Our Journey Begins!

July 2--Travel Day!

By: Lauren Losin

We started off our journey in the Chizuk Amuno parking lot where we were sent off to Israel with lots of hugs, kisses, and tears from our parents. Once we said our final goodbyes for the next three weeks, we found our seats on the bus and begun our three hour our trip to Newark International airport.

A little while into our bus ride, Sam presented us with a new piece of swag: a fanny pack containing ISS survival tools. Trust me, the fanny pack becomes very relevant further into our journey. On the bus, many of us tried to sleep while the boys messed around in the back and blasted music from Charlie's speaker (something we are used to). Nearing Newark, we did an activity lead by Sara and Ilana Miller where each of us described one thing we are looking forward too while following the letters of the alphabet. Finally, we had reached the airport.

Once arriving, we immediately saw some kids from the Metro West Diller group who then joined us in line to be questioned by El Al. As each of us passed through questioning, we got through without any issues until they noticed something "suspicious" on us, our fanny packs. Immediately they started interrogating myself, Ilana Moffet, and Jared about the contents, purpose, and origin of the mysterious and apparently threatening fanny pack. We all were quite frazzled and nervous, although we knew we did nothing wrong, and after around ten minutes of investigation we were in the clear.

After passing through questioning, we traveled to our gate where we had some free time to relax and walk around before having to sit for ten hours on the plane. This time went by quickly as we bought food and did the travelers prayer before boarding, and before we knew it we were in line and ready to go.

Entering the plane, we all became excited as we realized that our trip was really beginning now. As we got onto the plane, many of us rearranged our seats and got settled down for our ten hour flight. While some of us were already asleep before taking off (Jeremy), many of us begun watching a movie-particularly Baby Boss, a movie that many of us enjoyed. I fortunately slept for about seven of the ten hours (obviously after two melatonin and a Benadryl), but for those who couldn't catch some z's they played games on their phone, old DS (Ethan Harrison), watched a movie, listening to music, read a book, or engaged in some small talk with their seat neighbors.

Finally, after ten long hours of travel, we landed in Tel Aviv, anxious and excited to experience the next three weeks together with each other and the rest of international Diller.