back to Monterey, and welcome to January. I had a couple adventures before getting here, but now that I'm all settled in, I'm feeling good. Mixed feelings about the start of the semester on the 31st, though.
So I arrived in Toronto with a slight delay after leaving Yellowknife, and spent the night at Janzen's. I was due to fly out the next day to Tel Aviv at 5pm, and I arrived to find that not one but TWO groups of birthright kiddies were on my flight. They sat in big piles on the floor at the gate, and when we had to line up to go through explosives-check security (extra security for the promised land, as always) before going on the flight, they were the first up, which meant waiting for a loooong time in line behind them. I was also on standby, which I'm not used to, but eventually after going through security checkpoint #2 they gave me my very own ticket with seat number on it. The birthright kids also got to board the plane first, but finally - finally! it was my turn to board the plane. I hand the guy my passport, he swipes it... and asks me if I have an Israeli passport. Um, no...
"Well, this one's no good. It needs to be good for six months, and it expires in March." Uh... WHAT are you SAYING to me?! Yup, I couldn't board the flight. I got shunted to the side and someone else got my seat. Bet they were happy.
I, on the other hand, was standing at the counter, getting left behind, running my hands through my hair. FUUUUUCK. What do I do now? Luckily enough, one of the security guards wandered over, happy to help damsels in distress I guess, and reassured me that one can renew a passport within a day if necessary. Wow. Really? That's good news if it's true.
So I hop on up to ticket help, get my flight changed for two days from then (so much for spending New Year's in Tel Aviv, this time it's going to be in a plane) and head back home to Janzen's. I have to say, I was so lucky to be staying at a friend's house. Being rejected from your flight does not feel good. But she gave me a place to stay, food, and moral support, printed out the passport application for me, loaned me her TTC pass, and when it came to it vouched for me as part of the process so I could get my new passport.
So yes - the very next day I headed for the passport office down on Victoria St. and handed in the application. For a tidy sum - and proof that I did have a flight the next day - they promised me the passport would be ready by the following morning. By the time I got back to Janzen's apartment they were calling her and had already called my other reference. The next morning my brand new passport was ready. Such efficiency! I loved Canada just a little bit more after that. Everyone in that office was so goddamn normal and laid-back too. Strange really.
Thus did I successfully board the same flight two days later. This time, sans birthrighters, the whole thing was much more relaxed. I arrived in Tel Aviv twelve hours later without my suitcase (they'd sent it without me on the flight I didn't get on, and then ignored my instructions to keep it in Israel and sent it back to Toronto by the time I arrived at my destination) and walked out into warm and humid Tel Aviv. Then, of course, I waited for an hour in the airport wondering if my boyfriend forgot about me - turns out that iPhone alarms decided not to go off on the first day of 2011. But hey, no one ever said travel was perfect.
The silver linings to this story are that I got to spend more time with Janzen in Toronto, meet her boyfriend, and got to meet up with Jonathan, Ryan and Rachel; that I now know (as do my acquaintances I hope) to renew my passport before it reaches the six-month point; and that I got my passport renewed, hooray! I might've gotten heck for it when I tried to get back into the States, so I saved myself that.
Perki did eventually arrive to the airport. And my suitcase arrived mostly intact a couple days after my arrival in Tel Aviv, delivered in style to his apartment. Then it was all watching TV and reading, watching Dora play with her little plastic ring like she's a grand hunter, eating clementines, and sitting at the bar looking out the window at Tel Aviv. The Perks was busy for a week making some video player thingamabobber for school, but I got pretty frequent hugs, and he put new episodes up on the TV for me when I couldn't get up because Dora was sleeping on me. Sometimes I went to the grocery store for fun and I'd get cooked for at night.
We did get to an international press photo exhibition in the Israel Museum down the road which was very cool, and we went to the Nutcracker ballet in Rishon LeZion (! finally) where we were surrounded by children and English-speakers, strangely enough. We drove to Jerusalem early one morning to visit Kan Tor, get shown around En Karem/Ein Kerem/whatever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ein_Kerem), and see his new apartment. We visited a cool Russian Orthodox church compound; it was beautiful, but so quiet you could almost see tumbleweeds passing through. I kind of wanted to see the Old City again, but pretty much as soon as we got into Jerusalem my mind changed and we were both pretty happy to be back in Tel Aviv again in the afternoon.
Lior (Perki's roommate, Dora's master) also had his birthday, so the day before I left (Jan 15) we had a party in the apartment. I won't speak for everyone, but the Perks and I got pretty drunk and we had a nice time talking to everyone we knew.
My last day it was raining, so we just stayed inside and watched Black Swan. Creep-y!
At the airport, if you're leaving, they make you wait in a line, ask you a few questions about what you were up to in Israel (at least, if you're a foreigner like me) and then run your luggage through a big X-Ray machine before you can pick up your boarding pass and go through security. Perki and I know the drill by now, and he answers the questions about who I am, where I was, who I associated with, etc. But this time the guy questioning us asked me if I knew the origin of my middle name - Janine. I said, honestly, that I had no clue. He asked about my parents' names and went away for a minute. Perki turned to me and said, "I just figured out why they always flag you. Janine is an Arabic name." ...Well, it's not, but it just sounds that way to them. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin) Ha. They've never given me a hard time getting out, though.
I slept for 8 hours or so of the 12-hour flight to Newark, which was A-maz-ing. I pretty much walked straight onto my six-hour flight to San Francisco - so far so good. Landing in San Francisco, though, it was extremely foggy, and this fog translated into lots o' delays. My three-hour layover in San Fran turned into a seven-hour one, but the most heartbreaking part was when we finally flew to Monterey and got turned back at the airport because of dense fog. We had to fly back to San Francisco and get shuttle-bused to Monterey. I felt pretty shitty by the end of that particular trajectory. I don't think I'll try to fly into Monterey anymore. I'm just thankful they offered us a shuttle bus instead of forcing us to book onto other flights - no one fancied spending the night in San Fran.
But I made it safely to Monterey, and all's well that ends well. Amy and Nick were both home, and while the first days being away from Perki again are always rough, I'm happy to report I am feeling much better and have been enjoying the amazing, 20+ degree weather we've been having here. I even went surfing on Sunday, although I did get hit in the forehead by my own surfboard and my face is not quite back to normal yet.
My parents and aunt Minnie should be arriving in San Francisco as I type, and they'll be heading out this way on Thursday. They leave again on Sunday - lightning visit - and I start school on Monday. Second semester! Everyone's been complaining that the vacation's too long, and it's true. We all know this semester's waiting for us and we're tired of killing time until it comes. But soon enough it'll be here! I'll let you know how it goes.
