I'm leaving on a jet plane... sort of.

Adventure finds me; I don't even have to leave the airport.
I'm standing in line waiting to be checked in - probably on the longest line I've ever been on in my life (barring the line to "Space Mountain" in Disney World). It's just not moving. I start to make some phone calls, and I'm just talking about my flight that's supposed to leave at 8:10. Two women in front of me say, "Oh, it's been delayed til 9:30." Great. Then they tell me that the flight has been chartered out.

What does that mean? Well, it means that IsrAir doesn't actually have a plane for us. So, they chartered some other airline to fly us to Israel instead.

I finally get up to the check in desk, and the guy tells me that they have to look for a seat for me. Um, isn't that the point of booking a ticket for a certain flight? Like, you buy the ticket for the specific flight so that you have a seat on said flight. He told me that they have to unblock some seats so people can sit on the plane. "Well, our system is a little weird." Weird? Weird is not the word. Stupid, maybe. Clearly, they overbooked. So I was told to wait over by the ropes, and 10 minutes later he handed me a boarding pass that said I would be sitting in seat 12 F.

At this point I was desperately thirsty, so I go buy a bottle of water for the hefty price of $2.70. It's like movie theater prices! I take the best drink of water I've had since that time my first Israel tour had no water in the dessert on our hike.

I walk to the security checkpoint so I can pass through and go to the gate. I totally forgot that you can't take liquids through security and here I am with a $2.70 bottle of water that I JUST bought. I was not throwing this bottle of water out, no way - so I downed the whole thing in about 30 seconds. Yeah, that was fun. Then I went through the whole taking off shoes, putting all electronic things in a bin, walking through the metal detector thing, and finally make it to the other side.
I walk to the gate and see that it is indeed not IsrAir's plane that we are flying on - it's World Airways. I was just hoping "World Airways" was actually going to take us to Tel Aviv, and not to, I dunno, Switzerland. Although, Switzerland would have been fun too - you know, for the mountains and chocolate, and cheese and such.
Anyway, finally, at 9:00, we start to board. Finally.

I get on the plane, and I find that I'm seated in-between two Chassidic men. Oh yeah. Me, wearing pants, sitting in between two chasidic men. It actually wasn't as bad as it could have been. The guy sitting on the outside got up about the same times I needed to use the bathroom, so I didn't have to try and jump over him without touching him. One time he fell asleep, and the chassid sitting on the other side of me saw me in my predicament and laughed - so I asked him to tap the sleeping guy for me - he did. :)

After many cramped legs, and two decently crappy meals, I land in Israel. Like all good Israeli travelers, the first thing I do is turn on my cell phone. This rabbi was supposed to pick me and a few other people up from my flight, but didn't know that the flight had been delayed two hours. So, I tried to call him to let him know that I arrived. I couldn't get through. I tried another number - nothing but some message from Cellcom I didn't totally understand cause it's in Hebrew. Great. Half an hour later, after I get my bag and go through customs, I try again and get through. The rabbi tried calling me, realizing my account hadn't been activated, and activated it for me! He's a nice guy - crazy, but nice.

Eventually, after waiting for two other people, we leave the airport. So, this guy is crazy - he was texting, typing, sending emails, making phone calls, all while driving. He's American, but clearly well acclimated to Israeli culture. After dropping the other two people off, we make a pit stop at the Magen David Adom, which is where he works. Ten minutes later he comes back to the car, and says, "There's an accident right near where we're going! You know what that means..." And I didn't, but apparently it means that we can take out our flashing light, put it on top of the car and drive like a complete maniac. Holy wow, I have never had an experience anything like that before! Thankfully, I am at Liz's apartment, relaxed, calm, with no shock symptoms from crazy Israeli ambulance drivers.