Hasids on a Plane

So we've had quite the last 24 hours (or so) of travel.  We left the house at 8:45am (3:45pm in Israel) and got to the airport just fine.  The friendliest and most helpful ticket agent graciously checked our luggage all the way to Tel Aviv and didn't charge us for it (we have two separate itineraries so this shouldn't have happened).  All is grand -- we get to Newark, get food, and get to our gate.

Flights to Israel from Newark are special.  The gate is at the end of the concourse and they actually block off the gate until they're ready for you to be there.  But you don't just walk up and find a seat.  You have your passports and boarding passes checked and then they check your luggage and they wand you down.  OK, no problem.

We get on the plane and immediately start looking at the movies they offer -- lots of good choices.  Round about 5:05pm (the flight was scheduled to leave a 4:50pm) the pilot tells us that some people decided they didn't want to fly so they left the plane and folks were working on retrieving their bags.  Once that's done, someone else decided they didn't want to fly and we went through it all again.  So it was 6:00pm when we pushed back and were on our way.

As you'd imagine, a large percentage of the people on the plane are orthodox Jews.  And since they're on the plane for a while, their carry-on bags are different than what you'd expect: there might have been more talit and t'fillin sets and hat boxes on the plane than there were laptops.  Not once but twice, all the orthodox men of age got up to pray.  They were pretty quiet about it but it was quite the sight to see a large group of people praying sort of in unison.  Not sure if the kids noticed...

As if that weren't long enough, we had to deal with passport control and customs.  Since we are in Israel for more than 3 months, we needed a special visa, an A1 visa.  This visa is meant for people who intend to make aliyah, to move to Israel permanently.  This is not us but it's the visa we had to get.  So we start by picking the slowest passport control line.  When we get to the booth, we get the document we need but the agent says that since we are making aliyah, we need to "go over there" to get our ID cards.  So we went where she pointed.  After 5 minutes or so, we asked someone for help.  He and a colleague disagreed over what we needed to do but she who won out told us to "go over there".  Again, we did.  This time we waited for one or two minutes before asking and learned that we just needed to pick up a phone for a direct line to the office that deals with A1 visa holders.  They came down and took us upstairs.  After being told that it would be about an hour, they informed us that we didn't need their services and that we could just get our luggage.

So yes, it took 2 hours from landing to getting in the car to take us to the apartment.  Everyone was tired and hungry but everyone kept it together.  The girls took catnaps in the car but some ice cream and chips has buoyed their spirits.

Tonight's adventure -- dinner (pizza) and a grocery store.  Wish us luck.