Day 1 as Olim Chadashim
Number of Cockroach Sightings: 0
110 olim (we think) on our flight. Biggest UK aliyah group ever. Slight delay which made our little boy cranky for his dinner. Is it me – or is El Al particularly slow at everything? As husband pointed out, there is a reason we have flown British Airways for our trips to Israel. But sadly they don’t do freebies for aliyah-niks so here we are stuck with flight attendants that clearly wish they were alone on the plane. Is there even a word in ivrit for customer service? If so it’s not in my dictionary.
Jojo gets a little bored on the plane (understandably) but luckily we are rescued by 2 pretty girls sitting behind us who he manages to flirt with for 5.5 hours. Slightly surprised when I mention to a fellow olah that I am clearly the most pregnant person on this flight, and why on earth haven’t they given me a seat with more legroom? To which she huffily replies that her best friend is on the flight, and is very pregnant, and she doesn’t have one either. (Yes but is the friend making aliyah at over 8 months pregnant with a long night ahead of her?? That’s what I want to know). Anyway I think she felt bad as she made a point of telling me that she “had a word” with the flight attendant to see if they could switch us. Didn’t work, obviously.
We arrive, but instead of the new airport experience (with the fabulously clever 15 minute walk to passport control – great for those of us who have previously turned up carrying a wedding dress) we are taken to the old, and now rather creepy Terminal 1. If you have ever walked around a disused airport terminal you will know what I am talking about. I am sure it will soon be haunted. For some it’s a nice trip down memory lane. Sadly memory lane lacked escalators.
Remember I mentioned how we were the biggest aliyah group ever? Well here was the not-so-great bit. Somebody had the bright idea to process all the absorption beaurocracy on the same night. So we sat there for 4 hours, until everyone was done and we were driven, half asleep to the Ramada. I started to feel like I was sixteen again, on Israel tour. After they handed out the sandwiches I half expected a madrich to pop out and remind us all to drink and use the toilets whilst we could. Eventually we get to the hotel, its 4am and we are told to be down for breakfast by half eight. I figured it would take a crane to get me out of bed after just 4 hours, but the prospect of the Full Israeli Breakfast was an incentive.