The Things They Carried

Mom told me not to go to sleep at 1:00 a.m. and well, we're in luck, I am wide awake and doubt I'll be hitting the sheets anytime soon. I finished the bulk of my unpacking and just made myself a mug of Nestle's diet hot chocolate and thought I'd settle in and update the blog. You may have guessed that I'm back in Tel Aviv!

Buggy and I left New York last night (or rather, early this morning) on EL AL's midnight flight. My folks got us to the airport with plenty of time to discover that our travel agents completely screwed us with seats. Or, rather, that El Al screwed us on the seating. Essentially, Buggy and I were supposed to leave on the 7:30 p.m. flight on Presidents Day. Last week, they cancelled that flight and moved everyone to the Midnight flight but the folks on the 7:30 flight ended up getting whatever non-assigned seats were left. The airline had Buggy and I sitting in the middle seats of the middle row but one in front of the other. We weren't having any of that and, since there were no aisle seats left, we took two middle seats in the middle row next to one another. Honestly, it actually wasn't that bad! We lifted the handrests up and had plenty of leg room that the flight ended up feeling a lot less shorter than it was. Expect for the occassional turbulance (which I'm absolutely petrified of, BTW) it was a lovely flight. We were so busy doing the What you know about your bride and What you know about your groom books that I picked up at Barnes and Nobels this week, we didn't even realize we were coming in for a landing! We touched down right when some of the questions were getting good!




By the time I left Buggy at the airport and got back to my apartment here in Tel Aviv, I was itching to unpack and get back into a routine. I know with this jet lag it's going to really take some time. But, I tackled each suitcase one by one. Before really setting down to unpacking though, I called Jeff and met him and Lana for a quick bite. I felt like I was walking in a daze when I walked over to see Jeff's new apartment. It's really nice and big and has gorgeous windows! We caught up over pizza and then I got back to the task at hand. I am absolutely shocked and impressed with myself that I was able to bring all this stuff back into the country!

Like the beginning of Tim O'Brien's masterpiece, The Things They Carried the list includes: 6 jars of Taster's Choice vanilla flavored coffee, 14 books including my old recipe notebook and a new cookbook, four pairs of new shoes, 25 bags for mishloach manot for Purim, half of my CD collection, 2 plastic bags of Splenda (that really did look like bags of cocaine!), 25 comic books (for Buggy to share with his two brothers), three bags of Raspberry Tea flavored Crystal Light, 3 glass turtle figurines (of which, one broke when I was unpacking it, so now I'm down for two), 12 scented candles for Buggy's mother (a gift), my entire bencher collection, a summer comforter, 2 handbags including my winter JCrew green tote, two wool winter coats including a Shabbos and weekday jacket, enough Kiehl's products to last me through July, 3 new Banana Republic skirts, one Swiffer, one new Banana Republic skirt that was stained by the Swiffer wet wipes at the bottome of my suitcase, my wedding notebook (to keep on top of everything I need to do before the big day!) and a Tzedaka Box (that my sister bought me one year as a birthday present and was immediately filled with the two shekel shliach mitzvah money Buggy sent me when I left for New York 26 days ago).




I am still shocked that they didn't charge me extra for my huge bags! Actually, the woman at the desk noticed that I had overpacked one of the suitcases and mentioned that she wasn't charging an extra suitcase fee because El Al messed up with the tickets. That was worth the snafu alone!

Since I got a significant amount of unpacking done this evening, tomorrow is hopefully going to be a somewhat relaxing day. I need to change money cause I've got dollars but absolutely zero shekel, unpack all of my drug items, start reading the short stories I need to read for class next Tuesday, go to the gym (if I'm awake enough to move), buy food for my apartment (I've got nothing but drinks and peanut butter), work on the new short story I've been thinking about writing, get together for coffee with Gayle, get in touch with Marnina, Rachel and Fruma about Shabbos (they're in town for the OZ trip but more on that tomorrow!) go for a walk on the beach (cause it's supposed to be 70's and sunny and that beats the freezing cold weather of New York!).

Countdown until I'm back in New York for Pesach is approximately 5 weeks! I have so much to do in that time period, it's pretty scary!

Erev Tov from Tel Aviv!