Tuesday, March 28, 1995
9:26 AM
Well I am on my way again. I was somewhat surprised by the TWA waiting area. The gate is shared by TWA, MarkAir and US Air. It was dirty and dingy with seats that had been there for a long time and was in a general disrepair. The whole TWA aircraft has the feel of age. Fortunately the flight is not full, I was able to move to a great seat with lots of leg room and nobody next to me. I was really scared, since when I first sat down there were two small rodents behind me, both of which were loud, and and a sleeping one next to me.
The cabin crew is very helpful and nice, so that is a plus, the guy giving the announcements 'Ed' is not a native English speaker, German to my best guess, and that makes the announcements interesting.
7:00 PM
On New York Time Now.
I was able to look out the window as we arrived in New York. It was a singularly ugly looking area. Brown with very little green, as we flew over New York city, there were houses nearly as far as my eyes could see.
I was able to make out the statue of liberty and the empire state building as we went over. One area out of the downtown area looked, with it tightly packed houses with gray roofs, like heavily studded leather.
The airport was hot, sweaty and full of very rude and stupid people, I can only conclude that there were New Yorkers. It is lucky for them I am not in charge, many would have been executed on the spot as being to stupid to live.
The 747 I am on has the same feeling of age and grunginess that the 767 had. I thought I had it bad with British Airways, TWA is definitely worse, the seats are smaller the cabin attendants ruder and less caring of you comfort. My earlier experience on leaving Seattle was a fluke, I think I ran into the one helpful TWA stewardess there was.
I got to watch a person open one of the baggage storage compartments and drop a bag on the head of a passenger. And we had not even taken off yet.
Wednesday, March 29, 1995
The flight from JFK to Paris started out badly but got better. The women in the middle seat ended up moving which made for more room and I made rude remarks to the parents of the kids behind me that were being unruly, and after a short argument got the father to shut them up and stop them from bouncing around.
The Paris airport was not as crowded as JFK, but it was hot, they had no air conditioning and huge clear plate glass windows, facing the sun, in the lounge where we waited for the plane. The security procedures were no where near as intense as those I experienced on my first flight.
While in Paris I got to observe some Jewish men praying. They were draped with shawls, wearing small black boxes, marked with some sort of design, on their heads and on their left arms, the arm was wrapped with what appeared to black tape down the arm over the hand down the middle finger. They were all facing one direction, south to guess by the sun and praying and rocking back and forth. There was one young kid there not dressed like the adults reading out loud from what I presume to be a prayer book. When they were done, they packed up the stuff into blue or black velvet bags. On the plane ride here I noted that many had got together to pray, but before the could they had to collect 10 people to do so. When I get the chance I will have to ask Yossi about this.
The plane was not jam packed full this time and it was a not horrible flight, though I had been in the air a long time and it was getting real old. The early breakfast was mediocre but the late breakfast/lunch was wonderful with sautéed mushrooms and chicken Quiche. The Stewardesses were once again inattentive.
I should not say that things were all bad, I did learn something new. Instead of giving the normal demonstration of safety features, they showed a video. The video told me things you never find out in the more 'traditional' presentation, such as why the bag might not inflate (it depends on altitude and cabin pressure) and the exact usage of the seat cushions as floatation devices and just exactly how you disconnect the ramp from the plane to use as a raft.
Flew thru customs and getting my bag. The sharut ride was long, as there were a number of drop offs before mine.
The Hyatt regency is beautiful, but not real good for the business traveler. Room Layout is wrong (the phone is away from the desk, not enough power outlets, etc) and the phone line is staticy.
Thursday, March 30, 1995
11:04 PM
I decided to move to the LaRomme. The try of the Hyatt was an experiment. An adventure. I made a mistake. At the La Romme I get a bigger room, power where I need it, phone near the desk, people who speak enough English for me to get by, a better breakfast. Was a challenge getting out of the Hyatt, they tried to talk me out of leaving, they offered to try and fix the problems, I pointed out the problems were already fixed at the La Romme. I should point out the Hyatt was not all bad, the beds are more comfortable, the restaurants are better (they have to be the hotel is far away from everything), they had tomato Juice at breakfast and the facility is beautiful.
I got a chance to talk to Yossi today about what I had observed at the Paris airport. He filled me in on what was going on. First on the subject of 10, certain prayers need certain minimums before they can be spoken aloud. These range from 3 to 600,000. The particular prayers in question required 10 adult males (over the age of 13 that is). He explained the significance of the shawls (I can not remember the names for all these things), the black boxes which turn out to be made of leather and have a letter on it, a v shape with a center line in it sorta akin to a S or SH, the wrapping of the straps (number of wraps and order make a difference, 7 times around the arm 3ish times around the hand twice around fingers in a pattern to make another S symbol) the knots in the leather straps a re shaped to make letters, that when put together with the S letter spells a name of god. The boxes hold 4 scriptures (one of which is the same as in the Mazzuzah). The shawls have four tassels on them that have strings and knots on the corners, the numbers of knots (and I think strings) all have significance. The rocking back and forth is called shuckeling (spelling my own) and is thought to increase intensity. (He also so related so folk lore as to other reasons behind it, such as lack of sufficient books for every one to own one so the readers each moved in and out to read the passages). The direction they were all facing was towards Jerusalem. South Eastish from where we were. It turns out they have to do this 3 times a day. Oh and the bags are just storage devices they have no other significance.
