We made it.... we are in Jerusalem. It's a beautiful ride from Ben Gurion Airport to Jerusalem, even at night. I wish I'd had my camera out - but if I did, I don't think much would have come out as we could see was from the moving bus. The only photos I have from today is from Heathrow airport while waiting to hear what flight they were going to be able to put us on.The photo below was from when we started out about 1:45 pm on Wednesday.
What an amazing 24 hours! We started out yesterday by being delayed on the British Airways flight out of Dulles- A bad storm along the eastern seaboard caused a 2+ hour delayed take off. This, plus the fact that the jetstream dwindled down to almost nothing once we got much past the storm, caused us to miss our connecting flight in London to Tel Aviv. While waiting to take off, I slept. (Amazing - I was so terrified of even getting ON the flight!!) Then of course, I couldn't go back to sleep - I watched a great movie (Secretariat) and said my "Total Consecration to Mary" preparation prayers, etc. Then when I decided to go to sleep, I found that I was too overheated. So I tossed and turned and eventually I watched the sun come up - well at least I watched the cloud layer under us turn rosy pink! A few parallel clouds were dark purple so it was kind of cool. Then I fell asleep for the last hour and a half of the flight. Then we were able to step out of the plane and walk on the ground of the United Kingdom... that was pretty cool to me. (I know, it would have been better to get on over and see "Big Ben" but this was pretty cool to me- all my heritage is British, so there was a strong feeling of happiness at being there.
At Heathrow, once we got to the "Flight Connections area" (photo above), there were several problems they discovered when we went to try to book a new flight. Part of it was that the computer somehow scattered the names of the passengers needing to be rescheduled in the system and the list of those needing to be on the same flight had to be reassembled in the computer system. In the end, they were not able to reschedule all 40 of us on the same flight. Joel and I were part of the larger group that left at about 2:30. There was a small group of 9 that will not arrive here till about 5:30 am in the morning. I would have wanted to go and see Buckingham Palace at the very least but the airline was able to get them hotel rooms for the day so they could rest, so hopefully that will help them arrive bright and smiling a bit more than they would have. The group of us that left earlier were given food vouchers to get lunch, and an hour to accomplish this before we were supposed to board our next flight, which was an El Al flight instead of British Airways. We liked the BA flight more- more movies to choose from, more room in the seats, and the food was much better, but I was glad for the flight and the food, and the movies did not much matter as I fell asleep before take off, (I was only dimly aware of take off). (I think I have this whole "flight thing" pretty much down pat lol. I still pray a WHOLE LOT before the flight, but I am not as afraid. The amount of times I picture midair collisions and the like has lessened a lot. Thank you Our Lady Of Loreto and St. Joseph of Cupertino for your assistance getting us all safely here!
When we got to the hotel, the owner (or manager- not sure which she was) greeted us all personally with glasses of orange juice and a cold plate of food that they prepared just for us. She was very nice and the food was so much appreciated. While we ate, she described the hotel and the food, etc.
