It has been an exciting time heading to Israel. Our Shorashim / JET group met on June 17th at 3 p.m., and began the experience of getting to know the 40 or so people signed up for the trip, including Rabbi Schwartz and Marci. After waiting in line to get through the El-Al security, by 5 we had all assembled by our gate to await the beginning of our journey together. However, things did not go quite as smoothly as we wished. A few of our group were selected by random assignment for carry-on baggage checks that went on for over an hour longer than usual, the flight was delayed for boarding for an hour, and once we all got on the plane, we sat for two hours on the tarmac. The waiting finally over, we took off by 9 p.m. eastern standard time, and began the flight to Israel on our Boeing 747-400. The next 9 hours passed in the air, with many of the group sleeping (or at least trying to). We arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv-Yafo at 2 p.m. Israel time (5 a.m back in Chicago), and met our Israeli participants--7 people our age--as well as our staff leader Yossi and guard Micha. From there we got on our bus, #638, met our driver Jobi, and began our first land travel in Israel. The group saw some amazing sights on that first bus ride: the wonderful countryside, the cities on hilltops scattered across the landscape, men driving livestock on the sides of the road, and culminating at Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee). There we said the shehechiyanu to officially begin the trip, and did some group activities to really start to meet each other. We stayed the night at a hotel by the Lake, watching the sun as it colored the Golan Heights that we could see just across the lake. They changed from yellow, to red, to black as the sun finally set.
Submitted by Clint Miller
↧
Bus 683 Day One
↧