A few weeks ago, my job gave me an incredible opportunity: Travel solo halfway around the world to meet with a customer in Israel. The catch? The meetings would last just two days. If I wanted to stay longer it would be out of pocket. Since brining Mel along was not financially plausible, I decided to go ahead and set a personal time-distance record: 16,000 miles over 5 days.

At 8 AM on Saturday, November 1st, I pulled out of my driveway and started a 24-hour non-stop traveling marathon to the hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel. Doing so required surprisingly little work but plenty of patience. My job was to find my way to the airport, stand in the appropriate lines, and present the correct identification when required. I was also given the mighty responsibility of finding my designated seat on the plane and fastening my own seatbelt when the pictogram illuminated. Everything else was pure patience; there is a lot of time to bide between between such significant travel milestones as switching on approved portable electronic devices and being offered a beverage. It can take an eternity for the drink cart to make its way back to steerage.

Of course all of this waiting gave me plenty of time to think about my destination. Before this trip, I can’t say I ever gave Israel much thought. My idea of the country consisted of old news clippings filed away in my brain; peace talks, prime ministers, and rocket attacks coupled with names of places whose only familiarity was in the context of struggle and conflict. The West Bank. The Gaza Strip. And of course Jerusalem, a city that holds a special significance to over half of the religious people in the world, but no so much to me.

My introduction came via the Delta Boeing 777 that I boarded in Atlanta for Tel Aviv. To get on the plane I had to pass through a supplementary metal detector and have my bag searched by TSA. Once onboard I was among many Israeli families returning from vacations in the US. All of the announcements were made in Hebrew. I even spotted a couple of Hasidic Jews in their traditional black suits, white shirts, and brimmed hats. I had little doubt that I was on the right plane.

After I found my seat and wedged myself into it, I began to worry that spending 11.5 hours with my knees implanted in a metal seat frame was going to have a negative impact on my comfort. Fortunately just as my concern was peaking, a nice Israeli woman offered to trade seats with me so she could sit with her son. Her seat was in the exit row with miles of legroom. I graciously accepted.

After I got situated, I did a bit of people-watching while waiting for takeoff. The Israeli woman’s family was very cute; the father and daughter sat on one side of the airplane, the mother and son on the other, separated by two aisles and the three seats in the middle. Despite this they managed to converse in a way that conveyed just how closely knit they were. Something about them made me smile.

The next 11.5 hours was a long string of reading, observing, waiting, snoozing, eating, and waiting. I watched “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which wasn’t nearly as bad as South Park made it out to be, and “Tropic Thunder”, which turned out to by my favorite Ben Stiller movie since “There’s Something About Mary”.

We finally landed at the Ben Gurion International Airport at about 4 PM local time on Sunday. I did the zombie shuffle down the jetway and reflexively snapped a picture of the airplane out the window. I kick myself for not taking a picture inside the airport, as the terminal is very new and without a doubt the most beautifully constructed I’ve been to.

I found a taxi outside the terminal and was soon introduced to the ways of the Israeli taxi driver, who knows only acceleration and deceleration. To his credit, he did hold a steady speed while he rolled down his window to have a brief conversation with another taxi driver as we hurtled down the freeway. That takes skill.

I arrived in one piece and much more awake at the Sheraton City Tower, which is a very large and fancy hotel that seemed no different than other such hotels I’ve been too throughout the world. That night I ordered a steak sandwich from room service, watched The Odd Couple (the only program I could find in English) on the TV, and then went to bed.

The next day was one long meeting in a cramped room in an office somewhere in Tel Aviv, but we did take time to go out for lunch. We walked several blocks to a nice little sit-down restaurant with a very modern atmosphere where the menus were all in Hebrew. My hosts read the menu for me, and I had to restrain myself when they translated “all you can eat” as “eat as much as you can”. Something about the image of me eating as much as I possible could in front of a customer in Israel seemed quite humorous. I skipped gorging myself and instead ate lamb kabobs served with potatoes that had been chopped and coated in some sort of sweet chili sauce. It was good.

I arrived back to the hotel around 7PM. I was exhausted from the long meeting and jet-lagging a bit, so I just grabbed a Twix and Pelligrino out of the minibar, surfed the net, and went to bed.

The second morning I hit the breakfast buffet once again, which consisted of some very normal stuff (cereal, yogurt, juice, milk), and some very odd stuff (little fishes, soft cheeses, sliced fresh veggies, what appeared to be spaghetti in tomato sauce, and other things I couldn’t identify). I ventured out a little by trying a cube-shaped thing that tasted like unsweetened cheesecake and some potatoes with an interesting seasoning, but I skipped the spaghetti and fish.

