|
My street dead ended in a little "Y" intersection so I had
to either turn right or left and I had to hurry since taxis were now
up and tooting and tailgating and rushing me. With a general idea of
airport direction from the GPS, I turned right, and enjoyed a
pleasant ride to the airport. Only thing, I was heading North East
and the airport is North West from the city. I ended up back at the
central train station (but I am making 'good time'). I could not
manage to cut back to the west across town as all the east-west
streets were tiny. I am now driving and reading my map and reading
the GPS. It is now 7:45 and I am still 50 kilometers from the
airport! I start to rush. I miss a turn and end up in side streets. I
use the GPS to get back on track and drive while reading the maps. I
am now off of my Milan map, and onto the tiny overview map, but the
bad news is I am definitely heading the wrong way. The north easterly
roads run for a long way out to the freeway, then clear across town,
then finally all the way north west out to the airport. As I got
farther behind schedule, I am starting to run yellow-lights that have
just turned red.
Suddenly I cross over the freeway. It is now 8:10! My map shows an
intersection, but my tiny map is wrong! I can see an on-ramp, so I
turn up a side street toward it. I drive down a residential street,
with people walking their dogs, and the street turns to unpaved dirt
and I come to the head of the on ramp, only it is blocked with cement
barriers to prevent its use. I look, but can not squeeze between or
around them. Back up the residential street, hit three lights red and
have to wait forever, it is now 8:20 and I am racing down surface
streets parallel to the freeway. At the next light is a sign to turn
left for the "autostrada", (I may just make it). But there
is no on-ramp. Once again over the freeway, but another sign tells me
to continue forward. I rush thru a yellow light and see the
"autostrada" turn arrow out of the corner of my eye. No
U-turn until the next red light, then back, then right, then down a
bumpy road used by freight truck yards. More signs to the
"autostrada", back over the freeway then a fork to choose.
I need to go west, and the sign comes up too fast to think. It says
"est autostrada" which says to me "West Freeway"
so I follow the arrow. Of course "Est" means
"East" and I am now going the wrong way! I figure it out
after following a huge curly-Q on-ramp and looking at my GPS, I am
going EAST! It is 3 miles to the next exit (and I look, before
exiting, to see that there is a reverse direction on-ramp). I exited,
waited for another red light, then reentered the right direction. It
was now 8:45 and I had become confident that I was going to miss my
10am flight to Tel Aviv.
I started driving very very fast. I will not say how fast, but I will
say I was passed by a Mercedes who was obviously late for his flight,
too. No time for pictures, no time to fill the tank. 20 full minutes
to the airport. Zagging through traffic, another 3000 lira toll, I
follow my GPS "breadcrumb" route right back to the Hertz
parking lot. I write down the mileage, grab my bags and backpack and
start to run toward the Hertz counter and the gate. It is now 9:15
and I am surely going to miss my 10am flight to Tel Aviv. As I was
running, my backpack fell off my shoulder, opened and the contents
scattered. People I had run past now saunter past me as I pick up
keys and pencils. I arrive at the Hertz counter in time with them.
"I am late", I shout, "send a bill". I shove the
keys and contract to them and run off. Up the elevators for Alitalia.
I turn to the left and am still jogging with 2 cases and a backpack,
my lower back is starting to ache, and I am very very sweaty. All I
see is Lufthansa, and Cypress Air, Turkish Air, and around the circle
and then I finally see the giant departure board. The Alitalia flight
to Tel Aviv was at counter number 20, just a few steps from the
elevators where I entered a few minutes ago, but I had turned the
wrong way.
The monitor over the counter says "Tel
Aviv" but there is no counter attendant and no passengers
standing in line. I signal a bored Alitalia attendant 2 counters
down, signal again, finally walk over and say "I am late for Tel
Aviv, there is nobody at the counter!". 5 full minutes have
elapsed during this wait. It is now 9:30 am. She shuffles out, and
looks over her shoulder, then relogs onto her computer. Finally she
says, "You are very late". Then she slowly talks, then
types, then stops to talk again.
"I know I am late, but I am getting later every minute".
"Oh, the flight is closed" she says, "but you might be
able to get to the gate. You know you are very late she adds"
(for the seventh time, making sure that I understand that I am late).
"What about my luggage?", I ask.
"You have luggage? Oh, then, you have missed your flight"
"Can my luggage go on the next flight? I have a person meeting
me at the airport in Tel Aviv". You would think I asked to
murder her kitten.
