How to Avoid Getting Killed By A Tube of Toothpaste & Other Useful Israeli Travel Tips

I recently spent a few days (yes days) in Israel.  All it took was a 1.5 hour flight to my connection, a 6 hour layover, and then the 11 hour flight to Tel Aviv.  However, the flight wasn’t the bad part of it, it was actually the anticipation.  Anticipation for what you may ask.  Well just Google “Israeli Airport Security” and you will see.  When I Googled it, I got two responses.

1)       Israel upset with Iran, may plan attack on nuclear stations

2)       Going through Israeli security is like getting a colonoscopy and tooth extraction at the same time, yet not as pleasant

So going in, I had already planned to either be on the news as someone drafted into Attack Force 1 heading into Iran, or I would be spending my time in an Israeli airport detention center trying to explain why I had 4 pairs of underwear for a 3 day stay. 

Getting Into Israel

So after all this research about security, I show up at the airport basically feeling guilty already for something.  I don’t know what that something was, but I knew that these well trained agents would uncover whatever it was I was hiding.  By the time I got to my first security checkpoint I was already confessing “YES, it was me who stole little Mary’s candy bar in the 4^th grade, but I’M SORRRY!!!!”  Well, he didn’t care much about Mary and her poor candy, but he did stare me down and keep asking me questions over and over.  Are you sure you packed this by yourself, is there any chance you’re not remembering it correctly, is your real name Kaiser Sose?”

He then looks at my passport and some other paperwork I had and asks me to remain where I am as he goes off to talk to his supervisors.  I wait about 15 minutes, which in security time feels about 6 hours, and he returns and asks “Are you sure you didn’t have anyone else pack your bags”.  I finally convince him that, yes, despite my appearance, I am more than capable of packing my own bags, and I went on my way.

After 6 hours of waiting for my flight to take off, I go through TSA security, which, let’s be honest, comparing TSA to  Israeli security, is like comparing Cy Young to Richard Pryor’s Montgomery Brewster of the Hackensack Bulls.  Here is another comparison; TSA will take away my toothpaste if it is 3.1 ounces.  Israeli security will kill me with that same 3.1 ounce tube of toothpaste.

Anyway, I get to the gate and there are people in various lines (Economy, Business, First) waiting in what appears to be an orderly fashion.  So I get in line and do what normal civilized people have been doing for generations, which is, actually waiting in the line.  As soon as the gate agent picks up the microphone to ask for people needing extra assistance to board the plan, the entire area bum rushed the gate.  Seriously, you would have thought that only 4 golden tickets have been found and beyond the gate lay the last case of Wonka Bars.  That or everyone in the gate area just heard their soccer team won (or lost).  I kid you not; people were pushing and shoving, forgetting any semblance to the once orderly line (or civilization).  Mind you, these weren’t the people who actually needed the extra assistance, oh no, those poor people in the wheel chairs had no chance!

So, I still try to maintain some level of order before the chaos turned into anarchy, and what do you know, I get to the agent, they look at my passport and pause.  Then they look at me quizzically and ask if I spoke Hebrew.  When I said I don’t, they looked at the passport again, and said – “But it says here that you do” referring to some scribbles the previous security guard wrote down.  “I assure you miss, I barely speak English and I think the only Hebrew I know is “Hebrew National” Hotdogs.  Needless to say, I was asked to wait (as everyone else continued shoving past me).  She consulted her supervisors and I watched them having a discussion, pointing at my passport and in my hysteria imaging they are saying “Should we take him out here, or have our agents in Tel Aviv do away with him?  She finally comes back to me and as I am preparing to make a run for it, she says “Have a good flight”…and that’s it.  No explanation, nothing.

On the Plane

It is a sad state of affairs when I can get on a plane, eat a big dinner, watch a movie, go to sleep, wake up, and still have hours of flying to go!  I actually kid about the watch a movie part…well sort of.  The airline had several movies to choose from, so I chose Killer Elite.  The problem was, it would play for about 7 minutes and then stop and restart…constantly.  So I would start to get into the movie only to be brought back to the beginning.  So while I watched about an hour of the movie, it was the first 7 minutes over and over.  I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, although I didn’t really learn any new skills, and I didn’t drive angry!  Spoiler alert, nothing really happens in the first 7 minutes.  I can only assume that Robert Deniro ended up being the bad guy in an “I see dead people” plot twist. 

The other interesting thing on waking up was that I came out of a poor sleep and was a little groggy, and when I look up I see 5 people by the plane door, in what I assumed to be a frantic attempt to open the door 37,000 feet up in the air.  No one else seemed to be worried however, and I was eventually educated that they were praying.

To further show my ignorance, when dinner was served, I received a full course meal, with my main dish being a beef stew.  When I got my warm dinner role, I looked around, saw I was missing something, and asked the flight attendant for butter.  I was told, no, I cannot have butter.  I was a little perplexed, I said why; can I not have butter miss?  Did I do something?  Evidently it was a kosher plane.  Later in the flight, one of my seat mates asked me if I was Jewish.  Well actually he said “You’re not Jewish right?” So I said “did the butter thing give me away?”

Getting back to the US

All I can say is thank you for whatever form my company filled out.  It was basically like I had a hall pass.  Now I know what feels like to be one of the untouchables.  I walked right pass Elliott Ness, showed my form and my passport and away I went.  OK, it wasn’t that easy, but it was nowhere near the experiences I read online.

