In the morning, we made our way to the airport and met the people from the group. There were two busloads of people leaving at the same time. Shawna and I were placed with the young’uns (18-22) and Sherri was placed with the old farts (23-26), though we’d be travelling mostly together. While we had names and e-mails in advance, the group was made up of people from all across Canada. So it was amazing when we actually met up with everyone how nearly everyone already knew each other through others. Jewish Geography… bigtime.
Sure enough, the first thing they did was distribute name tags. So inconspicuous. Yippee. We dutifully donned them (though they didn’t last more than a couple of days) and set off for the security checks. Everyone made it through without a hitch, despite one girl who kept answering the questions a little *too* honestly. (“Did you pack your bags yourself?” “Well, my friends helped”. Etc.)
The flight left on time, amazingly. It took 10 hours and 45 minutes to travel from Toronto to Israel. On the way, nobody slept. People chatted, got to know each other, played card games, flirted with the flight attendants, and generally made everyone else unlucky enough to be on our flight miserable. The reputation that these group tours have is well-deserved, unfortunately. All in all, it was a fun flight, and the time went by fairly quickly