the beginning (again).

trials and tribulations always make for good stories—and i’ll try to remember that every time a supposedly easy task goes awry (which i anticipate happening more often than not). it all started off too smoothly: no line at the US airways check-in desk, my 3 allowed bags passed the weight test, security and customs went slowly but surely, and i found delicious (and cheap!) sushi to settle down at my gate with to wait out my ample hour before boarding. three bites in, and i am being paged to the desk. i think, “this cannot be good”. the flight that, moments before, had been perfectly on time was suddenly delayed, which meant i would most likely not make my connection in philadelphia. clickety-clack went the attendant’s keyboard, and presto! i was on board an air france plane to paris. i had about one second of romantic elation at the thought of flying to paris before the lady at the desk informed me it was now time to RUN to go pick up my bags from the carousel, go through canadian customs (though i had not even left the airport), go back to departures and check in at the air france desk (which had a predictably long line-up), go back through the security checks…and, oh, i would now be sitting at the very back of the plane, and as it would happen, air france wouldn’t honour my third luggage provision and charged me $200 for the privilege. i had a minor meltdown at the check-in desk, and a borderline major one at the gate. i avoided making eye contact with anyone because the slightest hint of sincere sympathy might set me off completely, and it wouldn’t be the first time i’d made my fellow travelers uncomfortable by breaking down, seemingly unprovoked, into a mass of heaving sobs. 

it had been an emotional past few days. lesson one (a reminder): things will be hard.

once on the plane, things started to perk up (well, i couldn’t get much lower at that point). i sat with a sweet irish girl my age, and our three hours of banter eased my mind off the stress of the build-up. she napped while i escaped to harry potter movie-land, and with an empty seat between us we took turns curling up in the middle. air france lived up to its heritage by providing swanky menus and free champagne, wine, and cognac (which we partook of whole-heartedly, though my salmon parmentier was more a mushy mass of powder-potatoes tasting faintly of fish, and the booze induced a fat headache rather than the intended drowsiness). the second leg of the journey was uneventful; i snoozed a good part of the way, comfortably crumpled up in my window seat, though i did impress my elderly row-mates by nimbly jumping over them, rather than force them to get up, every time i needed the loo. a lady in the row over clapped her approval; i must say i am proud of this skill, earned through years of practice. 

we landed. i began to see life through the growing haze of accumulated travel-hours, that is to say everything took on a surreal quality as i glided through the movements. my processing through the ministry of absorption, still inside the airport, took only 3 hours—fast by my adjusted israeli standards. the stone-faced russian staff barely spoke a word to me, which was a bit disheartening, and slightly ironic since there is so much fanfare for the new immigrants on the publicized group flights—turn the cameras off, and they’re the ones doing you a huge favour. i quickly made friends with some young mexican olim (one of whom will be studying in the same kibbutz as i am), and a german woman and her 11-yr-old son who seemed considerably depressed stuck in this waiting room, ripped out from his 11-yr-old life in munich, isolated by the language barrier in a strange new land. he was so cute and pitiful, at one point i tapped his shoulder and handed him the bag of m&m’s i’d been saving—he looked at me with big eyes and asked, with a sweet little german accent, “fur me?” i nodded and smiled, and for a brief moment his face lit up. oh, the power of chocolate. my mom bought me those m&m’s at the airport in montreal, and i hadn’t had the stomach to eat them—mom, thank you. your contribution of $1.69 just made a boy’s difficult life transition a little bit sweeter. i hope that when he’s older, reminiscing about his aliyah experience, he will remember the m&m’s lady. the cherry on top was that i received an email from the agency that set up my flight (in reply to my situation update) that US airways would reimburse me for that extra bag charge. lesson two (a reminder): things work themselves out.

praise the lord, my three bags made it unscathed, and after being told to wait just 5 minutes (again, a readjustment: in israel this means at least 15), i was loaded into a taxi with a russian couple who could barely muster a few words in either english or hebrew. the driver turned to me to figure out where they were going, and after quite a bit of sign language, i actually managed to be a proficient translator—enough so that the driver continued chatting with me in hebrew even though i assured him i did not understand a word he was saying. after a few exhausting minutes of trying to keep up, i sighed and said “listen buddy, i speak english, french and spanish, and hebrew is next on the list, but right now i just can’t do it”. he took that in for a moment, cocked his head, and asked, “¿hablas español?” at which point my desire to communicate exploded into fully fluent spanish (which i KNEW was hiding in my brain somewhere!), and we had a heated conversation the entire rest of the way, covering every topic from philosophy to politics, the woes of capitalism to the weather in canada. despite the fat belly and pit stains on his grubby white T-shirt, he turned out to be a very nice, animated, intelligent man. lesson three (a reminder): things are rarely what they seem.

a shower and celebratory glass of wine later with my “aunt” and “uncle” (but really second cousins once removed, or something), i melted blissfully into bed. i would like to take a moment here to praise the perfection of sleeping horizontally. there is nothing in this world like it, and only when we are deprived of such a pleasure do we fully appreciate the extent of it. i enjoyed it so much, i remained that way for 14 hours. i was treated to lunch by my stand-in grandparents (my grandmother’s brother and sister-in-law) who are very russian, speak limited english, and in no language do they understand “i don’t eat meat” and “please stop feeding me i am seriously going to puke”.   their couch was inviting though, so i felt it my duty to test out its horizontal-sleep capacity. it, much like the bed, was fantastic. 

tomorrow begins the fun: attempting to open a bank account, and to set up a phone plan that will not bind me for years to an extortionist contract. thankfully my auntie dana (that’s funny—i just realized as i typed that that i have a [real] auntie dawna in montreal) is helping me through these hoops, and hopefully by the end of next week i will have completed all the important first steps before i move into my new accommodations on the kibbutz. more to follow as the trials and tribulations—i mean, stories—unfold!