Sunday, 22 February 2015 -- The Trip Home
We had a smooth departure from Tel Aviv, and the 13-hour flight held no surprises. As soon as we de-planed in Philadelphia at 5:30 am, though, it started to break down. We checked the departures screen and found our 8 am flight to West Palm was cancelled. After making our way through the formalities of Customs and Immigration, we started working on re-booking -- we and a few thousand others with cancelled flights. There had been a major storm and not only were many flights cancelled, much of the staff had been unable to get to work at the airport. The first available seats to Palm Beach were Tuesday, but there were seats on a flight to Ft. Lauderdale this evening. However, as part of a group booking we were locked into our chosen airport. After much begging and running around [Larry was good at that as I waited in the 3-hour line] it was managed: we were booked on a 6 pm flight to Ft. Lauderdale. It was now 11 am and we were exhausted. The prospect of 7 more hours in noisy lounges was downright appalling. Larry has the bad flu/cold that was going around the group in Israel, and I hadn't slept much on the flight. Luckily, we found something called Minute Suites, right in the departures area, and got a tiny sleeping cubicle for 5 hours. We grabbed some lunch before sleeping the afternoon away. But wait, it wasn't over yet, there's more: once we boarded, the captain announced that we were grounded until a system-wide IT failure could be fixed and the backlog of planes it had caused was cleared. Then a woman sitting near us was removed from the flight by security people for what seemed to be a medical reason. She resisted, crying "I'm OK, it's only a cold." Eventually she went with them, and we heard one of the officials tell her that her temperature had to be monitored. After two hours on the tarmac, we finally took off. Fortunately, we found our luggage immediately and our faithful friends Joan and Bob are very flexible and were there to meet us outside arrivals. We got home and fell into bed exactly 48 hours after leaving the hotel on the Dead Sea.
I will add some overall impressions in a new posting in the next day or two, when I've had time to rest and reflect on the pilgrimage. I can say right now that it was an amazing experience. We were blessed with a well-planned and organized trip, thanks to EO and the EO hosts, the guides and drivers, the group leaders and our fellow-travellers. It was a spirit-filled journey and we're very grateful for having experienced it.
We had a smooth departure from Tel Aviv, and the 13-hour flight held no surprises. As soon as we de-planed in Philadelphia at 5:30 am, though, it started to break down. We checked the departures screen and found our 8 am flight to West Palm was cancelled. After making our way through the formalities of Customs and Immigration, we started working on re-booking -- we and a few thousand others with cancelled flights. There had been a major storm and not only were many flights cancelled, much of the staff had been unable to get to work at the airport. The first available seats to Palm Beach were Tuesday, but there were seats on a flight to Ft. Lauderdale this evening. However, as part of a group booking we were locked into our chosen airport. After much begging and running around [Larry was good at that as I waited in the 3-hour line] it was managed: we were booked on a 6 pm flight to Ft. Lauderdale. It was now 11 am and we were exhausted. The prospect of 7 more hours in noisy lounges was downright appalling. Larry has the bad flu/cold that was going around the group in Israel, and I hadn't slept much on the flight. Luckily, we found something called Minute Suites, right in the departures area, and got a tiny sleeping cubicle for 5 hours. We grabbed some lunch before sleeping the afternoon away. But wait, it wasn't over yet, there's more: once we boarded, the captain announced that we were grounded until a system-wide IT failure could be fixed and the backlog of planes it had caused was cleared. Then a woman sitting near us was removed from the flight by security people for what seemed to be a medical reason. She resisted, crying "I'm OK, it's only a cold." Eventually she went with them, and we heard one of the officials tell her that her temperature had to be monitored. After two hours on the tarmac, we finally took off. Fortunately, we found our luggage immediately and our faithful friends Joan and Bob are very flexible and were there to meet us outside arrivals. We got home and fell into bed exactly 48 hours after leaving the hotel on the Dead Sea.
I will add some overall impressions in a new posting in the next day or two, when I've had time to rest and reflect on the pilgrimage. I can say right now that it was an amazing experience. We were blessed with a well-planned and organized trip, thanks to EO and the EO hosts, the guides and drivers, the group leaders and our fellow-travellers. It was a spirit-filled journey and we're very grateful for having experienced it.