All in all it actually was a great, if short trip.  I was able to have a couple of nice dinners out on the town with extremely friendly people, was always treated respectfully, even though I did not understand the language, and  was only disappointed that I was unable to stay longer to visit other areas of the country.  

Leaving On A Jet Plane

I travel.  I travel a lot.  I have flown over a million miles in my lifetime.  I have woke up in hotels and not known where I was because it is my 3^rd location in 3 days.  I have ridden in rental cars from small cars I couldn't fit in to mini-vans I could swim in.  Many of my friends and family (and strangers) think travel is glamorous.  Well think again…

Going Through Security

These people are not your friends, nor do they have a sense of humor.  If they ask you to take off your shoes, please do it.  Do not engage in a discussion around why you shouldn’t have to.  Do not then walk through with your shoes on and act surprised when they pull you into the holding pen – which by the way is just a glass enclosure where you are on display like a goldfish with people staring and poking the glass at you.  You will not win the argument and you will hold up the rest of us.

Now, I am not on a soapbox about security agents.  They have their faults too.  My biggest issue? Its how they use the conveyor belt for their own personal amusement.  You know what I mean.  Your luggage and laptop and shoes and coat are all going through.  You wait on the other end with the other passengers like your awaiting the birth of a baby – staring into the abyss – yep there it is, my laptop is coming out…And it’s a DELL!  It would be fine if it ended there – but no such luck.  Bags pile up – the belt keeps running, things are crashing into each other and travelers frantically try to get on their shoes, get their 3 oz liquids packed, and answer their ringing cell phone.  All the while your thinking, yeah, the TSA agent can stop the belt and this chaos.  Its is most likely this vicious circle of events.  I bet as a kid, the TSA Conveyor belt guy would chase the ice-cream truck yelling STOP ICE CREAM MAN STOP as the driver looked in the mirror and sped up just a little to get that person to run faster.  I choose to just stand there and wait for this game to stop – while eating an ice cream cone!

Delays at Airports

You rush through security, you get to your gate and you see the dreaded 20 minutes delayed for your flight.  Now, frequent travelers know that airport delay times are like dog years, you have to do a conversion to understand the true impact.  20 minutes delay means that the plane hasn’t even left yet from the airport it is coming from, but the airlines do not want to give you enough notification so you can actually go somewhere for the 2 hours it will take (best case) to get here.  Rather the delay time is updated in 20 minute increments with the announcement saying – even though were telling you there is no way the flight can get here, you have to stay in the boarding area. 

That leaves us stranded travelers searching out the three most valuable commodities during airport delays

1.       An outlet.  People will camp out next to an overflowing dumpster just to be able to plug in their phone or laptop

2.       Decent food.  I don’t know why I do it, but I will look at a sandwhich and even though I know that the 7 other times I have had it, it tasted like cardboard…I still go for #8.  WHY do I think this time will be different?

Using Overhead Space

I am not sure if people understand the proper use of overhead space.  This space is for carry-on luggage.  I could go into how people try to fit these oversized bags into this tiny space when the laws of measurements dictate that it won’t happen.  However, I am going in the other direction.  I come on with my properly sized carry-on bag and go to put it in the overhead space by my seat.  What’s there – another bag? Nope. Rather a hat. Or a suit-jacket.  A Hat? Seriously? You couldn’t wear it or put it on your lap on a full flight?  And your suit jacket? The proper protocol is for you to put your jacket on-top of your bag – not lying down taking up a whole spot for a bag.  And when I ask – it becomes like a desert scene – tumbleweeds blowing across the aisle… no one says a word

Sitting on the Plane

You think that this would be the easiest part of the trip.  Get to your seat, sit down and either hold on with white knuckles, or kick back and relax depending on your point of view.  If it were only that easy!  Once I sit down, here are, in no particular order, the things that will ultimately happen:

·         The person getting into the seat behind me will continuously pull down on the back of my seat when getting up or down – causing me to either spill my drink, drop my phone, or get more dizzy than when I rode space mountain in Disney World

·         The person in front of me will recline their seat all the way back, crushing my knees, snapping my laptop shut on my fingers, all while giving me a birds-eye view of their scalp

·         I will be reading a book, in fact I will have the book right up to my face like I am trying to burrow my way into it, and the person next to me will feel that somehow this is body language that screams, lets engage in a conversation

·         I will sit in the Aisle seat and when “window seat person” either comes in or out of the row, they don’t even wait for me to get up and let them in/out, they just squeeze right by me.  Let me tell you, face first, back first, it doesn’t matter – there is no good way to do this.

Getting off the plane

There is this rule of “turns” that we learned when we are 2 or 3 years old.  You know, as in, there is an orderly fashion for things and we all take our appropriate turn. This rule does not go away just because you are on a plane.  So, when it comes time to de-board the plane, that doesn’t mean that last one out is a rotten egg.  It means that we orderly get up according to row, get your bags and leave the plane.  And while I understand catching a connection, there is such a thing as courtesy where you say excuse me, rather than hip-checking me back into my seat like you are from the old Philadelphia Flyers Hockey Team.

Checking Luggage

The best I say about waiting for your checked baggage is equate it to playing a game of Russian Roulette.  You know that someone (bag) will not make it through, you just hope it’s not yours.

So the next time someone tells you about all the trips they have to take, hold off on those jealous feelings, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds!