Tomorrow afternoon will mark my one week mark in Jerusalem, and should this little experiment work out, I'll give details of my time here. For now, a report on my flights over.
Transatlantic flights have a way of making economy class travelers feel not quite so inferior. Of course we still file past the first classers in their double-wide leather seats on our way to the back of the plane, but the hot towels before dinner and the complimentary booze helps in softening the edges of a seven hour flight. I'd like to raise my few glasses of red wine to the man in first class who, as the majority of the plane was trudging slowly by for boarding, had no qualms about pulling out his magazine of soft porn and giving everyone passing on the starboard side a good look as he opened the centerfolds, gazed in admiration for a while, then flipped to the next soft-focused ample-breasted teenage girl.
On this Washington-Dulles to Frankfurt flight, a weird smell filled the cabin and became progressively more potent once we reached cruising altitude. Thank God for Lufthansa and their very blunt German head flight attendant who came up to the Italian-looking man 2 rows ahead of me and told him quite loudly to put his shoes back on and wrap the airline blanket around himself.
"Sir, you stink. Yes. Smell. You smell. The whole cabin."
A little while later, his compassionate Germanic nature shining through, he came back by to tell him that the cabin smelled considerably better now that his shoes were back on and he should not take them off, or remove the blanket.
My flight from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv I sat at the window and the two seats next to me were filled by a brother and sister, 12 and 9 y.o. Their dad was at first sitting rows behind at the back of the cabin, but the flight attendant told him he had to move close to them, so he ended up sitting a row behind. Before take-off the little krauts were really well behaved and playing together, but once we were in the air, holy crap. They were throwing elbows, pulling hair, scratching, biting, full-out hand-to-hand combat. I spoke to the girl twice, "Bless you" when she sneezed and offering to help her take the tin foil off the top of her curry lamb meal, a task that was kicking her butt. She was really shy and would just look at me in fear and give a one word response. But she wasn't shy when, as I was trying to read and ignore their little battle, she leaned backward across my lap so she could kick her brother in the face. Later on she grabbed his arm and shook it as he was trying to drink hot tea so he spilled scalidng water all over himself. He responded by yanking her hair. Dad was oblivious.
I live in the top of a tower here. It's only two stories high, but nonetheless I feel like Rapunzel surrounded by my stone walls and peeking out my tiny windows to the street below. Of course it's large utility trucks and charterbusfuls of American tourists rumbling by rather than a prince on a white horse, but I don't complain. I also have a wide terrace outside my door that has a panoramic view of the Old City of Jerusalem and the gleaming gold dome of Dome of the Rock. (If you see a postcard of Jerusalem, that's prob'ly what you'll be looking at.) Okay. Let's try a photo.
Here's my tower! It's connected to the main gate of the Augusta Victoria Hospital grounds. I believe that's one of the guards, Mohammed, sitting outside. I live on the top half and a Quaker couple lives below me, but I have yet to meet them. More photos can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/margit.