"You are very late, the flight is closed", was her reply.
"What shall I do? I need to go to Tel Aviv".
She replies "You are late and missed your flight. The flight is closed".
"I get it", I shout, and then I say in the most surly
American way possible, "Who is going to help me get to Tel Aviv?"
"I cannot help you, that is the job for the ticket counter",
she replies.
"Do I know where the ticket counter is?", I now ask in an
attempt to frustrate her.
"I do not know" she says.
"I do not", I reply and add, "but since I am late and
missed my flight I will need to go there to get to Tel Aviv, yes?"
"Yes you will, it is over there", and she points next to
the elevators where I first arrived.
At the ticket counter, I encountered another man being frustrated by
the Alitalia counter person . A different counter person has come out
through a side entry door to escort him somewhere. The passenger is
looking at his watch, then I overhear him say "Tel Aviv".
"Tel Aviv?" I yell, "I am about to miss that flight,
too" (It is still only 9:50).
"Oh, but you have luggage, wait here and someone will help you".
I wait for one of the three busy Alitalia counter people to finish,
and I am finally addressed by a pale brunette with dark eyes and poor
command of English. I hand her my ticket, explaining that "I was
late, and missed the flight, and I have luggage" (better that I
would have had the bubonic plague). She starts to help me (well, to
address my situation without actually HELPing me) when the telephone
rings and she answers it. Ignoring me, she talks for a little while,
then she starts to look for somebody and walks away, returning with a
middle aged balding man wearing a white shirt and tie over his portly
frame and hands him the telephone receiver. He talks loudly, in very
very expressive Italian accompanied by wide swinging hand gestures
and very overt facial expressions. If not for my being rushed and
frustrated and sweaty and feeling lower back pain, I would have found
his small floor show quite entertaining.
My "helper" returns to typing at her terminal, then smiles
and says there will be no problem getting me to Tel Aviv, as the
flight has many open seats available, tomorrow.
"TOMORROW???", I nearly shout, "Are you saying my
flight is the only flight to Tel Aviv?"
"Yes, only one per day, and there are many open seats on the
flight tomorrow."
"You, don't understand, I need to be in Tel Aviv tonight. Is
there any way for me to get to Tel Aviv today?" (It is, after
all, now exactly 10am).
She types, bites her pencil, writes something down, gets up and walks
away. I watch through the glass as she walks past 10 desks to a
distant door, then disappears inside. I listen to the portly man (a
supervisor?) hang up the phone and then commence to try to help two
Hindus trying to get to Cairo via Bologna. Everybody speaks English
as their second tongue and their conversation is bizarre, confusing
"must" with "may" and "your can't" with
"I don't feel like doing it for you". I instinctively know
what questions they needed to ask their "helper", but had
my hands full already.
My "helper" reappears through the distant door, walks back
past the 10 desks, then sits down and addresses me.
"You may fly to Rome at 11am, then from Rome to Tel Aviv at 5pm
and arrive at 9:30 tonight in Tel Aviv".
"Is that the only flight?"
"Yes it is".
So I missed my plane by 10 minutes and instead of arriving at 2:30 I
will now arrive at 9:30? 7 hours delayed for being 15 minutes late!
She tells me I must also pay 15.000 Lira, 8000 for reticketing, and
7000 to Rome for landing tax. Do you take a credit card, I ask (since
I only have around 5000 lira in cash on me). No, it must be cash! Or
at least 8000 must be cash, the rest COULD be a credit card (if I had
to). I take out my 5000 lira note, and open my change purse looking
for coins and she gasps.
Then I think to ask her, "Does anybody beside Alitalia fly to
Tel Aviv?"
She typed on her keyboard, then looked up: "Lufthansa".
"Where is Lufthansa?", I asked, and she pointed over my
shoulder to the other bank of ticket counters. But she has already
separated the portions of my ticket, her eyes and pursed lips say
that this will be VERY BAD. So she staples my loose tickets with her
stapler and I hoist my 3 bags and walk across the aisleway.
A 30-year-old woman, with pale skin blue, blue eyes and close cut
blond hair and wearing the smartly cut gold trimmed powder blue
Lufthansa uniform is helping an upset woman passenger. The passenger
is French, and the Lufthansa attendant is German and they both
speaking English as their second tongue. "But I have gone
through customs 3 times already and they sent me back here to
you". It is hard for me to follow the details of their
conversation, and I have enough problems of my own, but the Lufthansa
attendant is obviously being both friendly and helpful. When
finished, she turns to me and ask to help (in German).
