Day 21 - Ben Guryion Airport

Life is full of lessons. That sounds familiar to type so I wonder if I have mentioned it before. The lesson that I learned today is why you are supposed to get to the airport three hours early for an international flight.

It is currently 5:54 am in Jerusalem and I just got to my gate. I got here at 4:00 am. I bet I spent a total of 15 minutes waiting in line between walking in the front door and walking here, the rest of the time was spent talking to security people, running my bags through x-ray machines, having my bags checked and tested for explosives, finding out that I have a total weight limit for my luggage (and finding out that I am over it) and paying the overweight fee. The people here were really nice in an Israeli way. They are serious people, but they will smile a little bit if you are friendly and keep talking to them. Sometimes they will even chat back.

At the airport here you have to go through a security check (a person who checks through your passport and talks to you about why you were in Israel, a longer question and answer process for me than at other places.) After that you run all of your bags through an x-ray, then you go through a security check where they look through your bags and compare them to what the x-ray read. I’m not sure if this check is for everyone or just for me. During that time I found out that my cord for my laptop wasn’t able to travel with any of my bags, they put it in a separate box, and because of that box I had an Israeli security person who walked around with me for what I’m sure they thought would be a short trip but it ended up being a rather long one. When I went up and checked in they weighed all of my bags and told me that they were over the total weight limit (the counter lady was nice and knocked off a few extra kilos) and I told me that I had to check one of the bags I was going to carry on (it was too heavy) and that I needed to go pay the extra fee. Since I was going to check a new bag, I had to take that bag back to the security point and they needed to search it more thoroughly and give it a different security “ok”.

Then we went to the line where you pay the overweight fee (which wasn’t that much, $21), which actually had a pretty long line. At that point the guy who was escorting me and carrying the box with my computer cord in it checked his watch and realized that he was supposed to be somewhere else at that point, so he apologized (he was pretty friendly and actually pretty funny). Took me back to the security desk, where I waited a few minutes for someone else to be available to escort me around and carry the box with my computer cord. Lucky for me my new escort ended up being a cute girl who took me back to the “pay for being too heavy” line then over to the ticket counter where I could finally get my boarding pass. Then she walked me over to a big elevator where she waited to put on the box with my computer cord, gave me tips on where not to shop in the mall (unsolicited, I think she was warming up to me) then she sent me on my way.

After that it was just the regular security checks, bag checks, and passport checks until I got here to my gate.

This is a bit of a goodbye to Israel. I’ll be here for about seven hours when I fly back later this week (hopefully that will be enough time to make it through the airport security check and the El-Al security check.) Assuming that my computer cord arrives with me, my next post will be from the Dead Sea Marriot in Jordan. And I promise, that one will include pictures.