I Made it to Israel

     Wow. What a crazy day or two days or however long it was. My clock is so messed up I couldn't tell you what day or time or even month it is at this point! I'll just start from the beginning and go from there.
    Tuesday morning, I got to the Salt Lake Airport around 8:30 AM, checked in, went through security, and then waited until my flight left around 11:30 AM. We got to the JFK airport at about 5 PM. There were time changes and whatnot so it ended up being a 3 and half hour flight. Not bad. I finally got something to eat (I hadn't eaten since about 6 that morning) and then got back to waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Because of bad weather, our flight got a little delayed. We didn't board until 9:30 PM. (sidenote: Customs was not as bad as everyone said. It was just like the rest of security) Then things got really exciting! We sat on the plane until 1 AM as luggage got loaded. It was icy and apparently they were understaffed. They only had 2 guys instead of 6. Once they finally finished loading luggage, they had to de-ice the wings. So there was more waiting.
    But then, we finally were on our way!! If you have any preconceived notions about sleeping on planes being fun, let me just put them too rest. It's not. There is no comfortable position ever no matter how you sit or slouch or slump. Random thought again, the plane was HUGE!! It had two aisles and was 9 seats across. They fed us dinner at 2 AM (it was really nasty pasta) and then breakfast at about 3 PM. This didn't help with the whole time change confusion thing! The flight was 10 hours total but went from 1 AM to 5 PM on Wednesday.

This was my first view of Israel. 

   The picture might be a bit deceiving. It looks beautiful right!? Well, by the time we landed and got out of the airport it was dark and stormy. Like, really stormy. I've never seen anything so crazy! The rain was coming down so hard and big. The drops were huge! There was tons of lightening too. It was beautiful! The sky was cloudy and the lightening was purple so when it would flash, the whole sky would turn a bright purple. The wind was insane! It was knocking over bags and pushing people around. The palm trees were all bent over. It was pretty crazy! The waves on the Mediterranean Sea were getting to be 25 feet high!

This is the Airport in Tel Aviv. It was very big and very pretty. 

 Not a great picture. I was trying to show the rain outside but at least you can see the rain on the window!

     The roads to Jerusalem were closed because of snow so our awesome leaders found us a hotel to stay at in Ashdod. It is about 45 minutes away from Tel Aviv. That made it so our total travel time was about 24 hours!! We are staying in a hotel right on the Mediterranean Sea. It is super nice! We got dinner right when we arrived. It was good but I wasn't super hungry. However, I did make room for hummus which was AMAZING. I am definitely going to love the food. 

     Another random note that I don't want to forget. Driving through Ashdod, they had these little workout stations all along the sidewalk. It would just randomly have different weightlifting machines, pull up bars, elliptical looking things, etc. I guess Israeli's are all about staying fit! We even saw 3 guys working out despite the storm!! I tried to get a picture but we were moving too fast and it was dark. Maybe I can get one today. 

     Well, I know that was a lot for only having been here for about 12 hours but I guess a lot has happened! I hope I wasn't too boring. 

Until my next adventure,

Lindy