I say "Good Morning" (and she echoes me in English). "I
have missed my Alitalia flight to Tel Aviv", I explain,
"and I was told that Lufthansa flies from Milan to Tel Aviv".
She types at her keyboard then looks up. "We fly from Linate
airport, not from Malpensa." Linate is near downtown, 80 km
away. I would surely miss that flight.
"Can you look for a routing that will get me from Milan to Tel
Aviv to arrive at the earliest possible time today?" She smiles
and nods and types at her keyboard.
"Alitalia can fly you to Frankfort and you can change to El Al
from Frankfort to Tel Aviv. You will arrive in Tel Aviv at 7:15.
There are plenty of seats available."
I asked her for the flight numbers (and start to write them down)
when she smiles and holds up 1 finger (the universal signal for wait
one moment). She prints the routing, tears it off, trims it smartly,
then staples it to the inner flap of my Alitalia ticket folder. (It
seemed like some kind of rivalry was in the air, but maybe she was
just exuding that famous German efficiency. Back to the Alitalia
counter, but first to the exchange booth where I give 20 dollars US
and get 5 zillion liras back (and a receipt, to read later). Back to
Alitalia, with the routing from Lufthansa. The busy brunette takes my
passport and ticket, then stands up and walks away, past the 10 desks
into the mystery door, wait 5 full minutes then she reappears, walks
back past the 10 desks and says that will work. She unstaples the
ticket portions that she had recently stapled, then says she will now
need 16000 lira since Frankfort wanted 8 while Rome only wanted 7. I
whip out a 20000 lira note and she actually smiles. I make small
talk, and she smiles again. 7:30pm isn't too bad, I say, and she
breaks down and smiles and says "sorry for your misfortune, good
luck on your flight".
I walk to the Alitalia departure counter for
Frankfurt and check my bag straight through to Tel Aviv. I sit for 5
minutes in the boarding area then it is onto a bus, then out to the
tarmac, then off the bus and walk up the stairs to the plane. The
plane is a standard 737, but every seat is the most incredible shade
of GREEN with white walls (the Alitalia colors). We walk through
First class (2 and 2 seats) and into the coach section and
(surprise!) the seats are also 2 and 2. This is going to be OK after
all. The flight attendant is wearing a  dapper
blue uniform with a stiff blue captain's hat (and I incorrectly
interpret his boyish features and rapt attention to detail to mean he
is the copilot). Before I disembark in Frankfort I ask to take his
picture. The flight is uneventful, but the scenery is beautiful. The
Alps float by, dusted in snow, and lit with a shimmering morning
sunshine. The plane is mostly empty, so I scoot from my aisle seat to
the window (directly behind another man) and take some pictures. The
flight attendants are entertaining, fluent in (at least) Italian,
English and German. Please take a free newspaper from the cart,
select from a dozen assorted in a dozen different languages. All
cabin announcements are made in Italian, then German, then English.
 Lunch
is being served. The man at the window seat in front of me has
reclined his chair. I start to shift back to my aisle seat when the
flight attended boldly ask the man to straighten his chair. I will
not the man says, making reference, I believe, to my seat move, but
the attendants take offense and a heated discussion starts.
"Please, please" I say, and I shift back to the Aisle.
"Oh Thank you sir" they say then actually snort and snarl
at the other man. Lunch is, needless to say, fabulous with cheese and
pastry and my own bottle of red wine wrapped right on the tray. They
make one pass with awful Italian coffee, which I take but can't choke
down; then a pass with tea, then a pass with something else that
sounded like "cappuccino" but that can't be poured from a
stainless steel pitcher, right? When they pick up my tray, they see
the unopened wine. "You may take YOUR wine with you and have it
later" they say. No thank-you, I say, thinking of trying to
clear Israel customs with MY bottle of wine. "You have it",
I add, and they both laugh.
We land in Frankfort, and once aging the stairs and the bus greet us.
