Day 11
Seeing as it was our last day in Israel, I wanted to do something uplifting for everyone at breakfast this morning, so I walked into the dining room singing that old Jewish folk song, “have a Tequila, have a Tequila, have a Tequila, da, dee, dum, dee, da…” and doing that little dance you do with your arms outstretched. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder and was greeted by the Concierge who politely but forcefully asked me to stop because it was not only Shabbat, but Jewish New Year and the celebrating traditionally doesn’t start until after sunset. He also whispered that for future reference, the correct lyric is “Hava Nagila”.
After breakfast we heaved our luggage onto the bus, said farewell to Jerusalem and headed to Tel Aviv airport terminal number 3, where we disembarked, bade our driver farewell, walked into the terminal, checked the Departures board, realised that we were at the wrong airport terminal, turned round, headed back to the bus, greeted our driver, loaded our luggage back onto the bus, and realised Father Ed was missing. Maria, Father Wim and a few others raced back to the terminal and began a massive search. When all hope seemed lost, our fellow pilgrim Kruno had the bright idea to check out lost and found, and there was Father Ed.
Back on the bus we headed to terminal number 1, disembarked once more, bade our driver farewell yet again, walked into the terminal, checked the Departures board, high-fived each other for being at the right airport terminal, and headed to the check-in area.
You know how when you fly domestically within Australia, airport security do those annoying, supposedly random, gunpowder residue detection swab tests!? Well I am one of those chumps (particularly at Melbourne airport), who always gets selected for the test, (and I mean always! not the “I find it annoying cause its happened three times in my life but makes for a good anecdote to tell at dinner parties overgeneralisation, but the literal fact that “this cannot possibly be random cause it’s happened eighty five times out of a hundred!!!!!”).
So when we reached the world’s biggest conga line to the check in counters, it came as no surprise that I was “randomly selected” by an Israeli Customs Officer for interrogation to make sure I wasn’t an arms dealer, drug mule or spy. When I was cleared, Don Mourad ushered Maria and I to what we thought was a special “fast track” counter, to quickly check-in our luggage and get our boarding passes. When we were called forward to the counter, Don Mourad whispered, “if they ask you, tell them you’re eighty years old.” He had sent us to the line reserved only for people with disability and elderly people over eighty years old! I was grateful but also rather insulted.
Finally, we got to say goodbye to the Godfather of Israel and one of the very best tour guides I have ever had, and board our plane (which for some reason was called “Ryan”), destined for Rome.
We arrived at our hotel (the B&B Hotel Roma Trastevere), about 5:00pm. Unfortunately, buses and taxis are not allowed to pull up in front so we had to walk a few blocks (which wasn’t great for the people in our group with mobility issues, and we have a few), before cramming (like 23 disgruntled circus clowns), into the tiniest of hotel foyers. It had been a very long day with more twists than an Agatha Christie novel, so it wasn’t unexpected that some of us started referring to our accommodation as “The Hotel Travesty”. But, as things settled down a little I found the hotel to be quaint, clean, labyrinthinesque and quirky, (you have to take a tiny lift down from the foyer to the lower ground floor to access the lifts that take you up to your rooms), and more like a Youth hostel, so that helped placate the horror I was feeling at being thought capable of passing for an eighty year old! So I am looking forward to tomorrow when we can reset, put today behind us, and get back to enjoying one of the best experiences of my life.
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