Tales from the Holy Land: Day 71

Andrew and I woke up for the first time this morning to a knock and a man asking us if we were checking out today. This was inconveniently before our alarm was due to go off, so we slept slightly past it and, once dressed and packed, found our parents and Eli downstairs already for breakfast. Andrew was happy; there was an extremely large selection of breads, as well as cheeses, juices, and pastries.

Once we were finished, though, and had gotten our stuff down to the lobby, it became evident that our driver was late. Eli called him and found he wouldn’t arrive for another 20 minutes, so Dad stayed with the luggage while Andrew and I went on a quest for a bottle of Coke. After a few shops I settled for a can, and we rejoined the group just as our van arrived. After packing our stuff and selves in, we set off on the two-hour drive to the border near Eilat. Towards the end I took a nap, and woke in time for us to unload and visit the various windows necessary to show our passports and pay the fee to exit Jordan. Back through the “no-man’s land” between the two borders, we re-entered Israel, put our stuff back in Eli’s van, and within three minutes were back in Eilat. I hugged everyone goodbye and grabbed my backpack, and Eli dropped me right outside the airport.

Susan had re-scueduled my flight, which wasn’t supposed to leave for three hours, to one scheduled to depart in one hour, which was great until I saw the size of the security lines. I successfully answered all of the questions and checked in, then headed downstairs to the gates.

This is where it became slightly interesting. There was one screen which had my flight number on it, but showed a departure time about 30 minutes after mine. The screen at a different gate, which happened to be the gate printed on my ticket and the one to which the person who checked me in had directed me, showed the correct flight time, but the flight was headed to Ben Gurion and had a different number. Interesting. I sat down and waited by the gate with my flight number, which turned out to be the right move because after about twenty minutes, it became clear that this new flight time would be more accurate.

Eventually we boarded the plane. I slept the entire flight and woke up at Dov airport, where I rode the bus back to the main terminal and took a cab to the train station. Here, another interesting event occurred: I was asked for my passport. At a train station. Of course, my surprise at this request led the security guy to actually look at my passport, at which point he saw I had been in Jordan and made me unpack my entire bag. Wonderful.

Since I wasn’t, as it turned out, carrying anything threatening, I soon passed through and got on a train back to Rehovot. The humidity was fierce as I walked back to campus, and by the time I ran into Iris in the Clore lobby I was in sore need of a shower. After a brief chat I returned to my room to unpack and shower, then went to work, where I made progress on my presentation and submitted my abstract to Greta. Once I was finished with all of this, though, I went back to Clore and joined a group heading out to Tuk Tuk for sushi. I had told Stephen that Dan and I would join him in breaking the fast (for Tisha B’Av), but decided to tag along until I heard from him.

So both Dans (H. and S.), Alissa, Rachel, Ari, Iris and I walked to the science park and sat down at Tuk Tuk, at what happened to be the same table where my family had eaten. Everyone ordered different things, but Dan H. and I shared sushi, which didn’t discourage either of us from stealing tastes of Ari’s pad thai. Our order included the sweet potato roll thingie and a spider roll, which was delicious. At one point Stephen finally called and told me he had ended up joining Jordan at Greta’s house, which was exactly what I had suspected but still made me feel less guilty about joining in on others’ plans.

Back at Clore, there was chilling and talking, and for me, some blogging, in Ari’s room for a while, but I was so wiped from the weekend’s traveling that I went to bed rather soon.

Pictures today are from today and yesterday (mostly the latter).

Entering Jordan...