At the gate a person is directing us to connecting flights. I say
"Tel Aviv" and "El Al" and am told
"C-30", adding ominously, "Its a long way from
here". That seemed like a pretty clear signal, so I repacked my
stuff to be comfortable for walking. I make sure I have everything,
and check my watch: 2 and a half hours before takeoff. Sure enough, I
clear German passport entry, then am directed to a door, down a
corridor, through another door, down another corridor, through
another door, to a totally jam-packed corridor. Out the window I see
a row of jets, one each from India, Portugal, Russia (Aeroflot),
Italy (mine), and Austria. I stop and take a picture. My gate is at
the other end of the long jam-packed corridor (excuse me, pardon me,
excuse me). I get to the last doorway and there is an x-ray machine,
then I see people going thru it, then I see there is a line, then I
turn around and see that at least 50 people are in that line! But a
tall German matron in a black pants and a powder blue blazer says
"Stop!" and "stay here" pointing to a closed door
next to the line. It will open shortly, so I stand.
Slowly the staff assembles, and people from the other line start
moving in behind me. Also, pilots and flight attendants come to the
door and expect and receive preferential treatment (it must be
'their' line). The x-ray procedure is elaborate, even down to
removing the pilots' hats. There is a man and woman attendant
screening people by appropriate gender. As crew members complete the
screening, new ones magically appear. I do not move until 15
different people pass thru. I look pleadingly at the German woman:
"You are next" she keeps saying. I finally put my stuff on
the x-ray (the first x-ray, I might add) and am then hand scanned.
They see my laptop and I am pulled aside. One of the three extra
inspectors standing on the side direct me to set my other items on
this table, remove my laptop, and follow him. He is tall and athletic
and has (what a coincidence) blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin and is
wearing a powder blue coat over black pants and white shirt. I panic
as I leave my plane ticket, my passport, and my wallet on the table
(surrounded by 20 uniformed security guards) and follow him out the
door up the jam-packed corridor and through a gun metal gray door.
Yes, the old bomb-sniffer. We wipe down the PC, and use an actual
little vacuum cleaner to get samples. I pass, no bomb. They take my
laptop and put it in a plastic bag, they seal it with
"official" airport security tape, "Aeroportstrasse
Bomben-Sniffer". He walks me past the 100 people in line (while
several growl at us) back thru the door, past the man and woman
search artists and back to my stuff. "He's with me" he says
and "I'm with him" I chime in at least 5 times. There is my
stuff, and I check, it is all there.
So I am on my way to my plane? Hah! You have never tried to fly to Israel!
Now I walk down another long empty corridor. Around a corner, down
another corridor, I arrive at a very old storage room that has been
nicely remodeled, repainted with white paint and lit with luminosity
usually saved for a jewelry store. The room is full of expensive
equipment with at least 20 uniformed airport staff wearing navy blue
blazers and 6 men (that I could see) in full military uniform, with
automatic weapons hung across their chests on shoulder straps. The
two curtained changing rooms, clearly marked "Ladies" and
"Gentleman", catch my eye.
The crowd is thin, so I am taken right away. I am met by a pretty and
petite young woman wearing navy blue slacks, white shirt, a blue
blazer with fine auburn hair and strikingly beautiful eyes that she
is using to constantly stare DIRECTLY into mine. I am first
uncomfortable, then flattered by her attention and features, and then
I figure out that she is mentally assessing the likelihood that I am
a bomb-lugging terrorists, not interested in what I do or meeting me
later. The questions pile one upon another. Why are you going to
Israel, where do you work, how long have you worked there, how long
will you be in Israel, why were you in Italy, where will you be
staying, and then randomly some questions repeat. Thank-you wait
here, she walks off with my ticket and my passport and her notes,
across the room and around a screen and out of sight. 3 minutes later
her eyes are back on mine and we do all the questions over again, in
a different sequence. Some of this extra caution, I think, is my
sudden arrangements, my paper ticket, my 'bumping' onto El Al at the
last minute. Some questions repeat a third and forth time and I start
to feel uncomfortable. Do you have any material with you that you
will use at your job (I dig some out), what does this diagram mean,
why did you bring it, doesn't your company have people in Israel, why
didn't they go, why didn't the client send their people to the US
instead of you to Israel. Tell me about your software package, what
kind of company uses it, why have you never been to Israel before,
why are you coming instead of someone else from your company, and
then some more summer reruns.
"Where are you staying?" She asks, and I sadly admit that I
do not know. I provide her the name and telephone numbers of my
Israeli contacts, but admit that all the arrangements were made for
me. I do not know where I will be staying, and only that a driver was
to meet me at 2:30, but now I will be arriving a 7:30. If I seem
upset, I add, it is because today has not gone very well for me, I
had expected a direct flight from Milan to Tel Aviv.
Again she disappears, this time for 5 full minutes. She returns and
starts to tell me, then catches herself, and runs through some more
reruns of the same questions. Finally, "You are staying at the
Hotel Hof Hatmarim", she says, "And you will need to take a
taxi there, it should be 300 shekels".
