Passport control and me...

I think it's the almighty trying to send me a message: "you and passports just don't mix." Yeah, I think that's the message, really, it seems to be my lot. Before I get to the details of my recent woes I'll tell you about the trip... misery friends, misery. I started, well truthfully, I never went to bed the night before I left. Had those pre-flight jitters, over active brain etc. etc. I left the house shortly after 5 in the morning and headed to the Oakland airport where I caught a JetBlue flight to NYC. The trip was mostly uneventful. I passed out before the plane finished boarding. I must've slept a good 3 hours of the flight to JFK. The couple next to me was traveling with a small dog in a carrier under the seat. This was the most patient crated animal I've seen since the guy I met in '03 that was bringing a St. Petersburg short hair cat back to the states.

NYC was gloomy and wet, not a white christmas at all. The lines in the international terminal were long and obnoxious, or so I thought. The actual international desk was surprisingly free of lines, you just had to know where it was, hidden, behind long thick swathes of human holiday desperation. Checked the bags and settled down at a pub for a beer and the most pathetic chicken club I've had in years. I've heard of limp pickles, the kind that are like rubber, but this entire sandwich looked and ate like it was a microwave sensation.

The plane from NYC to Milan, Malpensa, was delayed by a nearly an hour. I had a 2 hour window to catch my connection to Tel Aviv. Sometime between checking in and dinner I managed to loose my itinerary. The Delta desk at NYC didn't check me through to Tel Aviv, only to Milan. I was without a ticket and without the flight number that would help me find the gate when I reached the terminal at Malpensa. I called home and Lu was kind and generous enough to log into my email account and get me my flight number. Finally we boarded the plane and I was blessed with a quiet and completly unobtrusive Italian woman on her way back from Holiday. We spoke a bit at the beginning, but her English wasn't great and one of us fell asleep first. I can't remember which, but I'm certain we both needed the sleep.

At some point during the night I was awake and decided to take advantage of my new toy, video ipod, so I threw on The Razor's Edge and enjoyed my tiny little screen, illuminating the darkened plane of comatose travelers. The flight arrived in Milan about an hour late as predicted. The time was 11 in the morning and the Delta rep, with her incredibly sultry Italian accent, said "Run!" when I asked "El Al? 382?"

I didn't exactly run, but my pace was brisk as I found my way by following the Transiti signs to terminal 3 gate 5. Francesco was working the desk and I came straight up. He was expecting our flight, knowing that we were delayed in NYC, there were 15 of us that were transferring here, Israel bound. "Can I register here?" "Uh, yes, but I can not issue you de ticket until you pass security control."

This is where the fun begins. A slightly sloppily dressed man in a dark suit with a radio routed through his sleeve appeared. He had a short crew cut and spoke Italian, Hebrew and English, at least. His English wasn't stellar, but it was good enough to get the point across. He gathered unto him all Israeli passport holders and did his business. Then he called for Foreign passport holders, I was at the head of the line having arrived first.

"So... first time in Israel?"

"Yes"

"What is your purpose for visiting?"

"Holiday."

"Do you hav family der?"

"yes, in Netanya."

"what's taken you so long to come here?"

"I have a very busy life back home."

"You really don't speak hebrew? Shneyder, you speak hebrew yes?"

"No, English or Russian... do you speak Russian?"

"no, you have another passport, yes?" (as he pointed to the country of my birth, in my passport, Uzbekistan)

"no, I'm not an Uzbeki citizen."

"but you're a Russian citizen."

"no, I'm only an American citizen."

"Are you involved with any Jewish organizations?"

"The JCC?"

"Do you observe holidays?"

"the high holidays"

"like what?"

"yom kipur, pesach"

"and those happen when?"

This is when I wanted to unload on this man... first of all we don't follow the Hebrew calendar, so the dates are irrelevant. "usually around april or may for pesach..." and I bit my tongue at this point.

"well I can't give you your ticket, or let you inspect your luggage, until my kapo (I didn't think this was a Hebrew word for boss... have to check with Erez, gave me chills hearing it) can call your family in Netanya and confirm you are invited.

(did I mention that you have to check your luggage with a security official as it was in transit and out of your purview while enroute to Milan? Yes, this means you go to the tarmack, identify your suitcase, open it, rifle through it a bit and confirm that nothing, like a cigarette sized pack of explosives were slipped into it while you weren't looking.)

"I'm not staying with them, I'm staying with my friend in Tel Aviv. can you call him?"

