Right on schedule, my alarm clock blared its wake up call on Sunday morning, I was out of bed in an instant and quickly got ready for the day. It was not just any day, rather today was the first time I would begin my journey which would take me half way across the world, all the way to Israel! Thousands of years of history have been shaped in that small sliver of the world, approximately the size of New Jersey, and for just over two weeks I would make my own little history, in my own little way. At about 7:30 a.m., my mother, father, and I, piled with all of our luggage into our car and set off. Except, we didn’t get very far. As we rounded onto the bustling main street, my father, doing his usual routine checklist asked me if my bag was in the trunk. I twisted around and peered over the back seat, and shifted through bags searching for the light blue of my clothes bag. However, I was unable to find the bag, and reported my finding, or rather lack thereof, to my father. Quickly we pulled into the Citgo gas station, and after rummaging through the bags himself my father declared we had left it at home. Luckily we were only six or seven minutes away from our house, and we turned around and retrieved the bag. As we set out again, my father gave his lecture about how it was good we had left extra time for occurrences such as this one, and we finally set off for Orlando.

From Orlando, we would fly to New York City, and then fly to Israel, with a three hour layover in Moscow. All in all, it would be about 10 hours of time spent in the air. However, those ten hours would be worth it because I would see my sister, who was studying at a seminary in Israel, as well as I would be touring the beautiful heritage, and modern sites which Israel has to offer. Our two hour trip to Orlando, was uneventful and when we got there, we waited for the guy who would drive us in his van to the airport. Earlier, my mom had found his business, and decided it was the cheapest place to park our car. We quickly saw why, there was only one tiny office, and one man with a van. However, that man was very nice and my father talked with him all the way to the airport, about his kids, who he was very proud of, as well as about New York, where they both grew up.  When we got to the airport, we quickly passed through security and were ready to board the plane. On the plane, because of the holiday season, the movies were free, so we watched Dolphin Tale, and The Maze Runner.

I love flying to New York, and this time was no exception! As we descended, we passed over the hundreds of houses, stores, and restaurants that make up Brooklyn. Farther off I could see Manhattan’s magnificent skyline, notably the new World Trade Center, and the Empire State Building. When we finally landed in New York, at the JFK International Airport, we stored most of our bags in a storage locker, and took our overnight bags with us. We lugged and rolled them onto the subway, and then through many city blocks to our lodging. By the end my arm was pretty sore, because holding a relatively light bag for an hour is a lot harder than you might think. That night we went out to eat in a quaint vegetarian restaurant, with my mother’s friend, as well as my father’s friend, who both lived in the city.  I had a “burger” made of mushrooms. It was interesting, but I would rather have had a good solid, unhealthy, meaty burger. The next day, we awoke nice and early ready to board our flight that would take us across the Atlantic, all the way to Moscow. After getting some bagels, New York bagels are the best by the way, we headed off to the airport, again lugging our luggage.

Soon, we arrived at the airport. We passed through security without a hitch, and soon found ourselves waiting for two hours, while the plane was prepped for takeoff. It was a huge 747 plane, from the Russian Trans-Aero Airline. When we boarded the plane, which looked even bigger on the inside, but still felt very cramped, we quickly found a place to stow our luggage, and took our seats with me at the window.  We took off, and I watched as America fell behind to be replaced with the gigantic expanse of blue sky and blue ocean.

The eight hour flight was relatively boring, aside from the beautiful views of the sunset. Sometime after takeoff, they had dimmed the lights and I tried to fall asleep. However, sleep did not come easy in a plane like this, I did eventually doze off until my mother woke me to tell me we had reached Moscow. This was the first time I had ever seen another continent in real life and besides being very snowy, looked the same as the one I just left. When the plane touched down, Russian music started playing, and everybody started clapping. Slowly, we retrieved our luggage from the bin above and filed into the airport. Now, we landed at about 6:00 a.m., but even in one of the world’s largest cities, there was barely any staff around. We ended up having to wait for over two hours to go through passport control, and when we finally got through we rushed onto the next plane. However we didn’t take off for another half hour, because they had to de-ice the plane. Finally, we took off on the last leg of the journey. This plane was a little bit less crowded, and overall slightly nicer, so I stayed awake the whole time. In a few hours we began our descent, and I awoke my parents as they had asked.

It was very exciting seeing Israel for the first time, and I looked on as we passed Haifa, Caesarea, and finally Tel-Aviv. From the sky, I saw what a beautiful country it was, and I couldn’t wait to walk around it myself. A few minutes later, I whipped out my camera and filmed my first touchdown into the land of Israel. Again music played and everybody clapped as we exited the plane, and I excitedly took my first steps onto Israeli soil, I was looking forward to a great vacation ahead!