Joe’s May 2008 Trek Thru Israel, Eastern Europe & The Balkans En Route to Auschwitz Along the Same Rail Transport Lines my Ancestors Rode to the Death Camps

Picked up by taxi at my hotel at 4am.  Flight is on El Al, so you need extra time to make it through security checkpoints (plural).  Do y0u know the translation of “EL AL”?  It means don’t screw with us.  Security is very intense and thoroughwhich is the reason that they have never been hijacked.  When I flew Olympic back to Israel from Athens, the security consisted of an x ray machine and have a good flight.  The only thing El Al has in common is the scanner.  When I arrived at El Al in Ben Gurion Airport, the first stop is the psychological screening.  What are you doing in Israel.  Have you ever been here before.  Who did you visit.  Do you speak hebrew.  Do you have relatives here.  How old were you when you were Bar Mitzva.  On and on.  You can’t really fault them because they are doing their job and do it well.  Then my bags were x rayed in a different checkpoint and they referred me to an inspection station where they had the larger plasma screen forwqarded to them elecronically with the scan of my bags.  Because I had pottery in my bags, they wanted to ask me about the bags and asked me if they could inspect.  I agreed, but instead they only swabbed the zipper of hte bag with bomb swab and asked me where I purchased the pottery.  I answered and they never opened the bags.  Then it was on to the hand baggage screening after passport control.  Actually, the Israeli security is very efficient given the very detailed physical and psychological process.

My first flight was Tel Aviv to Zurich Switzerland.  Beautiful terminal.  Next flight was Zurich to London.

London was the usual.  Cold, grey and rainy at the end of May.  I checked one bag into storage at the airport and then I took the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station and walked the few blocks to my hotel.  Given that the British Pound is equivalent to 2 U.S. Dollars, things are awfully expensive.  Anyway, I got to my hotel by 4pm and was out walking the city by 5.  I stayed in the Westminster area of London given my 24 hour layover.  I am really amazed at the changes so rapidly to the Westminster area of London.  The amount of Middle Eastern people and the rows and rows of arabic restaraunts is impressive.  I had a great dinner at an Iraqi Restaraunt.  The KaBobs were spectacular.  Every block has so many restaraunts and 5 out of 6 are Arabic, leaving the one British pub on those blocks as the sore thumb sticking out.  It was absolutely amazing to see the number of people sitting outdoors smoking hookahs!  Dozens of hookahs ablaze at every cafe. 

wow.  Anyway, went back to my hotel and was awakened at 1am with the sound of water dripping.  It was raining so hard that the ceiling leaked and caused a huge puddle in my room.  By 3am I ended up moving to another room because of the annoyance.  You can believe I got my 50% discount when I checked out.  At first they said no adjustment and upon my promising them I would spend the day telling people walking in about my experience, the Manager relented and offered the 50% reduction which I gladly accepted.  What a dump.

 I took the Heathrow Express back to the Airport, checked my bags and took a non stop flight back to LA.  Great to finally get back home!  Its been quite an adventure.

Saturday night checked into Hotel with Rebecca and had dinner with the boys. Sunday was Rebecca’s last day before a late night flight.  We went over to Jaffa old city on Sunday to do the last of the souvenier shopping. The Jaffa old quarter is the real beginning of Tel Aviv’s start in the early 1900’s. Thus, it has the charm of the old Arab world as opposed to Tel Aviv that is a sprawling high rise metropolis.  My boys describe Tel Aviv as being more like New York City. Certainly I can’t disagree with them about the night life, the young people everywhere and the great food.  This is a stark contrst to the Tel Aviv suburbs like Holon where I visited friends that are like family.  Haifa is the very family oriented city. 

Rebecca and I stopped for Falafel and Schwarma which we both agreed that we overdid it on the food thing during our stay. By the way, the thin crust pizza on Shenkin Street which is the Tel Aviv version of Melrose or Abbott Kinney in LA is superb. I still have the rental car, so I dropped Rebecca off at the airport Sunday night. Thank goodness for GPS. Despite the road signs in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and some English, the GPS was unwavering in its accuracy in getting me to the airport and back. On the wayback, I had to get gas, and the GPS was perfect for getting me to the gas station.  Monday I returned the rental car which was two blocks from my hotel.  I stopped at the red light and then made a right on red.  Within seconds, a policecar pulled me over.  The Policeman walked over to my car and only spoke Hebrew.  I showed him my US Passport and rental folder.  I asked him what I did wrong, realizing you cannot turn right on red.  He yelled at me in Hebrew, and turned away to go to his Police Car.  He opened the door of his car, sat in it and burned off.  At least I dodged the ticket.  The remainder of the day was a walk through Tel Aviv and to the market place called the Shook which has an incredible variety of foods, spices, candy and merchandise.  The foods in this marketplace are a photographer’s paradise. I took so many pictures of foods, spices and people, that I had to condense them into much smaller photos to get them onto this blog.  Of course, all of the Chinese manufacturing is dumped in Israel too.  Farewell dinner with the boys in the evening and back to the airport for an early trip to the airport.