Have a nice fright

You have to worry when the chinese lady at the airport newsagent wishes you a nice fright.
All I could say was “Rank you”.
I met mum at Sydney International Airport on Monday 7th of April. Of course I got there first, having flown up from Melbourne, she down from Brisbane, the gold burried under a giant W…oh no, wrong movie! We boarded a Thai Airways flight bound for Bangkok.

Flying across northern NSW towards QLD and then over the NT, the shades of light across the wing was framed nicely around the numerous clouds of Australia.

On board the big plane each seat had it’s own screen with a fancy remote control that allowed you to view movies, tv shows, listen to radio and albums all on demand, and allowing you to pause, go and pee, chat up some hosties, stretch your legs, return and keep watching, without missing anything.

Sleeping on a plane was a challenge, especially for mum as she always worries that she will start drooling on the person next to her. That person being me on this trip. So a $20 investment in a “drool on yourself not on others neck brace” was made. Hot red is the best.

Once the drool situation was taken care of there was the worry about sudden hair loss due to cabin pressure. That was quickly taken care of with a “Sudden hair loss due to cabin pressure head brace”.

Once in Bangkok and aw-ing and ah-ing at the impressively huge airport they have it was time to take a quick look about and make our way to the El Al check-in. There we waited along with a heap of Israeli’s making their way home after getting their hair beaded and dreadlocked in the numerous infamous hair-braiding and opium dens of south east asia.
One Israeli woman went so far as to buy a hotdog thinking it was a simple case of putting a sausage in a breadroll. How wrong she was when she was handed a puppy dog and was allowed to take on board with her. The orchids mum bought were turned away. Apparently nice looking flowers are a national threat to Israel. Small fluffball dogs are fine however.

As the plane played follow the sun, we slept, or tried to sleep amongst the dog barking and hum of the engines. The good sign being the dog eventually shut up while the engines kept on humming. Eventually the sun crept up behind us, scaring some small children showing it’s crack.

El Al prides itself on its wonderfully compartmentalised breakfasts along with its never say never attitude of crashing. Although after eating what appears to be a 7-11 microwaved scrambled eggs you wish for a painless union with a mountanous ridge.

Once eggs a-la rubber were digested and the announcement that no more food was to be served, we prepared for our arrival into Israel.

Interestingly, flying to Israel from Bangkok is not as simple as getting from A to B. In the case of flying El Al, the arab nations of Arabia have put up a sort of wall to the heavens that prevent the airline from flying over it’s borders. Therefor the flight path taken is like entering the backdoor of a nightclub, you still walk down a dark, smelly laneway, but in a way you are treated like a celebrity avoiding the paparazzi.

Touching down in Tel Aviv the audience clapped and cheered wildly. The performance of flying the plane was over. Now the second act of getting off, smoking a pack of cigarettes and getting through customs was at hand. The fear of looking like 1. a terrorist or 2. a tired skittish tourist or 3. both of the above made me think I’d be interrogated by the MOSAD and sent to Gitmo for 20 years without a trial. The truth was that within 4 minutes mum and I were through customs, welcomes into Israel by not being cavity searched, and driven into peak hour traffic by mum’s friend Cocka. Ah.. I thought, that was why they let you in so quickly…they knew we’d be fucked by having to spend another hour in a traffic jam to rival the likes of Brisbane or Melbourne.

Jetlag is an ugly foul breathed assembly worker from hell making toys that require bateries you will never find. Working for minimum wage, she terrorises toy buyers by making them feel as if they having taken the up and down of slight turbulence and inserted it into their shoes while walking on what should be stable land. No fancy jetlag avoidance pills can compete with her crooked smile and yellowed teeth.

Once I had a good catch up sleep and was able to comprehend my new surrounds, we visited mums aunt Alla who lives not far from Cocka.

Aunty Alla has a crazy dog named Chappy. He understands Russian, Hebrew and English, which is about 2 languages better than me. If you want me to sit or roll over you need to speak English.

Aunty’s apartment has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and living room area. Her view is of the park and fancy shmancy shops selling clothes, jewelry, watches, sunglasses and other designer goods as well as cafes, bakeries, convenience shops selling hot nuts, magazines and falafel.

Although she’s 87 years old, don’t be fooled by Aunty Allas lack of speed on the tennis court. She is still a very lucid and witty lady, with long silver hair and a walking frame to match. Her humour is typical Russian/Jewish/Krinkevitch/Zetlin Cantonese style. Her full time carer is a middle aged lady from the Ukraine who has left her family to come to Israel to work. The sacrifice is she gets to watch cable tv while Aunty sleeps, surfing through almost 200 channels, most of which are Russian soaps.

Aunty, mum and I chat about the family, Dana’s expecting child, Elinor’s long black hair. I think she is jealous of Eli’s hair actually. I don’t know what the fussing is about.

Aunty Alla

Eli

Today I also got in touch with Leon Peters who is studying outside of Tel Aviv. I will catch up with him on the weekend, as well as seeing Justine Peleg who is here from Melbourne.

That’s all for now folks…
Love Elahn and Maya.