One of the interesting points he brought up is that there are many time based things in Judaism and the questions of how to apply them in the modern world have come up. How do you define shabbat in the artic or in space, how about the prayer schedule (he told a joke about a priest, a Moslem cleric and a rabbi). He pointed out that Issac Asimov was Jewish and had actually approached the rabbinical council about these problems.
Friday, March 31, 1995
11:34 AM
Working 'Saturday' (friday really). We are doing the implementation, they 'need' me here for a short time during a point when they are using the barcode readers then I can go. We leapt ahead an hour going into daylight savings time, so I am not 11 hours ahead of Seattle and will be so until Sunday, when they go on DST. Got some good sleep last night so I feeling pretty good at the moment.
Grabbed a cab to Intel today, none of the drivers wanted to take me. When the doorman told them where I wanted to go, they sorta of flipped their hand at me and turned their backs, a driver came to take me because he 'had' to if he wanted to be allowed to pick up more fares at the LaRomme. They all want to get a 'good' fare out of the city and make more money, fortunately there was a driver that I have ridden with a number of times before, he was four cars back in line and as soon as he saw the guy did not want to take me, he offered. The first guy was extremely willing to give me up. The drive is a nice guy by the name of Shuki, prefers Mercedes for cabs, has 5 children including a fairly new baby, gets between 10 and 20 percent commission for taking you to shops that he has a deal with, smokes 10 cigarettes and drinks 2 cups of Turkish coffee for breakfast. If I ever know of anyone going to Jerusalem I will have to tell them to look him up for their rides. I am going to call him for my ride to airport on Tuesday.
Saturday, April 1, 1995
12:49 AM
Well I finally got out of work at about 4:15 yesterday and came back to the hotel with the intent to go out and do some stuff. Well after doing very little I crashed and slept from about 6 to 9:30 or 10, so now I am of course wide awake. Fortunately I don't work tomorrow so I can sleep in if possible.
I was hungry, but by the time I started thinking about doing something about it, it was to late. I had some fruit in the room for the welcoming fruit basket they give you so I ate an apple and an orange, but that was not enough.
I went downstairs to get a restaurant guide and met a big black guy from Texas. It is funny how people tend to band together by nationality/familiarity/unfamiliarity, we were from the same country so that immediately made him feel we were ... buddy's? I don't know. The next level I find is if you both foreigners, but from different countries. I don't tend to seek out these people, it doesn't phase me to just wade into a crowd of unknowns and be friendly. But I have observed many people who huddle with the familiar. Which really does strike me as odd, since they go to see the exotic and they search out the familiar.
I found a place listed in the restaurant guide that claimed to be open till midnight, and it was now about 11pm. A Lebanese non kosher place and it was nearby. I walked over the 6 ish blocks to find out that they were closing a bit early tonight. The place turned out be near the little 'black market' store. We call it a black market since it is open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, this does include shabat.
It is much like one of the little convenience stores you might find tucked in a small store front in downtown Seattle. It sells mostly Junk food and cigarettes, but it does have a little sandwich case in it. I decided to go for it. I got a roast beast on a baguette with humus and some kind of spicy sauce, along with some chips (BBQ chips here are called Grill style) and some coke. The sandwich was very good. I think I will try the Lebanese place this evening.
11:00 PM
Did not do much today, got out to the old city around 9:30 or 10:00 and wandered around abit. Got back to the hotel around 1:00pm or 1:30pm. By that time it had got hot outside and I was suffering a heat headache. Ended up sleeping most of the afternoon and into the evening. Finally got up and went to dinner at the the Minaret, the place I tried to go to last night. The service was pretty bad but the food was good. I had been tempted to try the stuffed pigeon but they were out of it. the Humus was wonderful and Kabbab's were very good. I am trying to decide if I should try and Arabic place next or a Yemenite restaurant.
Monday, April 3, 1995
1:04 AM
Well I got back from work and hit the wall. Sunday I had a heat headache and ended up sleeping the whole afternoon away, this really messed me up during the night and I only got one hour of extra sleep that night. I made it through the day but once I got back to the hotel that was it. I ended up waking up about 11:30pm. I got up and after a little indecision I figured out I was hungry enough to try and do something about it, so I got dressed and went off to the 'Black' market. Turns out Shabbat is the only day it is open 24 hours. Fortunately I still had some chips from the other night and some fruit.