That day my host drove me up to Haifa for some more meetings. Given my short time there, I was thankful for the opportunity to get see some of the country out of the car window. Most of the ride was along the Mediterranean, which was very pretty. The scenery was desert meets sea, with plenty of low plants and shrubs and occasionally a prickly pear cactus or two. It reminded me of some places in Southern California, except for the ancient Roman aqueducts and Mediterranean style buildings. The city of Haifa itself was fascinating; it seems to overflow from a hilltop down the mountainside and right up to the sea. It was a shame to have to go to more meetings instead of having a look around.

After a late lunch (chicken kebabs and cous-cous) with my hosts, I returned to the hotel for a few hours in the evening where I took a little nap and freshened up, and then I was off to the airport around 8PM. This time my taxi driver was much more sane; a college student who was filling in for his father that night. We discussed the upcoming election in the US a bit (which seemed to be on every Israeli’s mind) before he dropped me off at the airport. He was trying to be polite (as was I), but I got the feeling he thought McCain would be better for Israel. Other people I spoke with said that Obama was popular there, but the discussions didn’t get too in-depth.

While coming into the country was easy, getting out was tricky. As soon I stepped into the airport, long security lines sprawled out in front of me. I found the appropriate line (which was very short since I decided to play it safe and arrive 3 hours early), and presented my documents to the agent. He examined them for a bit, then asked me to wait while he got someone else. Soon an authoritative young blond woman appeared and took me aside, where she proceeded to grill me for ten minutes or so about every aspect of my trip to Israel. Her questioning got even more intense when I got confused and said that I arrived Monday instead of Sunday. (Traveling tip #37: Don’t tell the Israeli Airpot Security incorrect information.) Eventually I realized my mistake and managed to convince her that everything was legitimate, but not before showing her all of the notes from my meeting and the business cards of everyone I had met with and telling her my life story. At the end of the interrogation, she informed me there is a process in Israel where the host company submits paperwork to the airport security to make things easier for foreign business people, but my host had failed to do this, which raised some flags.

After my chat with the security lady, I was allowed to have my bag scanned and opened and searched. Once this was done I got to go to the ticket counter to check in. I then proceeded through more security checks followed a second passport screening before I made it into the terminal. All the agents seem interested in my last name, which is Irish but has the same english spelling as an Arabic word. Who knew?

After I made it through the wringer, I stepped into into a large, open courtyard lined with fancy shops that reminded me of an upscale mall. In the center water fell in surging waves from an opening high in the ceiling into a pool below. The mood was truly 180 degrees from where I had just been, and I decided to recover by having fresh orange juice and a pastry by the fountain. The atmosphere had obviously been constructed for this very purpose, and I found it very welcome.

I lucked out once again on the ride from Tel Aviv to Atlanta; there was nobody in the seat next to me, which allowed me to stretch out a bit. This time I watched “WALL-E” (excellent), “Hancock” (a miserable abomination of a movie), and “The Dark Knight” (well done, but not really my thing).

About 1.5 hours out from Atlanta, the pilot came on the speaker to announce that Barack Obama had won the election with 300-something electoral votes. I think one or two people clapped. It was certainly a memorable moment for me in one of those “where were you when…” sort of ways, given all the circumstances. I’ll admit that I was pleased and relieved. We landed at around 5:30AM.

Looking around as I made my way to the next gate, I got the feeling that the country had somehow changed while I was away. All of the TVs were surrounded by groups of travelers watching intently, and I saw the newspapers with the headline “Obama Wins” at all the newsstands. I noticed quite a few black airport workers purchasing the newspapers or standing in groups having hushed but excited conversations, and I thought about what it must mean to them. What a unique way to come back to your country.

I grabbed another OJ and pastry (good airport food) and tried watching the Airport CNN channel to learn more, but it was too horrible. Instead I paid $7.95 for WiFi and read about the results online.

Eventually I got on the plane to San Diego, where I was crammed in with a large woman who ate Mexican food 10 inches away from my face as I tried to sleep. The smell was too much, so I turned to look out the window and think for a while. It thought how things seemed normal and American again, in a new and more vivid sort of way. I thought about my fifty-five hours in Israel; how it seemed to be a modern, growing country filled with people who are vibrant and friendly, yet hard-working, tough and resilient. I thought about the rough path that lies behind, and probably in front of, those people. And I thought about the new path that my country was about to take. Eventually the salsa fumes parted and the Hooverphonic in my headphones took over. I drifted off to sleep with all this floating around in my mind. I didn’t try come to any great conclusions about it all; I just let the newness of the last few days soak in.

Fifty-five hours isn’t enough to truly understand any place in the world, but at least my short (long) journey afforded me a new perspective on a part that I never thought I’d visit. Now when someone mentions Israel, I won’t think of all those news headlines, but instead the little fish at the breakfast buffet, the Mediterranean out of car window, and all the interesting people I met. It seems a fair trade for just doing my job.

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