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Getting There: 23/24 August 1999
We left Birmingham early this morning, and flew to Newark for a several-hour layover. Because our luggage had been checked on our Continental flight and was then transferred to El Al Airlines in Newark, we had to "identify" our luggage before it was allowed on the El Al plane.
This meant that we waited in a cramped hallway with dozens of other cranky travellers, and ever so often, the El Al door would open, and one or two lucky people would be called in to view their bags. This didn't seem to be in any order, and we literally waited in that hallway for over two hours, as one by one the other passengers finished and left.
Finally, the El Al representative called us in...two of our bags were OK, the third had a security problem. Something in the bag had aroused their suspicions.
"You have to look at it and recognize it as your shoe," she said. "and not something that someone put in there that looks like a shoe but is really a bomb."
Turns out, it was only one of Eric's shoes, with an AC adapter crammed inside. Gee, why did they think that was suspicious???
We were cleared, and quickly boarded the plane...we were nearly the last ones on this HUGE airplane, 10 seats across, and at least 60 rows back. Every seat was filled.
The flight itself was uneventful, albeit 10 hours long, but we did have individual television sets at our seats, which helped pass the time.
We arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Tuesday, 1:20 PM Israel time. After passing through Passport Control and claiming our luggage, we caught a taxi to the other Tel Aviv airport -- Sde Dov airport, and caught our "crop-duster" flight to Eilat. That flight was pretty cool, as we could see most of Israel from the air, including the HUGE Dead Sea.
