Jack’s EUROTRIP BLOG, June 9, 2018
Saturday, June 9. Clearly, this is the longest day of the year, even though it’s not yet June 21; actually, it’s the second longest because the flight from Australia won that prize. But this was plenty long enough. Okay, so I didn’t get to sleep at 8:30 PM, but 9:30 wasn’t bad. I woke up as predicted at 12:30 AM in anticipation of my 1:30 alarm and call. Three hours of . Could be worse. One never really knows about living with cockroaches until one turns on the light in the middle of the night. I lived with cockroaches for about two months when I lived in Boston near Boston University when fresh out of college and first started going to graduate school. When my roommates and I lifted the toilet seat cover for the first time, it was lined with drawings of cockroaches with x’s across each one, so we knew what we were in for. But I’m too old for this now. When I found one on the bed, it was the last straw! Luckily, when I first arrived I had the foresight to put my suitcase up on the kitchen table and my backpack up, too. Booking.com should be ashamed of itself to list a place like this. I decided to get out of there fast and waited on the street in the darkness a half-hour earlier than I needed to for the taxi to arrive. Luckily the one Raizel had ordered for me arrived on time, and I barely had enough shekels left to pay, but I made it. Going through security at Tel Aviv is quite the experience. Basically, one has to go through three different security checkpoints; no wonder Raizel had me get there so early. Then when we landed in Rome, they made me go out of one terminal and back in another terminal and then I had to go back through security again and I think I ended up back at the first terminal. Crazy! I made my connecting flight with little time to spare. Then I experienced the coldest flight I’ve ever been on. I was watching the movie Red Sparrow, which is partly about torture, and that’s what this flight’s temperature felt like. Finally I got up to tell the flight attendant and, lo and behold, it was only in our section; the other parts of the plane were fairly warm. Nothing they could do about it, sorry. I bundled up as much as I could. It was too cold to sleep so I decided to watch a movie for a second time that I had seen before. This time through I thought it was one of the most important movies I’ve ever seen: The Post. It’s about one of the biggest issues in a democracy: freedom of the press vs. what the government claims is national security. This movie is about freedom, justice, right and wrong, integrity, courage, and ultimately about thought and wisdom. A must-see, twice. Then, to top it off , after flying across the Atlantic Ocean, we were informed that the Miami airport was closed. We circled around for a while, went through a bunch of turbulence. I was supposed to be picked up by a student of a teacher in Miami who really got into Modello, but when I arrived I found a message that no student was available. So I texted my son, Dave, who said he had to get a few things together, and he would be there. We were planning on going out for a quick dinner but I remembered that if I didn’t catch the train at 6:15 PM, the next one on a Saturday was 9:45 PM. I missed it! Ironically, if I had just gone there directly from the airport instead of waiting for Dave I would have made it. But it was great to see him, which is more important. Normally I would have waited until 9:45, but I was way too exhausted, so I got a Lyft, which I had a discount for. It cost me $45 to get home instead of $10 on the train, but I was so happy to walk in my door it didn’t matter. /Well, this is my last blog post, for this foreign trip anyway. It was such a great trip in every way, even with this last bumpy day. Great times. Great people. Great trainings. I got to see three things on my bucket list! I just wonder how long I can keep going like this because the older I get the more even a great (long) trip seems to take its toll physically. I’m reminded again, and this time I’m going to take it more seriously, that a month away at a time is my limit and three weeks away is more ideal. Besides, on this trip for the first time I’m lucky if I even broke even between my meagre income and expenses. I did a lot of volunteer stuff. So, I’m signing out. Thanks to Marty Lipsky and a few others for being interested enough to follow my adventures. God willing, there will be more (knock on wood). Who knows what the future will bring? We can never predict it.
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