"Flightplan" is not a movie that anyone should ever watch if they are planning on traveling internationally with a baby. And "Meet the Parents" is a movie that everyone should watch before they ever check a bag. And after the last 48 hours of my life, I feel a little like both Jodie Foster and Ben Stiller.
The short story of my 48 hours of traveling is that the airline lost my bag and the Rome airport is the most inefficient airport I have ever been in, which caused us to miss our third flight (Rome to Tel Aviv). Then we spent the next 16 hours in the Rome airport, not knowing if the bankrupted Alitalia was going to cancel the flight to Israel that cost me $900, or if my luggage would ever show up. Things got a little stressful when my bank canceled all my credit and debit cards (after I made one phone call from Rome to Jerusalem), and when I wondered if we would make it to Israel before I ran out of diapers for Lily or sanity for myself. One small blessing of our long stay in the boring Rome airport was it gave me the chance to notice that on our return trip, I'm scheduled to flight from Rome to Chicago, and Lily is scheduled to fly from Rome to New York. Interesting.
My 17-year-old traveling companion (also headed to the Jerusalem Center to spend Christmas with her boyfriend's family) was helpful in some ways (watching Lily and our bags while I used the bathroom and made phone calls, and being my source of money when my bank cards were canceled and I was out of cash) and a source of stress in other ways. (She was rather anxious to be reunited with her boyfriend. When we realized the soonest we could get out of Rome would be 16 hours later, she was convinced that we should find a bus or a train to take us to Jerusalem.)
When we finally got to Israel I was on a high. A sleep-deprived, anxiety-and hunger-induced high. I have never been happier to see my dad (the blessed source of the eventual clearing of my bank cards) than when I walked out the door of the Tel Aviv airport and saw him waiting by the car. It was with a huge sense of relief that I gave up the crushing role of "responsible adult" and climbed into my dad's car, as his daughter. No food has ever tasted better than the pitas, cheese and yogurt that he brought. After those 48 hours of traveling, I could have happily stayed in the car with my dad for hours. I was home. And what cooler place to call "home" for two weeks than the BYU Jerusalem Center, located a few blocks from the Dome of the Rock, and a few hours from the Pool of Bethesda (on our itinerary today), Bethlehem, Galilee, the Garden of Gethsemane, and more. Shalom, Israel. My happiness will be complete if I can just scrounge up an extra pair of underwear.
2 comments:
YAY! I'm so excited to be vicariously on this trip with you...once upon a time I was supposed to go to BYU Jerusalem but the combination of me getting engaged and the center closing made that impossible! SO, I"ll just be pretending I'm there with you. Sorry about the intertnational travel nightmare, that's stressful enough without an infant in tow. Is Mark not with you? You were just in Rome, AHHH! Even if it was just the airport. And now the Holy Land? Ohhh, what an amazing place to celebrate Christmas. So looking forward to your updates. Good Luck with the undie situation, pretty sure garments are hard to come by over there, but perhaps there's a jewish undergarment you could try??!!
Oh wow, wow. I am so sorry for that fiasco, but also sad that I'm missing the pool of Bethesda. Dang airlines.
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