Day 20

This morning we had a while to finish packing and get ready for the trip. So once we were all ready we headed to the upper entrance and loaded the buses and headed out for Tel Aviv. Once we got to the airport they handed out our passports, they don’t trust us to have them, and we went through the first security checkpoint just to get in the doors. They were just looking at passports and asking questions like if you packed your own suitcase. But when my turn was up they asked me a bunch of questions, I was completely racially profiled. I was asked where my last name came from, parents names, siblings names, grandparents names, just a bunch of questions until the girl was convinced that I was actually an American and not a terrorist. It was pretty entertaining. We had got to the airport so early that we had a few hours of waiting for the plane to take off. But once on the plane it was really quick, the flight was only about two hours and they served a full meal. So we took off, ate, then landed. We all made it through customs easily and headed to our tour buses. Well a couple kids went missing but they showed up eventually. We then drove about an hour to our hotel. The Cartoon Hotel. I had originally assumed that Cartoon was some kind of fancy French word or something. But no it literally meant cartoon, like the Mickey mouse characters. Because that was what the theme of the entire hotel. We were given our room keys and told to put our stuff away then come back down and meet to walk over to dinner. Well it took me twenty minutes to even find my room, the entire hotel is a maze. But twenty flights of stairs later I finally found it. Because silly me I thought room 418 would be on the fourth floor. I actually had to go up to the first floor then walk through it into another wing with another set of stairs then go up from there. It was a bit ridiculous. And they have all automatic lights that turn on when you walk by so it was creepy walking around in the dark and having cartoon characters staring at me. My roommate, Katharine and I, went down to meet the group. But there were only a few people left because everyone had already left. So one of the professors had to come back and walk us to the restaurant because no one knew now to get there. We eat at the nices places in Turkey, because they are very concerned about us getting sick. But even then we still have to bring our own water bottles and not eat the fruit or vegetables. We are served a four course meal. Salad, soup, meatballs and rice, then honey desserts. This meal was pretty gross, but luckily at every meal we get baskets of really soft bread! After the dinner we went back to the hotel, Katherine and I talked for a while before going to bed. Which was really fun because I have never really talked to her.