One dark and stormy night...

Hey everyone, welcome back to the blog tracking my excursions halfway across the world. This time as Halloween, American Votes 2008, and plenty of college football is left to play, I decided to leave all of that behind, embark to the east this time and cross the mighty North Atlantic Ocean all the way over to Tel Aviv, proving once again the world is indeed round, and flat at the same time. This is my second time in Israel, yet it is also my shortest stop in the country. I spent a grand total of 27 hours in the Holy Land, just a quick stop over by myself before I met Becky and Seaby in Istanbul.

As we began our descent into Tel Aviv, our capable Continental Airlines pilot came on the intercom to give us an update on the ground conditions...pouring rain, thunderstorms, and we had the turbulance to prove the air instability. It was early evening, so it was dark and it was quite a storm, just not something I had ever equated with Israel...always dry and sunny in my mind.

I made it through security, found my baggage claim belt, grabbed my suitcase, hopped in a cab and after a soggy ride made it to my hotel on the Mediterranean coast. It was nothing like the view back in June, the coast was now winterized, it was a cool and rainy night, so I stayed in the hotel and slept off the jet lag. Next morning I was up, the rain had stopped, I packed my bags, popped over to lead a two-hour College Essay and Admissions Strategy session for 50 prospective Israeli students followed by a Vanderbilt info session at the U.S. Fulbright Office, grabbed some lunch with the staff and then was placed in a cab back out to Ben Gurion International. After the usual hour-long rigamoral through Israeli security - empty all contents of the bags, lots of scanning and questions about why I have ever been to Malaysia (Israel defines you as a security threat based on stamps in your passport, I apparently just had one big ? mark), I departed at 8:00pm on Turkish Airlines #1189 bound for Istanbul...the city straggling the Bosporus between two mighty continents, where east meets west, where the Ritz Carlton awaited. More on that next time.