The Flight

Once I got onto the plane my fear turned into excitement. I started chatting with some of the people seated near me and really started to calm down. It turns out that the nbn staff are geniuses!! They set up the seating on the plane by categories to ensure that people would meet others in their same situation who would relate to each other and start a network of friends even before landing in Israel. A super perk was that the families with little babies were in the back and the young singles were in the front of the plane!!! I did not sleep one wink on the flight. I had a middle seat open next to me and I shared it with Polina my row buddy so I was comfortable… but there were just so many people to talk to and so many things to say that there simply wasn’t time to sleep. Every time I tried I would get too excited and start talking to someone or start smiling because I was so excited!! The hours of the trip ticked by SO slowly! We kept turning on the flight path screen hoping to see that more time had passed… we were lucky if even half an hour had gone by between checks. A much anticipated break from the monotony of the flight came with the start of in-flight processing. I had thought it was going to take at least half an hour to fill out all of the computerized forms so I figured it would help pass time on the flight. Sadly (yet amazingly, proving again just how awesome nbn is) all I had to do was sign 4 things, correct the spelling of my last name, and check that all of the information that they had previously entered was correct. It took a grand total of 45 seconds. I was still really really excited that I was filling out my aliyah paperwork and had Polina take pictures. The next bit of excitement came when they announced that for the first time ever they were going to process passport control while we were still on the air. We had to dig up our passports and hand them to a dude with a big plastic bag—I thought it was a bit sketchy but I knew that they knew what they were doing.
About two hours before the end of the flight I started getting antsy. I was hungry (they fed us less than a hour into the flight and it had been almost 8 hours since I’d had anything to eat), I was bored, and all I wanted to do was land in Israel and actually finish making aliyah! At the hour and a half mark they finally served breakfast which was pleasantly not disgusting. Once the meal was over I couldn’t sit still. We had less than an hour left until landing and I was so excited. Everyone began brushing their teeth, changing out of their plane pajamas, and excitedly walking up and down the aisles. Forty minutes until landing the nbn staff passed out the “oleh” stickers and nbn hats that we were supposed to wear to the airport to differentiate us from the guests. I had been waiting over a year for the day when I would be the one to wear the oleh sticker. I was so excited. We were literally bouncing around the plane with excitement. A bunch of us even took pictures in the hats we will most likely never wear again to commemorate the moment. On a last bathroom stop just as the flight crew were begging everyone to settle down for landing, I started talking to a man who was making aliyah with his wife. They both had on matching Bubbie and Zaidie shirts and were going to move near their 11 grandchildren. I think it’s such an amazing thing that even at such a late stage in life people are picking up their lives and moving to Israel. It is so inspiring.
We all finally sat down and buckled up with less than 20 minutes to go. I was glued to the window (by now I was excited about my window seat) searching for my first glimpse of Israel. I almost started crying when I saw the first stretches of Israel beaches and started recognizing the buildings all throughout Tel Aviv. We kept turning to each other saying things like “this is it” and “ I can’t believe we’re REALLY doing this” or “It’s really happening” and smiling and laughing uncontrollably. The entire flight we spoke about how we couldn’t believe that any of this was actually happening and how the whole thing felt surreal. That’s still the best way I can describe this whole experience. It’s something I’ve wanted for so long and talked about and thought about and dreamt about and now that it’s finally here it’s very hard to grasp.
As we neared the airport cheesy music came on like “od yavoh shalom aleinu” and “yachad” I felt like I was at summer camp. It was so cheesy that it was a little embarrassing but I loved it anyway. When we landed I clapped with everyone else and couldn’t stand to remain seated. We taxied for a long time and we were all trying to figure out where in the world we were going. I was expecting an outdoor welcoming ceremony so I was looking for the pavilion… Turns out that they changed the format and instead of having the ceremony on the tarmac as we came off the plane, they had it at the old terminal where we go through processing anyway and just bussed us from the plane to the party.
I’m going to leave the story hanging now and I’ll write about what it was like to actually be on the ground as soon as I can!