Day One in the Books!

My first day in Israel is in the books and it still doesn't feel real. We didn't real do all that much today, but I think tomorrow is when the trip will really get going. Before I jump ahead of myself, let' start from where we left off. The flight in wasn't all that bad. Takeoff to touchdown was 9.5 hours and I got 3 hours of sleep in the middle of the flight. The rest of the flight was consumed by Homeland and I knocked out the entire second season that I had left. Homeland second season was amazing, much better than the first. Still not on par with Breaking Bad or Mad Men, but really good. The only bad part of the flight was the pushy Israeli woman sitting next to me who was extremely rude and had no concept of personal space. This was also compounded by me having a middle seat.  The guy sitting next to me was really nice - ex-Israeli military (every man in Israel is drafted at age 18 for 3 years and spends 1 month a year in reserves and every woman is drafted at age 18 for 2 years). It's really interesting seeing a population that is entirely military trained. There's a reason why Israel is one of the most powerful nations in the world. Also, for those of you who may fly El Al - everything is in Hebrew and you have to ask the flight attendants to speak English or they look at you like you have 2 heads. All of them speak English.

Once we landed, we went through immigration (not nearly as strict as I expected - Dublin was still the worst) and then through customs to claim our bags. The Ben Gurion airport is really nice and very modern looking, probably nicer than 90% of US airports. We were then led out back for orientation where we were again reminded of the alcohol policy for the 10th time and given really crappy sandwiches. Note: this is a theme from Day 1 - the food here (so far) is terrible. I'm also concerned about how strict the alcohol policy seems to be on this trip. Everyone I spoke to so has been on this trip prior spoke about how much fun the had and that the rules were pretty lax. This trip seems to be different - maybe it's the organizer or maybe there was a recent incident, but the outlook so far isn't great. We're also not allowed to go out to explore on our own. The trip is still going to be great, but the restrictions will probably turn it from a perfect trip into a really good/great trip.

On to better topics - once we left the airport we drove an hour to the Caesarea Aqueduct which looks to be about 1500 years old. It was built in Roman times with the classic Roman arches. One of the best parts of this trip is going to be seeing architecture that is older than anything we have in the states. The aqueduct is right on the Mediterranean Sea and we were able to watch the sun going down. Gorgeous views and I captured some great pix. After the aqueduct, we spent 2 hours driving up to the Golan Heights area to our hotel. There are 3 of us to a bedroom and the beds are smaller than twins. Certainly not the W - Union Square, but I'll be so tired every night that hopefully the beds won't matter...unless I pull a Mike Kaplan/Nick Ranieri and purposefully fall out of it.

After dinner (also terrible), we had a group icebreaker/discussion session. The session was pretty cool as I got to know most of the group. Half of the people are really interesting and will be fun to get to know. I'm really excited about that and think I will make some good friends here. After that, we all shared what we wanted to accomplish on the trip which was pretty varied. Believe it or not, and you all should be shocked by this, I know more about Judaism than probably 60-70% of the people here. I can't believe I was explaining some aspects of religion to other people. Somewhere out there I know my grandfathers and grandmother are smiling about this. 

Well, that's enough typing on my iPad for 1 night. I hope everyone out there is having a fantastic Christmas and has been spending quality time with family and friends. Tomorrow is a 2 hour hike and a day about Jewish Mysticism and Kaballah. Should be really interesting to say the least.

Lastly, for all the worriers out there - I'm safe and in good spirits.

-Kaps

Song of the Day: Kanye West - Clique