The Trials, Tribulations and Eventual Odyssey

I traveled by the kindness of strangers. Well, not really, not personally, but I do owe the great and faceless sponsors of the Shorashim quite a debt. As I sit, bemoaning my lack of elbow room and the fact that typing on the bus is really hard, I reflect on the past...two days? I think it's two days. That's what I'm going to go with. The journey to the airport was fairly uneventful, punctuated only by my stunning wit and sparkling conversation (see what I get by writing my own account? Endless flattery, that's what). I will not name names, but thank you Zabrina. O'Hare was O'Hare, and I was excited enough that familiarity did breed contempt, but only...familiarity. I'd been here before. And the flight to JFK was again, something I've done...twenty, twenty-five times? I fly to the East Coast a lot. It was at JFK, however, that I met my first beast, as Odysseus met his cyclops. He defeated his great foe with cunning and ruthless brutality. I defeated mine with patience as I spent what felt like a year and a day waiting for my baggage. This would prove to be a reaccuring theme. (Can I just say that the Golan Heights scenery is quite distracting as I try to write this? Really, really distracting). So, I travelled, through lobby and hallway, until finally I stood, facing the great check-in lobby of Delta Airlines. Frankly I was hoping for something a little more grand for my gateway to Israel. Maybe some sweeping pillars, ancient carvings or perhaps an ethereal choir. I stared at the gloomy outside and the endless security lines, Still, all was well.

It is here the journey takes on a bit of an unreal quality. At the time, it was just another cross-atlantic flight, but in reflection it was part of my 48-hour period of running on something like twenty minutes sleep. I remember looking out the window and seeing islands. I remember black and white checkers, which is probably the crossword. And baseball. Lots and lots of baseball. This was the great challenge I faced, again as Odysseus the sailor, a man who faced many a monster and hazard in his journey to come home. And that's what I'm doing, aren't I? Coming home? Culturally. Religiously. It's something really special, Israel.

And I've just arrived.

- Leif W Mogren, Wandering Jew