From the start of the flight over:

We're off to a good start (we as in well... me and my bag). I managed to fit my life for seven days in foreign country into a single backpack, laptop, camera gear and soap included. As for this abilities origin we'll have to place that in my dads lap as if anyone reading this blog has seen my mom pack, I believe we can safely say that it didn't come from there. This one bag policy is paying off, I have plenty of room under the seat in front of me for my feet instead of reserving it for my “goodies” bag and after a stroll through the airport see no reason I won't be able to carry it everywhere.

This is substantially the longest flight I've been on clocking in at a hefty 10 hours travel time from Newark to Tel-Aviv. Currently hoping to sleep some but looking at the clock it's only quarter of 5. Maybe in the next 3 hours or so boredom will do the trick. If not it appears in flight entertainment has grown in leaps and bounds (personal screens with hundreds of movies available on demand... pretty impressive) since I last remember it. Selections not half bad either, quick stroll through drama showed some real winners like American Beauty and Fight Club. The social science aspect of keeping some 400 people content in a tin can for 10 hours, hundreds of miles from comfort, while listening to the lady in front of you explain how the bible predicted the fall of the Berlin wall truly amazes me. As far as social experiments go, air travel is a fairly impressively successful one.

As for my company for this leg of the journey, the couple next to me is somewhat of blessing after a quick observation of the alternatives, chatty enough to be friendly but not ones that will talk your head off. I do suppose the lady in front of me deserves and explanation here. She's pretty much the epitome of what I was expecting to run into. A good ole southern baptist tourist going to explore the holy land with a tour group. I don't see anything wrong with these types of tours just the kind of people that typically partake. For example she has accosted the two poor people that have been seated next to her, informing them of the good christian teaching her mamma provided her when she was just a girl. This included the aforementioned divine prediction of the fall of the Berlin wall and that Iran and Russia have a biblical linking that will lead to their downfall. This has been the conversation within 15 minutes of being airborne and I can only imagine it will get better.

PS. Watching Fight Club next to the nice old man next to me wasn't such a hot idea. He couldn't hear it but I swear he saw more of the movie than I did, that's a lot of violence, some strange social dissonance and a rather graphic sex scene.