The first day!

We took off from San Francisco at about 11:30 am, for a fairly uneventful flight to Philly - where we discovered that there had been a snafu with seat assignments. Fortunately, the flight to Tel Aviv was not even half full, and we wound up with a full 4-seat row to ourselves! Which lightened up my fairly black mood (tired and hungry) and made up for me dumping a full glass of red wine on my lap about 30 minutes into the Jerusalem flight.

Landing in Jerusalem I think both Lee and I were a bit nervous and worried about getting through customs and how we'd get around.....turns out it was pretty much a piece of cake. We were stopped by a female Israeli security guard (or, Lee was, rather - I just stuck around) who questioned why he was there, and how long we'd be here etc. This was heading to passport control - while we were walking down one of the walkways in the (gorgeous and modern and amazingly huge) Ben Gurion airport. Passport control was a breeze, as was customs (green lane, nothing to declare!) then straight out into the balmy (70 degrees!) afternoon.

We were met by a driver, who was an excellent tour guide on our hour-long journey to Jerusalem. He pointed out the old border between Israel and Jordan (many sentences started with 'In 1967....'), showed us the walled in areas that separate Palestinian areas from Israeli areas. At one point on the highway, there was what appeared to be a checkpoint or border crossing (weird, as I didn't think we'd crossed any borders), and when I asked about it:
"That is to check that Palestinians have licenses to travel in Israel. Too many of them were coming over and blowing themselves up all the time. So, they have to have licenses to travel into Israel." Said as nonchalantly as if I'd asked for the time of day.
("blowing themselves up, you say? oh, that's interesting!")

We were given a high-level overview of the country, and had to explain what an earthquake was.
Lee: "Earthquakes, do you have them?"
Awesome Taxi Guy: "Can you describe in simple English, please?"
Lee: "Uh...shaking ground? Like in San Francisco?"
ATG: "Ah! No, not for maybe one hundred years."

Getting to the apartment, we were met by the PA (Hagai? Hagia?) for Lee's new company, who gave us a really great overview of the city and where things were locally. Very friendly, very accommodating. He'd also stocked our little place with some necessities. Apparently necessities here in Jerusalem consist of: Bread, cheese, tea, milk, orange juice, yogurt, cucumbers, tomato, onion, red pepper and....beer. Thank god for the beer. Oh! And almond biscotti. Yum!

We were also met by our landlord, Micha. He is a very (very) nice older man, who Lee and I found to be absolutely hysterical. He spent probably 45 minutes showing us all the minutia of our new place (a tidy, well decorated, very cute one bedroom apartment - with a balcony as large as the living room!); how the tv worked (both Lee and the PA were hovering like anxious techie boys while this nice older man struggled with volume, the cable box and the power switches on two remote controls...), how to turn on the water in the toilet, how to use the washing machine ("It takes up to FIVE kilos!")...there was mention of how Israeli women were an unusual type of woman (said while showing me how to turn on the stove...of course)
"I can tell you another time, you are all tired now, I don't want to keep you."

We were left to our own devices for a while. when Lee's new mobile phone rang - it was Micha. Who had forgotten to tell him about some random needless bit of information. He's very nice, and I am looking forward to interacting with him more - it was highly amusing. He also lives DIRECTLY underneath us, so I'm going to be extra mindful of my activities in the house!

We wandered out to find some other necessities (can't have yogurt and tomatoes for dinner on our first night!), and grocery shopping was an interesting experience. It reminded me of trying to decipher food items in Japan (mom, dad and grandma- imagine tea soup on a safeway size scale). We settled on recognizable things that didn't require too much bumbling with our limited Hebrew - pasta and sauce- both had pictures of exactly what they were on the packaging, as well as some hummus.
(the first meal)

Early to bed (~9pm) and I've been up since 3:45. We heard the muslim prayers this morning - which was incredibly cool and a fresh reminder that we're not in Kansas anymore - as well as an army of tiny angry birds that roost directly outside of our bedroom window. I'm watching my new neighborhood light up with the dawn, and I'm thrilled to have this beautiful day to start exploring Jerusalem!