1/4/07
40 Years in the Desert?
I’ve been sitting in what amounts to a glorified holding room in Ben Gurion Airport for the last four hours. It’s not all that bad. The chairs are upholstered with simple black pleather, the floor is marble tile, and we’re allowed to wander outside to the bathroom, hallways, and elsewhere, basically anywhere but past customs (because they’re holding our passports).
When I boarded my connecting Air Canada flight in Toronto the gate attendant checked my ID twice, then walked away with my passport and ticket to hurriedly confer with a colleague of his.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked when he returned.
“Ohh, no. Nothing’s wrong,” he answered with an oily smile.
“Enjoy your flight,” he continued, “I’m sure you will.”
I was naturally somewhat perturbed, and half expected to be assaulted by a team of overzealous aviation security officers on the jetway. Though why a disheveled Chinese kid boarding a plane to Tel Aviv warranted suspicion, I didn’t know.
It turns out what put me off about the gate attendance behavior was in fact unadulterated sycophancy. As soon as I boarded the plane, a cheerful stewardess (read: flight attendant) directed me to the last row of Air Canada’s elite executive super-duper first class section, and everyone began treating me like I was rich, important, or at the least related to someone rich and important. “Orange juice or champagne?” “Hot towellette?” “Box of Swiss Chocolates?” “What would you like for dinner? The Tenderloin steak? Very well.” Even when I was allergic to both possible main breakfast courses, the flight attendants kept pushing alternatives on me until I ended up with cold cereal and yogurt. And as luck would have it the first film was Little Miss Sunshine, which I adore, and which finished just in time for me to nap away most of the flight in my fully adjustable throne-sized chair that reclined a relaxing 150 degrees.
It occurred to me through a dreamy mid-flight haze that I could choose to believe in auspicious/inauspicious starts, in which case having the good fortune to be bumped up from coach to first class certainly boded well for my trip, or I could believe in karma, in which case somewhere down the line I was due to pay for this unlooked for luxury.
Many hours later, curled on a black pleather chair with my peacoat wrapped around my arms and a windbreaker laid over my legs above the marble tiled floor, in between answering questions about the nature of my visit to Israel (purely tourism) and the reasons for the Lebanese and Syrian stamps on my passport (visiting with a friend), I guessed that it must have been karma.
When, after finally being released, I was informed by the Lost and Found that my checked luggage had been left behind in Toronto and would only arrive the following day, I knew without a doubt that it had been karma.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Blog Post Script: Brian later arrived safely at his hostel as planned after hazarding public transportation to Jerusalem (which saved him loads of money but would have cost him a spell of being lost if not for a nice awkward scholarly guy named Amit), a taxi cab ride through Jerusalem to the Old City (which cost twice as much as the bus ride, but the taxi driver was fun to talk to), and a few dazed minutes wandering the claustrophobic streets of Old Jerusalem. He then woke up jetlagged at 5 in the morning to finish writing up his blog entry in third person.
40 Years in the Desert?
I’ve been sitting in what amounts to a glorified holding room in Ben Gurion Airport for the last four hours. It’s not all that bad. The chairs are upholstered with simple black pleather, the floor is marble tile, and we’re allowed to wander outside to the bathroom, hallways, and elsewhere, basically anywhere but past customs (because they’re holding our passports).
When I boarded my connecting Air Canada flight in Toronto the gate attendant checked my ID twice, then walked away with my passport and ticket to hurriedly confer with a colleague of his.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked when he returned.
“Ohh, no. Nothing’s wrong,” he answered with an oily smile.
“Enjoy your flight,” he continued, “I’m sure you will.”
I was naturally somewhat perturbed, and half expected to be assaulted by a team of overzealous aviation security officers on the jetway. Though why a disheveled Chinese kid boarding a plane to Tel Aviv warranted suspicion, I didn’t know.
It turns out what put me off about the gate attendance behavior was in fact unadulterated sycophancy. As soon as I boarded the plane, a cheerful stewardess (read: flight attendant) directed me to the last row of Air Canada’s elite executive super-duper first class section, and everyone began treating me like I was rich, important, or at the least related to someone rich and important. “Orange juice or champagne?” “Hot towellette?” “Box of Swiss Chocolates?” “What would you like for dinner? The Tenderloin steak? Very well.” Even when I was allergic to both possible main breakfast courses, the flight attendants kept pushing alternatives on me until I ended up with cold cereal and yogurt. And as luck would have it the first film was Little Miss Sunshine, which I adore, and which finished just in time for me to nap away most of the flight in my fully adjustable throne-sized chair that reclined a relaxing 150 degrees.
It occurred to me through a dreamy mid-flight haze that I could choose to believe in auspicious/inauspicious starts, in which case having the good fortune to be bumped up from coach to first class certainly boded well for my trip, or I could believe in karma, in which case somewhere down the line I was due to pay for this unlooked for luxury.
Many hours later, curled on a black pleather chair with my peacoat wrapped around my arms and a windbreaker laid over my legs above the marble tiled floor, in between answering questions about the nature of my visit to Israel (purely tourism) and the reasons for the Lebanese and Syrian stamps on my passport (visiting with a friend), I guessed that it must have been karma.
When, after finally being released, I was informed by the Lost and Found that my checked luggage had been left behind in Toronto and would only arrive the following day, I knew without a doubt that it had been karma.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Blog Post Script: Brian later arrived safely at his hostel as planned after hazarding public transportation to Jerusalem (which saved him loads of money but would have cost him a spell of being lost if not for a nice awkward scholarly guy named Amit), a taxi cab ride through Jerusalem to the Old City (which cost twice as much as the bus ride, but the taxi driver was fun to talk to), and a few dazed minutes wandering the claustrophobic streets of Old Jerusalem. He then woke up jetlagged at 5 in the morning to finish writing up his blog entry in third person.
posted by Bloo at 8:52 AM
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