"You called them?", I ask with I am sure a surprised look
on my face. And she just smiles and directs me to the second x-ray machine.
This machine was different. The operator pushes a button to generate
a bar code label which he applies to my bag then x-rays it. Then I
get in a second line and hand my bag to an attendant (any line will
do) and they scan the bar code label and the monitor above them shows
my bag. Everybody assumes that this is simply convenient, to allow
one expensive x-ray machine service 10 separate counter attendants,
but I quickly register that they have scanned and pictured each and
every bag and have built a small database, associating the x-ray
image (and video image?) with a ticket and a person (and a
fingerprint?) and a passport. It is obvious to me that they are
saving all of that data and, if anything unthinkable happens, can
recreate everything dealing with passengers and carry-on luggage for
my flight. I am simultaneously impressed with the system and the
leading edge application of current technology, feeling safe and then
suddenly very very frightened and worried. All of this in the 3
seconds it takes the woman to say "I will need to look in this bag". |
I
cash dollars into shekels and ask directions and advice
about taking a cab to Akko, a northern city and my actual
destination. Everyone agrees that a taxi would be easiest but most
expensive. The alternatives (shared taxi, bus) seem very confusing
for a first-timer, but would certainly work on my next trip. Then I
try to do a simple thing, I try to make a local telephone call to
either of my two Israeli business contacts.
Nobody
can help me. I cross the airport lounge again, and try those
telephones. No better luck, then the yellow ones over there, nothing.
Back to the black ones, still just strange tones and Hebrew letters.
This goes on for almost an hour. Somewhere in there I decide to try
to dial the AT&T access line and it won't connect either. I try
it from each different colored phone but none will connect. In
desperation, a sticker on the telephone offers international calls on
your credit card. How much?, I ask. $3 per minute I am told. I
swallow and go ahead with a quick call. I'm at the airport, don't
know how or when I'll leave, can't reach anybody, will call before I
go. Also, I now know my hotel is "Hof Hatmarim". This is
bad news. We had cruised the web for Akko a dozen times (and her 10
more since I left). The only hotel mentioned was the "Palm
Beach" hotel and country club. Sounded OK, but my Israeli
helpers obviously found me some place that nobody has heard of. I
hang up and say I will call back before I leave.
Outside
it is beautiful, the weather is a warm 70 degrees (at 9
o'clock at night), the palm trees are pretty, and the giant Menorah
sculpture is lit up. I walk to the taxi area, and the central
coordinator asks me where I am going. "Akko", I say, but
forget to remember to say, "please have a cab driver that speaks
English". I have thought this thought 100 times, but at this
critical moment, I forget to say it. The man seems helpful,
"Akko, yeeees" he says. And loads the bags in the trunk. He
shows me a schedule, 350 shekels to Akko ($70), and I nod
understanding. We pull out of Ben Gurion airport and I click my
stopwatch. As we enter the freeway, I start a small conversation and
it is suddenly obvious he speaks NO ENGLISH WHATSOEVER. Is it
possible? I ask "Is this Tel Aviv", he replies, "Gobble
Boggle Labda Bobble ... then points to several buildings ahead and
says "Tel Aviv!" Oh Boy!
We
slow down and my cabbie mutters the Hebrew equivalent of
"Aha!", around the traffic circle and we pull into the
"Palm Beach Hotel" (with the picture from the web). We get
out, I point to the sign (Far left to right, "Palm Beach
Hotel" I read to him. He smiles and points to the Hebrew letters
(Far right to left), "Hof Hatmarim" he says and we both
laugh. He points to the palm tree in the sign and says
"Hatmarim" (I think) and we laugh again. I give him the
universal "wait one moment" gesture, and step inside.
"Do you speak English?" (yes) "Is this Hof
Hatmarim?" (yes) "Are you expecting me?" (yes) I will
be right back. Back outside, get the luggage and send the cabbie back
to Tel Aviv. Back inside and check in. I call my contact and wake him
up, I think, at 11:15. I open my window and the moon is full and the
beams are shining down on the Mediterranean, the waves sparkle and in
the distance I see "old Akko" and two backlit mosques. The
air is perfect for sleeping, so I leave the window open, I will
unpack my clothes and class materials in the morning. I telephone
home one last time today. We laugh about the story. I close my eyes
and am asleep in 2 minutes time. Now I am in Israel.
