The Telling of my Israel Journey

Gentle Reader (sorry Mr. King), this story is a long time coming. And it will take a long time to read and record. The journey occurred from May 18 through May 28, 2008. All my thoughts and explanations of the trip are long handwritten (much of it written while on the bus traveling around Eretz Yisrael), but now I'm typing it, and I'll post excerpts. Hopefully some of the more interesting parts (if there are any that I recorded).

So here's the start:

Rachel and I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches momma made. They were yummy. Mine was on challah that I made for shabbos.
We keep telling each other, “we’re going to Israel!” So exciting.
The El Al people arrived, so masses of people got in line to check-in. The line wormed (It was not one of those curlique [sic] snakes) [haha. I spelled “curlicue” with an actual “Q.”] around the corner. We waited for maybe an hour. When we reached the front of the line, there were five El Al agents waiting for us. They were the interviewing crew. “Do you celebrate the holidays?” the mediumly tall, somewhat scrawny man asked. [Ah. I don’t think I mention, but I may, so we’ll see, but anyway, while we were in the back of the “worm,” a few kids, including three or four from our group were pulled from the line, and taken behind a set of cubicles. Then they put up curtains to hide whatever was going on. At some point one of them mentioned what went on back there, but seeing them taken kind of freaked us out. Especially when they put the curtain up. That was very disconcerting.]
“Yes” [I answered the scrawny man].
“What was the last you celebrated?”
“Pesach.”
“How did you celebrate?”
“My brother – he’s a rabbinical student – led the seder – it was –“ [This answer compared to my previous shows how unsure I was. I couldn’t figure out if it was better to give short, concise answers or give extended ones. So at that point I had tried both. Plus when I get nervous, I tend to keep talking and talking; that might have had something to do with my longer answer.]
He interrupted with another question. I was literally peppered with questions.
“Do you speak any Hebrew?”
“A little bit.” I motioned with my hand, thumb close to index finger, indicating little.
(Whoops. The first question was not regarding the holidays. “Why are you visiting Israel?” I said, “um, er- historical, learning trip.” [Being the first question, I was quite nervous and unsure of what to say.])
“Where did you learn Hebrew?”
“Hebrew School. At my synag –“
“Where?”
“Congregation Beth Shalom. My synagogue.” [Now I was able to finish the word synagogue.]
“Do you remember who the rabbi was?”

I think that finally ended my interrogation. (I swear no better word exists. That's what the El Al agents do - even to college-aged Jews.)

More to come.