At the airport we were met by Osama, the same Top Deck rep who got us through immigration when we first arrived in Egypt a week before. He helped us through the check-in and for visas, and we went in through the security to the departures area.
Our flight had been delayed by 45 minutes, which would usually suck terribly but the Cairo airport was quite nice. What would have made it nicer is if we had more than 15 Egyptian pounds left on us. It was enough to buy us an orange juice at the MacDonalds there, so at least we spent all of that currency and we got something to drink. There was a bit of shopping there but I spent most of my time looking out of the windows at the large cargo planes parked or taxiing. There were a bunch of Hercules in camo paint taxiing and taking off, and there was a C-35 parked out far away.
We flew to Amman. The flight was only about an hour, so very short. Amman airport reminded me of Bahrain, but not quite as clean or up-to-date, and without some of those great western niceties. Despite the delayed flight and some confusion about departure times we only had to wait a couple hours before we were able to board our flight. When we finally did though we had to wait another half hour for some other travelers coming through transit who hadn't arrived yet.
The flight again was very short, less than an hour. It was a bit of a surprise when we soon found ourselves flying over Tel Aviv, and from the sky it doesn't look like much (I think, due to the design of the buildings that they are all plain on top). The approach was really interesting but only I noticed it, because I'm a pilot. Usually (like always) airlines do straight-in approaches but they seem to do circuits at the Tel Aviv airport. We overflew the airport and headed out over the Mediterranean. Then we turned back and descended to jet circuit height, joined at downwind and flew through the circuit to land. Had the wind been from the other direction I think we would have joined in at final, coming from the sea. Just things a pilot-minded person thinks about...
It was nice when we finally arrived. A bit bizarre having everything in Hebrew but kind of homely and familiar. The airport was nice and modern, clean and nicely designed. A pleasant change from the many middle eastern Muslim airports wed been through. They were a tad interrogatory at the immigrations desk. The way they deal with folks with foreign passports makes you feel nervous about answering questions, like they're going to force you into saying something that wouldn't let you into the country (I suppose, probably like the US).
Anyhow, we got our passports stamped and went through to get our bags. It was already a shock to see giant adds for Osem products, and Haredim walking around, and it felt like we were in Israel. We grabbed a taxi to go to our Hostel. I honestly thought we were going to die. People arent the best drivers there but this guy should have his licence revoked, and should serve time for the reckless way he drove...
Our hostel Momos was pretty decent. Our private room was basic but relatively nice. We were on Ben Yehuda street, a really great trendy area. Lots of street art, walls covered with layers of band and rally posters, and our small section lined with pride flags. Very cool. After putting our stuff down we headed out to get food and supplies. We found a supermarket nearby and spent about 100 shekels on food, some cutlery and other misc items.
We found dinner at a nearby friendly place with chicken schnitzels in pita with salad, humus and tahini. Exactly what we felt like, filling, and Israeli. A perfect choice for our first dinner. After food we settled for an early night since things were closed.
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