The morning after

I realized mid-flight that the post about flying out of Ben Gurion should have been called "De-Israeli, Gears up" but this is what happens when I don't sleep. My dumb, ineffective puns go completely bland. Also, to clarify a closing comment earlier, JFK had announcements in Spanish and the flight on American to Paris had announcements in French. El Al has Hebrew as does Ben Gurion.

OK -- back home after a reasonable night's sleep. Sure, it still feels like I am in a plane, rising and falling, but I am sitting in a real chair and, if I have to, can use a bathroom that isn't rife which chrome.

I flew in a 777-300 (3-4-3) for the last part of this trip. The one lesson is "always pay for the upgrade." I had an aisle seat with no seat in front of me so I had endless legroom. I actually regretted not being any taller. Sure, I had the same problems of there being no seat in front of me:

1. No seatback pocket to put stuff in or go through
2. No seat under which to put my personal items
3. the fold out video screen lacked the power outlet that the others had, and the viewing angle was less ergonomically convenient
4. the fold out meal tray was smaller and less sturdy
5. I couldn't reach the airflow nozzle thing

But big deal. Awesome legroom, nothing over my head so I could stand up. Call this a stronger win. I also had an empty seat to my right so I flipped up the arm rest and man spreaded (sprod?) liberally. The down side was that I was next to the "front" row in the middle section which houses small children who, by law, are required to cry. And these kids were no scofflaws. Take-off and landing were cry-fests for the younger child. In the middle there was a lot of sleeping so it wasn't horrible.

The meal -- wow. Made by "Hermolis". The label claims "grilled vegetables" but I don't recall any. They did have a pasta salad with tuna and basil-pesto dressing which was great, plus a mezonos roll and chumus, and melba toast with a sunflower spread which actually tasted like real sunflowers. The dessert was "Chocolate orange delice". Imagine what looks like a decadent slice of seven layer cake but in fact is all just a shaped mousse. Wow! Allergens listen mentioned no nuts at all (not even "may contain") so I dove in. The main was called a "Chicken stir fry" but was more like "chicken in tomato sauce" with rice. Not horrible but the weakest link in the gustatory chain.

I watched two movies -- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Rogue One. The Beasts movie was pure "meh". Just not that interesting and plenty confusing. Also, the audio was often muddy and with accents, I had trouble figuring stuff out. Rogue One was useful in terms of contextualizing episode 4 but was not, independently, a great film. It had some humor but the characters were generic. I'm glad that I didn't pay to see them beyond the thousand plus dollars I spent to fly on the plane. FTW! I also 2 episodes of Brooklyn 99, a show I know to be great. I was not disappointed. Great work Mr. Samberg and friends. Great work.

I made an effort not to sleep on either flight so that I would be so tired when I got home that I would sleep through and wake up on New York time. So far so good -- the ride home was long and I fought sleep the whole time. Sparky was there to greet me and all is right with the world.

Except that the package I was expecting while I was gone is missing, the money I transferred never got transferred and I have a week's worth of work to catch up with (and I still feel like I'm on an airplane).

Thanks to Hillel for the rides and watching the place and dog, to Heather and Marc for watching the kid. Thanks to the Efrat contingent for the hospitality and rides, and the Swidlers for their love, room and board. Thanks to all the roommates who humored us on our visit and, of course, to the IDF for molding my child into something incredible.