Day, Night, Who's messing with the light?
After being dropped off at the airport and seeing the multiple groups of Birthright Israel trips around, all excitedly waiting to depart for Israel, I was overjoyed to find my Shorashim siblings outside of the ticket counter.
All accounted for, Hannah told us to be at the gate at 1:30am. Some of us took the lead as most of the SHOSIBS stayed near the entrance of gate 4. It was a great bonding experience getting ready to embark on this journey together. Going through the motions to get through security was the usual procedure and I got to meet a couple of guys on my trip in the process: Saman, Jake, Hayes, and Dylan.
For some background, Saman was from Chicago and has a relative and friends in NYC and Jake, Hayes and Dylan had gone to the same college. The three were in the same fraternity and learned about the trip through their frat online years later. :) Once past security, I pressed onwards to our gate with Saman and Dylan.
Arriving at our gate, it seemed we were the first from our group; instead of waiting there, we decided to find Dylan's two other friends who were living in luxury in the wingtips lounge. Most of the airport restaurants and stores were closed so as Hayes said "it was a gem of a place to find".
Wingtips was a great place to hang and kill some time before heading back to the gate. Our flight was a little delayed, but while waiting to board, I was able to meet a bunch of other people from Shorashim like Dave from Boston, Blake who lives on 30th and 2nd, and Ian from North Carolina!
Finally getting on the plane and taking off at 408AM (YEESH), I sat next to a guy named Joe. He said he's extending his trip to be in Tel Aviv and then go to Copenhagen for a couple days before coming back to Israel to go back home. I hope I get a chance to catch up with him later on in the trip; he seemed like a really nice guy.
Time flew by and before I knew it, I was in Tel Aviv being greeted by our Israeli participants! I was thrilled to meet even more people and as I hopped on the bus, I met an Israeli named Omer who turns out to have a passion for music and is currently enrolled in Tel Aviv University!
Finally the long journey had come to a close when we arrived at our kibbutz. This is where we'll stay for the night so that about wraps that up! It's 3:02 am.... TO BE CONTINUED!
Photo CreditL @morningstarsees