Up Up and Away

Finally. We're on the airplane - our home for the next 10 1/2 hours. We walk past the first class seats and the business seats, but Papa and Nayna keep going. Rats! I was hoping for those seats. They look comfortable. And then, the next to the last row, Papa points to our seats in the middle of the plane. We're in the back. Nayna shoves her backpack under her seat and settles in. Papa examines his seat and finds that the earphone plug is broken. He could watch movies on the seat screen, but he wouldn't be able to hear anything. He tells an attendant, who calls in a maintenance man. Nope! It can't be fixed before we take off. "Oh well," he says. But then the attendant returns and asks us to follow her. She's found two seats a few rows up. Everything works. Papa and Nayna collect all their things. It's noisy with all the people talking.
We all settle in again and prepare for takeoff.
We're on our waaaaay.
The big plane lumbers and rocks down the runway and then heaves up into the air. We're going to Israel!
It was late, after midnight when we got into the air. After we reached our flying altitude, we were served our dinner. I've never eaten so late. But I guess my body clock is going to be all wonky for quite awhile. I crawled back into Nayna's purse and did what any self respecting bear would do...I hibernated. I needed my sleep!

We landed at 5pm Israel time. When the plane touched down, everyone clapped. It was cool. 

After we left the plane, we walked a long way to passport control. Now, we stood in a long line and waited for the lady in the booth to call us. She asked where we were going, looked at the passport pictures and then at  Papa and Nayna and stamped their passports. I stayed in Nayna's purse the whole time and peeked out. It was a little scary for me.

 After all that, we collected our suitcases and went outside to get a taxi for our ride to Tel Aviv and our hotel. Strange! People were all speaking another language. Hebrew. I didn't understand anything they said. And when I looked at all the signs, everything was in Hebrew and under that in smaller letters, English and Arabic. This is going to be interesting!
And the weather was different too. It was very warm and very humid. I'm wearing my fur coat.

 We got to our hotel and unpacked a little. We were hungry again. Nayna said we could take a sherut - a 12 passenger van (I'll tell you about those in another blog) to Frishman Street a few miles away, and eat dinner at a place called Cafe Masada. It's right across the street from the Mediterranean Sea. We sat outside. Nayna and I ate chicken schnitzel and rice. We had so much food, we took some back to the hotel. On our way back to the sherut, we stopped at a little shop and Nayna bought a star of David necklace and we used shekels instead of dollars. That's another thing I need to learn about if I'm going to do some serious shopping.

We got back to our room around 10pm, and although I snoozed through the whole trip, I was really tired and found my comfy bed.
Tomorrow is our first full day in Israel. I wonder what we're going to do.
Laila tov. That means, good night in Hebrew.

Teach Your Children Well

There are some days when I come home from a shopping trip, walk in my living room and kiss the floor. I made it back in one piece! Ever have one of those days?
Then again, maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about. You live in a town with one stop sign and parents still teach their children respect.
The other day I was in Walmart, pushing my cart down one of the main aisles when I was almost broadsided. I slammed on my breaks. She stopped, then waited for me to continue on, but the look I got clearly stated that I was in her way.
I made a comment to Hubby - something along the lines of, "I hope she doesn't drive like that."
I cringe when I see a car coming towards me from from a side street. Same scenario. The way they approach the stop sign tells me they think they can make their turn in front of me.
And then there's the far right lane that merges into one lane  after a traffic light. The route we take to my daughter's house has several of these. The lane was created for people to make right hand turns, but most people zip into them to make a mad dash in front of us silly people who wait in line. (If you haven't already, check out my last blog - The Tel Aviv Bank Dance).
I've almost matched paint on more than one occasion when they cut me off.
All of this rant to make my point.

If adults don't take responsibility for teaching the young ones respect, then it will only get worse.
Children are watching us. They're in the cars of people willing to endanger the lives of themselves and those around them.
Children are watching their parents spend their free time texting while driving, or walking down the street, or eating.
Children are learning entitlement and disrespect as they watch The Disney Channel.
It's time we as adults take some time to train the next generation basic social skills and respect. It's our responsibility.
We owe it to our children, and it will keep us all alive.