The weather is beautiful here, light rain punctuated by sheets of water, a good stiff breeze out of the west to round it out. My room this time is on 8th floor, it has a teeny tiny balcony that is, at the outside, a yard square. I have been sitting here with the balcony doors wide open and the light off, sprawled in the rooms 'comfy' chair, staring out into the Jerusalem night. Every once in awhile an errant breeze brings a little of the rain into the room onto my lap, with just a hint brushing my face.
I have been telling people it is nice to see 'good' weather here for a change. At the office they have looked at me a bit funny as I have walked between buildings with a short sleeve shirt in contrast to their bundled forms.
10:23 AM
Less than 24 hours till I leave, then the interminable flight home. I am not looking forward to it. >IF< there is any reason to have to come back to Israel there will have to be some concessions, I will not make this trip again without good reason.
Tuesday, April 4, 1995
1:16 AM
Had a bit of a panic, I found I had left my power supply for my laptop at the office. Fortunately I was able to find someone who was working late there and they brought it back and left it at the front desk for me. Trying to get through to the office was an adventure, this was the first time I had tried to call the office from out side of Intel. I kept getting wrong numbers. I tried several different numbers and got two people who did not speak much English as well as several, what I am guessing to be, disconnect messages. Turns out I was dialing wrong. The number I had say for the desk where I was working was 289-7115, sorta looks like a queen Anne Phone number similar to my 286-8824. Problem is that this is Israel and what that number really is 897115, the 2 is akin to an area code and would be dialed 02897115 if I were to be calling from say.... Tel Aviv.
I got out for a tremendous dinner last night. A place called Peporoni's. They do not have a fixed menu, it is a what ever they feeling like cooking that day, not very limited mind you since the list is 15-20 items long, but it changes daily. The meal started out with a small aperitif drink I think they called it consisting of white wine and a strawberry liquor in a thimble sized glass. Then came the 12 small salads, as the waiter kept bringing more and more stuff I began to worry that I had ordered some kind of special meal that was going to be hugely expensive. There were pasta salads, green salads, Fruit salads, vegetable salads, not a huge portion of any, but if I had wanted more of a particular type all I had to do was ask. Then came the the sausage tray with 3 kinds of sausage one of which was a polish sausage a foot long and an inch wide. And rolls, warm not hot, but very good dark bread rolls. Finally I got my choice from the 15 or so main course items, half of which were various pastas but there was salmon and trout and crab and center steak (all for a small extra charge of 3 to 15 shekels, 1 to 5 dollars).
There was more food than I could eat, even if I was famished. The low end price was 35 shekels or just under 12 dollars and the high end price was 50 shekels or just under 17 dollars. I was truly impressed.
8:20 AM
Now on Seattle time. Things went smoothly getting out of the hotel and we made it to the airport rather quickly, the driver being more willing to exceed the posted limits than Shuki would have been. I was not able to reach Shuki to schedule a ride. I got to the airport well ahead of the rush.
It seems that most every cab driver in Israel wants to talk to you even in they know very little English. And every cab drive I had drive me around in Israel has wanted to know how many children I have, once he finds out I am married, and is shocked that I have none. One of them had 9, many had 5 or more. This on small incomes.
I still had a nasty exit interview, but not as bad as last time.
I had plenty of time relax. The plane was full and I was sitting next to a guy who had allergies and snorting his snot every 30 seconds, that is when we was not blowing it in to his hand and licking it off. He was from New York, so what can you say?
Heathrow was a maze of twisty turny paths, up stairs down stairs switch backs. It may have been construction related. But it was very annoying, especially when you made a wrong turn and the staff yelled at you.
The 747 is packed to the gills and very uncomfortable, I suspect that his is the last time I travel more than a one hop international flight, just too uncomfortable.
The lunch was passable even though I did not get what I wanted, I was one of the last served and they had run out of the chicken by the time they got to us. The 'afternoon tea' meal looked repugnant, I did not even bother opening it up.
The women next to me turned out to be a 'programmer' for Boeing, I use the term lightly since she works with cobol. She was reading a science fiction book and I asked her if she read much science fiction, she said it was her mainstay. In asking if she attended cons, I found out that she does not but her son does and he is in either the SCA or TFA we never did figure out which and that he will be at NorWesCon.
11:32 PM
Made it home, took care of bunch of stuff mainly mail that had piled up. Took a nap for about 2 or so hours but Vicki woke me up around 8:15 ish for no good reason. Went out for dinner since I was getting pretty hungry.
I am back, while it would be nice to spend more free time in Israel some time, I doubt I ever will. As much as I enjoyed being there, the getting there and getting back pretty much sours the whole experience. Oh well, I guess I am not much of globe trotter.