We landed in Israel after less than ten hours of flying time on a gorgeous sunny, clear day, with lots of applause upon landing.  We were the last ones to leave the plane – I wanted to get our carryon luggage off without bumping into people – but the plane emptied quickly so this took just a few minutes.  From there, we went through passport control, where I checked all of us except ds18 in.  As a returning minor, his status is different than the rest of us, and I felt it would be best if he started handling his own legal paperwork.  I didn’t expect it to be any different than the rest of us, just a quick stamp on the passport after verifying that he is who he is – but it wasn’t so simple.

I went through with all of the kids to the luggage section after waiting a few minutes for ds18, leaving dh behind to assist him if necessary, though not right next to him.  Since ds8 doesn’t speak Hebrew, I told him that I’d be with him when he needed to take care of the official paperwork necessary for him to receive his voucher for a taxi home.  Afterwards he told me that an official came out and started asking him for things he didn’t have or know anything about (yes, it would have been good if he would have asked dh!), and after being kept to the side for a long time and yelled at, he finally got his passport stamped and went through to the rest of us – without getting his voucher.  He was really bothered and especially with only two hours of sleep in less than 24 hours, it was an unpleasant welcome to Israel for him.  When the next person yelled at him for almost (but realizing it was the wrong one before he did) walking through the gate right next to the one he was supposed to go through, he really had had enough.

It took us a while to get our luggage loaded up, though it was all off the conveyor belt by the time we got the baggage pick-up.  We needed a large cart and those were only available to rent, 80 shekel each.  The price includes a porter, but I told him we didn’t need the porter, just the cart – but he said we had to have the porter and there wasn’t anyone available so we had to wait until they could find someone.  Then we realized we needed the huge trolley (160 shekels) and the regular large one, and between that and the regular small ones that everyone uses, we managed to load up all of our luggage and exit the airport.

As we exited into the waiting area, we immediately saw dd16 and all hugged her before we moved out of the way.  Then we saw familiar faces from Baltimore waiting to greet us, a couple who made aliyah a couple of years ago.  This was so nice!  Not only did they come with welcoming smiles and hugs, but they brought food for lunch (which ended up being enough for lunch and dinner), water, and two bottles of homemade wine!  And not only that, they arranged the vans to take us home, which was really helpful since we were so many people and so much stuff, and it was great to know this was taken care while we were still in the US.

Are you wondering where the home they took us to was?  🙂  On the way to the airport in Newark, we called our mortgage broker in Israel to find out what was happening wth out paperwork.  He told us that all of the paperwork wouldn’t be complete for another week or so, but that the main paperwork would be completed that day, and the owner agreed to let us go in, having most of the money and knowing the rest would soon be paid to him.  The owner went out on a limb for us to do this and though we didn’t expect it of him, we were deeply appreciative that we could go directly to our new home in Karmiel.

Avivah