jumps up and down and waves!

I have to jump up and down because although you are much closer, SFO is still about 3000 miles away, and Google tells me a 43 hour drive, so not so close.

Welcome! It makes me smile just to know you are going to meet -t soon.

Shot, I'll be there in about an hour, don't wait for me to eat!

OK, I'll order and eat. Good idea, too, as I'm a bit dehydrated (why the air is so dry in airports and planes?). However, it seems like we'll have the time for a quick hello only.

Update: done eating. Waiting to you on the chairs next to the information desk, facing security checkpoint G, my back to Lori's Diner. To make it simpler: I'm the one with the coat and nail polish.

Hi, Laura! You do have a huge country. I'll be glad when this ongoing flights thing be over.

Ok, heading in from parking garage now...I'm in purple.

Ha! Literally time for hug, mutual glasses admiring, and Shir had to. But we met! Triumph!

Yay!

Yay Hugs!!

Shir, will email as well. But what day are planning to come to Olympia?

Looks like Shir's flight had to do one go-around, but has now landed at Sea-Tac.

Buffistas! I’m so terribly sorry for neglecting the part of letting you that I arrived to PT Townsend alive and well. I really have very little idea how I made the leg from SF to here - it is all a blur of flights and airports and looking at electronic boards and signs. After over 40 hours of being awake, I just showered and collapsed to bed, and woke up at 4:28 am because my body a) hates me b) incredibly used to 6 hours of night sleep. I am so sorry I didn’t let you know, I was too exhausted to think of anything else that wasn’t sleeping, eating, and showering.

Ha! Literally time for hug, mutual glasses admiring, and Shir had to. But we met! Triumph!

-t - thank you so much for coming to meet me, and I’m truly sorry it was only for 5 minutes. In the end, of course, boarding was delayed by 20 minutes, after I fast walked like woah to get to the gate relatively on time. It was lovely to see you, and thank you for making the effort.

But what day are planning to come to Olympia?

Good question, and yes, it really is time to see what my plans are for Seattle. I'll check with the friend I'm staying with and get back to you. Buffistas in Seattle - would you like to meet? If so, we should plan this in the next day or two.

My travels went really well and quite smoothly, and I even got upgraded in the last flight from SFO to Seattle to economy plus. Oh, leg space, where have you been in my 12 hours flight from Tel Aviv to Newark. I think I just shut down the “you’re abroad!” feeling of wonder, and treated it as a quest to get from A to B to C (to D, to E...) in an alternative universe that is a lot more ordered than what I’m used to but in different language. Truthfully, I’m still trying to understand it all. It’s been a sequence of small miracles that allowed me to come here in the first place, and I’ve yet to grok it. I’m also proud of myself to complete the quest from Jerusalem to PT Townsend smoothly, sleep-deprived as I was and when it was pouring rain in Seattle (I had a 8 minute walk, which turned to 15 because I stopped three times to check the map. I was so tired, I had to turn around where I was standing in the direction of the map to see where to head to match my location and position, because I wasn't able to visualize this).

I found that a lot of Americans are very polite and helpful. TSA has some tight security, but in all airports everything was so efficient, and a lot of people were glad to answer my “excuse me, how do I get to...?” questions, I was quite impressed. Sadly, in my zombie-mode, I wasn’t able to show a lot of it back to the man who asked me some questions about the light rail in Seattle - where it gets and if there was only one and etc. (wasn’t rude to him, I was just “ummm... I think so. Yes” to his questions, and my answers were based on the instructions I was given).

I’m unsure if it’s due to the fact that we were all locked together in a flying tin can, but people here are genuinely nice. Israelis have the tendency to bark back at you, even if (and when) they mean well. Politeness saves a lot of energy (unless you’re in Israel). Maybe it’s the full body scanner, but this time I didn’t get the Extra Questions Time with Security, and it was really nice. As little minded as it might seem, this, along with a pinch of denial, make me approve it.

So I’m up, and excited and grateful and can’t believe just how beautiful everything is here (and far from realizing that I’m actually here. A part of me expects to wake up in my bed soon. It all seems like a dream). This will get posted later as I don’t have the password for the wi-fi and have to wait till my host will wake up, but I’m watching the sunrise (yesterday I saw it in Newark airport, and the day before I saw the sunset from the the way to Jerusalem to Tel Aviv airport). I’ll get a local number today, and will send it over to all who will want it. Though I can’t fully grasp yet that I’ve made it here, or how, I can’t wait for what this trip will bring, and meeting y’all. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll realize it’s not a dream (continued...)