The Holy Land

Everybody knows I'm a proud Jew.
But going to Jew-land is one ball-game in a league of its own. There's opportunities to get ripped off almost wherever you look. And the airport is the worst.
Seriously, as a proud Jew I dare say that going to Tel Aviv is like playing chess with yourself.
So far I dare say that I am leading though. Poor cab driver had no idea who he was messing with trying to pull his no-meter trick.

Fast Forward 24 Hours...

Twenty four hours (give or take) later and I am at Heathrow airport in London. With eight (and a half) hours to burn until my night flight to Tel Aviv.
As much as I love airports, eight and a half hours is a really long time.
At some point I started chatting up random people along the lines of "so, mate, where are you off to today?" just to get one of those man-you're-a-freak stares back. I guess nobody likes random chats, but poms - poms are terrified by them!!!
The good thing about time is that even when it doesn't fly it does pass, so by 10:30PM I was boarding my red-eye to Tel Aviv. The perfect setting to pop a Normison, put one of those camp eyeshades on and have a solid five hours sleep from take-off to landing.
Missed the lovely British Airways cuisine (chicken. always chicken) but got my beauty sleep to face that holy holy land.

The Best F Word Ever.

Two F words even.
At the moment my two favourite F words in the world.
Free. Facial.
I mean- what's not to like?

I made it to the Qantas lounge mentally prepared to do bugger all till my flight (apart from maybe drinking them out of house and home...) when the nice lady from their spa (Jane- I told you I was gonna make you world-famous) offered me a free facial and massage to pass the time.
The civilised thing may have been to politely refuse, but I say civilised-shmivilised. By the time she finished saying "free facial" I was already lying there in the bring-it-on pose.

So yeah - if you were ever wondering if free facials are worth it, the jury has returned a verdict and the verdict is yes, they are worth it beyond any reasonable doubt.

Planning Ahead

I don't want to toot my own horn here but I actually thought I did a good job at planning the whole logistics around the trip. It seemed like a pretty tight operation all in all:
(a) Dropped at Sydney airport by Simey
(b) Picked up at Melbourne by Andrew, followed by sensibly-boozey lunch
(c) Andrew's birthday drinks that night
(d) Yum Cha with Jamie, Nathan and the lovely Lizzie the next day
(e) Coffee and gossip session with Jason
(f) Airport drop-off by Jason just in time for my flight out

And surprisingly it all worked like clockwork. Almost.
Well Jason completed his dropping-off task with flying colors, no dramas whatsoever, but by the time I made it to check-in I realised I made an awful mistake. For some reason I thought my flight leaves at 7:30PM. It didn't. Scheduled departure time was 11:59PM. Taking into account that I tend to get to the airport early at the best of times meant that I had over seven hours (let me repeat that bit. Seven. Hours) to burn in Melbourne airport.
Good thing they had the season opener Swannies Vs St Kilda game at the lounge.
A bit of a shame the Swannies lost...