The "I Have No Clue Who These Kids Are" Israir Flight, June 18-19, 2007

We are very lucky to know a guy that Rachel worked with at the RAC who now works for the URJ in New York and organizes NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth) trips to Israel. We were able to chaperone a flight of 80 kids from JFK to Ben Gurion in exchange for a free plane ticket. Yeah, awesome! We flew from Columbus to Laguardia on Sunday 6/17 and stayed in a total dump of a hotel in Queens but it had a free shuttle to both NYC airports and super nice staff, and we then went to JFK Monday afternoon around 3pm to begin earning our free tickets. This was a big group of kids, and we knew immediately that they were typical high schoolers and a bit good-behavior challenged. They spread out, clogging all of the walkways and completely ignoring us when we asked them to move. And they were so loud! When the time finally came to go through security, I led the pack (literally) while Rachel stayed towards the back. A security woman asked me where I was going and for how long. When I answered that I was going for one year, she yelled in excited disbelief "with all of them!" basically saying that I must be crazy. I assured her that I don't have a strong desire to lose my mind, and she seemed to feel better after that. When we were boarding the plane I was again at the front of the pack. The kids thought it would be fun to turn out the lights in the jetway, and it was pitch black. Thank God Israelis have no trouble being assertive, so they got yelled at in unison by fellow travelers and flight staff. And they were singing annoying songs at the top of their lungs. They refused to keep their seats, they would cram 5 people in a row of 3 seats, block the aisles, yell and scream, kick seats in front of them and grab the seat back of the seat in front of them to get up and down, regardless of the fact that there were a lot of children sleeping. The girl behind me kicked the back of my seat incessantly, and after Rachel yelled at her, she continued kicking it but blurted out "sorry, I'm sorry" every time. Apparently that makes it okay to do annoying things. It took them a good hour at the end of the flight to gather their belongings that were scattered all around the back of the plane. Several times during the flight we worked to diffuse the situation and calm them down to no avail -- it accomplished nothing. Our duties pretty much ended once all of the kids made it through passport control and found their luggage. A fellow HUC 1st year student was on our flight, so we all took a sherut together from the airport to Jerusalem. In typical Israeli style, once we had loaded all 8 bags in the back of the van and found our seats, we were told to unload it all and load it in a new van. I was feeling totally fine until the van ride. The driver drove kind of crazy and I was in the back. I immediately starting feeling nauseous and was so glad that the ride isn't very long. It took me a while to recover, and thankfully a Joseph family friend's son carried our ridiculously heavy duffels up to our 5th floor apartment. It was so worth the money. We were very pleasantly surprised by how much we instantly loved our apartment. Our landlord is wonderful, a welcome breath of fresh air from our recent US landlords. We get a really good cross breeze, there is tons of storage, it is clean and modern and pretty much every thing we need is already here, although we do have a list of things we want/need to buy. We had unpacked and decorated by Wednesday night. It already feels like home.