Holy wall of text Batman!!!

All Dates are in YYMMDD format.

080803 23:21 EST
Since I was dropped off at the airport things have been a kind of blur. I think things are only going to get more blurry. Before that I just want to write down some thoughts.
1)Several chairs down from me in the main concourse of the Rochester airport there was an attractive woman in her late 20's reading. She was wearing huge, black Audrey Hepburn style sunglasses. She was giving off the things aren't right vibe. As she got u to go to her flight she took off the glasses and wiped tears from her eyes. I guess airports are full of people with sad stories.2)The El Al counter at JFK's terminal 4 is easy to find, just locate the Emirates Air counter, and go in the opposite direction as far as you can. Really.3)Not all the ticket agents are highly trained crack security operatives. Unless “New, hardly trained, and doesn't want to be there,” is what they're using as a cover.4)So far my film hasn't been zapped. They almost did at JFK, but for the one roll of 1600 speed I put in there. For reference, it doesn't matter what the ISO of the film is, X-rays still damage it. Lower ISO's just take more exposure to show the damage. Not knowing how many times it might get zapped this trip I'd like to avoid it where I can,5)Terminal 4 at JFK needs a major air conditioning upgrade. 6)There's an Emirates A380 parked next to an L1011 out on the apron and the A380 just dwarfs the other jet. That thing's freakin' huge.
That's it for now, hopefully the next post will be from Israel. Of course, I probably won't be able to post this until I get there as I can't find a free wifi hotspot.
23:42
It was dark by the time I got into NYC. As we climbed out of Rochester the sun was at a perfect angle behind us. Every tiny little feature on the ground cast a shadow. Where there are usually flat fields, there were small gently rolling hills. As the in flight map placed us in over the Catskills I looked out at the isolated patches of lights and thought, “Somewhere down there, my grandparents sleep. I wonder what they'd think of me now. I hope they'd approve.”
As we got closer to NYC, there were more lights, first large blobs, then continuous masses. Most were the orange of sodium vapor street lights. But every so often there were patches of white. As we got lower I could figure out what each color represented. Orange for a school parking lot, white for a car dealership. An orange industrial park, a white sports park or shopping mall. We landed from the south after flying near Newark. “Hmm, somewhere done there are living relatives,” I thought.
080804 23:00 Israel Time
Not having checked luggage is definitely the way to go. Once I was able to de-plane from row 54G of one of El Al's 777's I was able to leave all the people who got off in front of me in the dust. Got through passport control, was waved through customs, found an ATM, figured out how to get shekels out of it and then went looking for a place to buy a phone card. Less than a minute into that I heard, “Hey! Eli!” There was Ron and one of his buddies. After all the BS with getting on the flight in NY, once I got to Israel everything went perfectly. Except for the weather. It's supposed to be a dry heat. I got screwed.
As we were getting near Hadera Ron says, “I need to take a shortcut and it's coming up right about...now,” he said as he turned through a break in the main road's guardrail. Suddenly we're screaming down a dirt road at night away from anyone else that I could see. The first thought that came to mind was, “Well, this is where I end up face down in a ditch.” Which was closely followed by, “It's a good thing I don't have to piss right now, because this dirt road is not doing me any favors.”
080806 2300 Israeli time
I'll let the pictures do most of the talking for yesterday. Suffice it to say, there are fish in the Kinneret (That's “Sea of Galilee” to some of you) which look and act a lot like perch. If I'd tasted perch before I could compare that as well. Beer, friends and fishing, it really doesn't get much better than that.
Today we went to Jerusalem to the Kotel. (Western Wall) Once again the thing that struck me the most is how little I felt. I don't know if it's a lack of faith, but I just don't feel any sense of wonder, holiness or anything like that. It frustrates me both that I don't and that other people do. So I put tzedakah in the box, notes in the wall and I stood there for a minute touching the stones that have been worn smooth thinking about the many hands that have been there before and wondering if they got any more out of it than I and iff so, what, and how?
After a nice meet and greet with my cousin and her husband we went to the armor museum at Latrun. So Mr. Jimi, consider yourself 1-up'd.
080808 15:45 Israeli Time
Shit happens. As I found out today, if you eat the wrong thing on the other side of the world, it happens a lot. After a few hours of digestive fun and not being able to keep anything down Ron and his father took me to their family doctor. After about 5 minutes he said I ate some bad stuff and put me on a medicine called Kalbeten. (Bismuth Subsalicylate 262 mg) Judging from the symptoms it treats it looks like Pepto in tablet form. So, I'm pretty much laid up for the rest of today and will probably only do light activity tomorrow. That means no airsoft. :( Also, no going out tonight to try picking up Israeli girls. Double :(
It sounds like there's a pretty good chance that I'll be good to go for Sar El on Sunday. If not this will really, really suck and all the fun I've had this week will be overshadowed. But since I feel much better now, I'm thinking the rest, air conditioning, medication and plenty of water will have me back in shape in a day or so.
I really can't say enough good things about Ron and his family. I'm staying in a private room, with an air conditioner and a full size bed. His mother's been feeding me in the stereotypical Jewish mother fashion. When my long pants were in the laundry, Ron's brother let me borrow a pair of his to wear to the Kotel. And, on top of all that, if I were on my own today for my illness, I would truly be up shit creek. I only hope if he visits America I can be such a good host.