an expensive hotel, but it is clean and comfortable. The Dan Panorama Hotel is also within walking distance of the Old City. The hotel advertises that it had Internet capability, but they wanted $15/day for the service. We decided to look for an Internet café on our walk to the Old City in Jerusalem.