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Published: February 13th 2018
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It looks weird to be blogging on Days 1 & 2 but when you travel over here you really lose a day. We left home at noon to travel to Pittsburgh for the first leg of our journey. We flew from Pittsburgh to Newark and then from Newark to Tel Aviv. The group from Tyler and Ritchie County is a good-size group (about 30), many or which have traveled together to the Holy Lands. Trust me there is no lack of entertainment on this trip!
The fun began when Steve Leasure left his passport and had to go back to the truck (in the furthest parking lot) as we waited for him. The TSA guard keep trying to shoo us across the street to the "shortest security lines". When we finally followed his direction he heaved a sigh of relief as someone did as he directed! Almost all of were prescreened for security, however the shortest line did not allow pre screening. As a matter of fact several of us were selected to have our bags hand searched and scanned because we brought packaged snacks (cheese crackers, jelly beans, protein bars, teddy grahams and chips). The new security breech is
to try to plant chemical explosives in what looks like prepackaged foods. The security agent started out pretty nice but as the group kept getting larger her pleasant demeanor diminished. She repeated over and over: "Do you have Internet?" "The TSA page clearly tells you what to bring!" "Only one quart bag per person allowed!"
We finally made it through with all our snack still intact!
The flight to Newark was uneventful. We found our gate at Newark and had a little time to go shopping and eating. Then the fun began. We had to be screened again! It was craziness! Instead of having a security gate to pass through, they threw us out of the gate area and sectioned it off. We were herded through, put our bags up against a table, held arms straight out at the shoulder level and scanned with a wand. This flight to Tel Aviv was filled and it was a large plane (over3 50 passengers). There were about 50 seats and about 4 charging tables to hold all those people. When we started to board the plane it was a huge circus....the five group lanes all converged at the kiosk where
only two people were scanning tickets.. WOW! We were scattered all over the plane but we made it! We left Newark at 11:30 but Tel Aviv is 7 hours ahead of us so after flying 10 hours we arrived in Israel at 4:00 pm. We had another security/passport check and then off to meet our guide, board the bus, and head for our hotel in Bethlehem. Dinner and bed for tonight. .
The entertainment on this trip is going to be Robeyn Deem. She got to her room, went to the bathroom and flushed the toilet..so she thought. Well the toilet is equipped with a bidet. Yep you guessed it. She hit the lever for the bidet and flooded her bathroom plus she got soaked in the process. Now I would never have told anyone...not Robeyn...she told us all!! We got a good laugh out of it. Enough shenanigans for the night. Tomorrow we head to the dead Sea, Herodiun, Jericho, and Qumran
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