So I wrote this a week ago and for some reason it didn’t publish. The wifi here in Israel is a little difficult, so I’ve been here a week but I’m going to re-post it now:
I have a 6 hour layover here at JFK and its finally hitting me that I’m about to go to Tel Aviv, Israel for 5 months.. I was originally going to write my pre-departure post a week ago but it hadn’t hit me at all yet so I had nothing to write about. This summer was a blur because I was constantly working. At my second job (a restaurant) my regular customers would ask me every time they saw me how long I had until I left, and I never remembered. This last week I couldn’t believe that it was almost time, and now the day is here.
Choosing Israel was a difficult decision and being the only one from Rollins going this year, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Who knows how the rest of this semester is going to turn out but going through JFK has proven to be my first adventure on this journey. Understandably, the security checking in to Israeli flights is serious, but I was not prepared for the barrage of questions I received. Of the 40 or so students on the group flight to Tel Aviv University, myself and 4 others were the only non-Jewish people. The second they realized we weren’t Jewish, they wanted to know exactly why we were coming to Israel and all of us being unprepared could only say, “because its cool?” Anyway, they laughed at us and sent us through after a good 45 minutes of questioning. We were also escorted to the front of all the lines and our carry-ons were taken until we boarded the plane. We just boarded the plane about 5 minutes ago and again were taken in front of everyone and got seated first. Now I’m finally settled and waiting for everyone else to board. The 90ish year old rabbi next to me is offering me grapes so I think that’s my cue. Until next time,
Anna Reagan