Pesach Travel Adventures - Day 0

Day 0 – Tuesday, April 3 – Travel to London

(Written by Jeremy)

I ordered a sheirut for 5:00 PM. Of course, it was late. In fact, it never showed. Instead, I had the luck of having another sheirut pull up on Washington Street at 5:30. He had one more person to drop off and then we would be on our way. No problem. 

To say that this driver was a champ is an understatement. To say he is a true Israeli is probably more accurate. At one point, he called his friend and ordered what I could only guess was an elaborate falafel sandwich. At another, he was able to negotiate calls on his two cell phones (one business and one personal), as well as the company radio. Oh, and he was driving too. Yet, with all of the chaos that was going on, especially driving the crazy streets of Jerusalem, he was still able to keep his cool, greeting each caller with a friendly, "Hah-lo." 

He even joked with one of the passengers. She walked on with just a purse. (I'll translate)

"You don't have a suitcase?"

"Nope!"

"Well, you know you have to pay more."

She walks on and sees the sign saying that Sheirut prices have, indeed, gone up. 

"It's 61.90 now?!" She asks. 

"62."

"Then yes, I DO have a suitcase!"

It may have been funnier in the moment. 

It's 6:05 now and we have only picked up half the car's worth. There's no way I'll be at the airport at the time I was hoping. But it's okay. Turns out that there's an air traffic controller's strike in France. Because of that, almost all flights in western Europe are delayed, including the inbound plane for my flight. Right now, I'm expected to be two hours late getting into London. My best educated guess: I'll land at approximately 1:45 AM. 

Miracle of miracles, we are leaving to the airport! Usually a sheirut takes 10 people. We have 6. First time a half-full sheirut has gone to the airport! See, we can still have "firsts" in Israel. 

Once I walked in the door to the ticketing hall of the airport, I was pulled aside for some questioning. I must look funny. This stuff always happens to me. When my bag went through the x-ray for normal passenger screening (still, pre-boarding pass), they said, "so, you're studying to be a Rabbi. Where's your kippah?" I think I might just wear one other every time I fly through Ben Gurion, just so I don't have to deal with this question. 

After a quick jaunt through check-in, we were whisked away on busses to Terminal 3 (easyJet check in Terminal 1, but I guess they fly out of 3). This was my favorite part. Not just because we drove on the tarmac, which meant awesome plane spotting (the closest thing I get to playing real sports), but because there were a bunch of kids on the bus. There were British kids and there were Haredi kids. But they had this in common: they were all stoked to see planes this close. When people ask me why I love planes, it's because I never grew out of that phase. They're big, they somehow take you where you want to go in relative comfort, and they're just awesome. Seeing the expressions of joy and amazement really put a smile on my face. 

After a quick bite at the new Aroma (closest Israeli equivalent to Starbucks), I settled in on the floor near a power outlet. 2 hours before the inbound plane even lands. 

easyJet #200. You don't have to be a plane nerd to think
that's cool...right?!

Flight #1

easyJet #2086, Tel Aviv (Tues. Apr. 3, 8:20 PM) - London-Luton (11:45 PM)

G-EZUI, Airbus 320, Special all orange plane

Seat: Window

TLV: Depart 2:59 late at 11:19 PM

LTN: Arrive 2:44 late at 2:29 AM

Duration: 5:10

Despite the delay, I was really pleasantly surprised to find easyJet #200 as our plane for this journey. This was my first time flying easyJet, so I was really excited to give the airline a try. The way easyJet boarding works is this: EasyJet has open seating, like Southwest, but unlike Southwest, there is no order, other than those that spring for the $29 "speedy boarding" pass. The nice thing is that they next let families with children under 5 board. That's a nice touch, and especially because coming from Israel, there were a LOT of families with small children.

Side note: When a British coupled behind me in line referred to the "queue," I knew I was not going to be in Kansas anymore.

When we boarded, the captain came on, apologized for the delay, blamed it on the French (while it was the French air traffic controller's fault, I just found it amusing that the Brit blamed the French for something), and then told us that our crew would be working overtime in order to make this flight happen. One of the ways that easyJet saves its customers money is that a flight crew will often fly to the destination and then immediately return, thus saving the money of putting the crew up in a hotel, etc. However, because of the delay, the crew should have technically been given rest time. Instead of making us wait until the next day, the crew called into easyJet headquarters and received permission to break the rules and fly us to London that evening. We gave them a round of applause. It was very nice of them, but you could also sense that the flight attendants were extremely exhausted from their long day.

The flight itself was fine, and in true easyJet style (or so I'm told), nothing except the lavatories were free. Want some water? 2€. Want some food? Costs you money. Everything cost something. The one amusing part of this flight was that because it was a flight to Israel, they only had Kosher hot meal options for purchase. What was the stereotypical meal? A bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and cucumbers. Yup.

I tried to get some sleep on the plane, since we took off at 11:19 at night, and I knew that I had a fairly long journey ahead of myself once we landed at Luton. Sure enough, a long journey is exactly what I had. Oh, and did I mention that on easyJet, the seats don’t recline? At all? Great for getting some sleep.

When we landed in Luton at 2:29 AM, we deplaned right onto the tarmac. I turned to my seatmate and said, "Oh, we're right on the tarmac." To which he replied, "Yeah…it's easyJet." I guess I should have known!

After a quick and easy pass through customs and baggage claim, I bought tickets for my connecting train and I went out to the curb where a shuttle would take me from the airport to the train station, where I was hoping to catch the 3:30 AM train. Unfortunately, the shuttle was running very infrequently, and it did not even leave the airport until 3:25, meaning I missed the 3:30 train. The next one? 4:09. Giddyup. Once I was finally on the train, a very nice local (who also happened to be on my flight from Tel Aviv) helped me figure out that I was going 6 stops.

When I finally arrived at the platform at Hendon station, Leah, our friend with whom we were staying and was also picking me up, and I shared a huge sigh of relief. The saga was over. By the time I got in bed, it was 5 AM. Just enough time to get 2.5 hours of sleep before we would get up to pick up Sarah from Heathrow.