"I can't, my kapo must, how do you know this friend?"

"we were pen pals"

"?"

So I stood around now, watching my passport as it lay on a table and this poor sod doing six things at once, sometimes double fisted with walkie talkie and cell phone at once. He became tired of me starring at him and my passport and handed it back to me thinking i'd be more comfortable, which I was, with it in my hand. I still didn't have my ticket though. He came over to me, as I never let him get more than 10 ft. from me, boarding had started "no problem, don't worry, you have a place on this plane, today..." to which I responded, "great, I'm not worried, can I have my ticket" and he said "no first we have to call your family." and I said "well you have their number," apologetically, half heartedly, "no we're waiting..."

This went on, as the plane slowly boarded. I kept thinking shit, this is one of those small deals with limited over head storage and I've a backpack filled with camera gear, laptop and other sundry electronics, no way will Iallow them to check it. Another thought kept bouncing around my head, my luggage is sitting on the tarmack, if this monkey fascist doesn't let me on this plane, I'm completely screwed and will be sans suitcase and holiday. I moved myself over by the ticket desk. Francesco was the only sympathetic individual around. He inquired on my behalf once, but was cut short in italian, at least it sounded that way.

As the boarding continued something humorous happened, well at least I found it humorous. From out the jetway came a host of heavily armed Polizi, I mean these boys had sub machine guns, side arms, spiffy vests with what looked lik a full compliment of ammunition and grenades, knives and all kinds of badges. They strolled out and positioned themselves on either side of the El Al and Air Dubai counters. My first thought was: "is this going to be some kind of jew/arab rumble in Milan?" Is that why they're here? Then I couldn't help but notice that each and every single one of these polizi were incredibly handsome men. When confronted with the sad sorry state of overweight doughnut holes in uniforms on the job at home, these boys looked like they were plucked straight from the pages of prada. They were done up to the nines with gelled out hair, trendy cuts, that messy metro thing that's taken the world. They were so handsome in fact that you wondered if they even knew how to fire those things around their necks, or if they were some kind of poster children for the carbineri. Just one of those odd things I notice when completely sleep deprived and heading into my third pressurization.

The plane at this point was halfway loaded with passengers. My dark haired friend came over, there was now a mother and her two daughters standing about awaiting this inspection, they at least had their tickets. He came over, whipped out his cell phone, and called my mom's cousin, Misha, in Netanya, as his kapo never showed up. I've no clue what the two men had to say to one another, I'll find out tomorrow when I get a sim chip for my phone and call Misha, but he laughed a bit, so I figured that was a good sign. He walked me to the ticket counter, fished out my printed ticket and then cut me ahead of the line, down the jetway and outside where I was met by a young versace wearing Israeli that had me identify my suitcase and go through the elaborate procedure I described above. When we finished another man walked me back up to the jeway and I double timed it around some people to the plane's door. I managed to store my stuff, and was sat next to an Italian couple, we were all too big for the seats and I was stuck with an aisle, could've been worse, it could've been the middle seat. The flight from Milan to Tel Aviv is 3 1/2 hours, still about 3 hours too long if you ask me. The plane's cabin was filled with a bizarre group of nuns, religious looking older folks, russians Israeli families. Mostly though, it was the retirees, they walked and talked with a sense of entitlement that drove me a little nuts. There was the woman on the cell phone speaking in Hebrew and yelling at the top of her lungs, the man across the aisle from me brushed off food and it hit me, and he took no note of it until I made a brushing motion with my hand to get it off me, there was the man that walked up and down the aisle seemingly blessing everyone as he went and winking at the nuns. No, this wasn't all in my less than lucid imagination, it was real, I was there, it happened.

So after another 3 1/2 miserable hours we arrived in Ben Gurion, a total travel time of 17 hours in the plane, not including boarding and deplanning, 5 or 6 hours of transits, transfers and waiting... makes for a rather long day. No, I didnt' go to bed, we went out and had falafel, then met Shanee, a friend of Erez's sister who livs up the street, at a bar across from the spot where Yitzakh Rabin was assassinated, the brasserie restaurant, lovely spot really. The falafel shop was fantastic, they had actualy closed the shutters as we were walking up to it, but erez did some fast talking and got us inside where we were the last order of the night and the hummus was fried up fresh just for us.

Its pouring right now, I mean really coming down. I'm exhausted, yes, thoroughly done or the day, so I'm going to bid you laila-tov and say... stay tuned! more to come...

Ciao!