Definitely (in)Continental

The saga of Continental continued after the last post.

Apparently Continental had some "mechanical" issue that kept the 777 from leaving LAX to get to Newark. From the sounds of things and what my Dad was able to find out, they apparently didn't have a crew available to fly the beast, so all of us going to Tel Aviv got to stay in Newark for an additional 8 hours.

They did give us all rooms at the Ramada....at the end of runway 15L. I fell asleep to the sounds of Continental Connection turboprops and other such aircraft taking off right over my room. Granted, by the time I got there, I was totally exhausted, so I didn't hear too many of the planes take off. 3.5 hours of sleep later, I was ready to go back to the terminal. Fortunately, security lines were short at 5 AM. Unfortunately, Continental couldn't get its act together so we ended up with a wheels-up time 9.5 hours later than scheduled.

On the upside, I made the acquaintance of a couple of people which helped the waiting along. One was a model whose first name was Mala. She's married to a basketball player on the team that plays in Ramat Gan here in Tel Aviv. She was from St. Maarten and now lives in Tel Aviv between here modeling shoots. Apparently she does all sorts of catalog shots for Macy's and the like. She said she did one for Cintas, the uniform company, where they wanted it to have a "sexy" feel, "like Victoria's Secret, " except in uniforms....guess that'll be the most popular catalog among the janitorial services this year.

There was another couple who were headed to Delhi and had missed their connection by 30 minutes, having sat on the ground in Rochester for 4 hours. They said that the flight was only 30 minutes long, too. Unfortunately for them, there's only 1 flight a day to Delhi, so they were stuck in the "greater"(that word just does not fit when I think of the city) Newark area for an additional 23.5 hours. Both were grad students; the woman was from India and her boyfriend kept trying to explain how airlines routinely oversold flights to which she responded "How can they sell something they don't have?" I mentioned it wasn't much different than the press-release driven vaporware companies of the .com era, but that was of little consolation, although they both did understand what I meant. I ended up giving them one of my meal vouchers since I wasn't going to be in Newark at any time when I could use it (it seemed like most places were closed at 5 AM), so hopefully they managed to get something out of it.

At least it wasn't Detroit.

On the flight, I was impressed with the music selection. Channel 13 on the 777 is "Club Continental" which played some pretty good music. Unfortunately for me, it was a 2hr loop and I was on a 10hr flight. After 1 loop, it was Sominex to the rescue and I was out for about 3 hrs. I don't think I've ever slept that heavily on a plane. There was another musical selection on the "Shalom" channel (20) which I found hilarious and disturbing. Somebody made a rap song which talked about how being Jewish is trendy in Hollywood and actually rhymed/intermixed Yiddish words as if they were bits of gangsta slang. The kicker for me was the chorus of "Getcha Heeb on! Getcha Heeb on!", similar to Missy Elliot's "Getcha freak on!" I wondered what strange experiences lay ahead for me in Tel Aviv.

Well, those experiences started when I got into a taxi to take me to the hotel. Much like taxi drivers in the rest of Europe, the Israeli drivers thing they're auditioning for the WRC or similar as they come close to drifting their Skodas and Mercedes C-Class taxis around the banked ramps out of the airport. While I was wishing for some 4 or 5-point harness for my seat, the uncomfortable silence of "You don't speak Hebrew and I don't speak English" was broken by tuning into a local radio station (100 FM) which played.....gangsta rap. Yep, as I was driving into Tel Aviv, I heard Eminem and all of his crizzew rapping about their hoes and other classy subjects. Everything was unedited because while these bits of American culture have been imported and absorbed, I don't think that the true comprehension of meaning has been achieved. I was waiting to hear the announcer put some "Snoop speak" into her monologue. After consideration, she may have been and I didn't know it. I got to my hotel and got to bed around 1:30 AM. Again, Sominex to the rescue.

Slept 9 or so hours, missed breakfast, no big. Getting out of clothes I'd been wearing for 2 days? Very big.