And It All Happened Before 8am...

Yesterday morning, October 17, 2012 (I will remember the day before since I expect a present every time this day comes around), the day after I moved, the morning after I slept on a floor (since I am forbidden to get a second hand mattress. My parents would rather I sleep on a hard tiled floor then gd forbid sleep on a second hand mattress), smack in the middle of my "WHAT WAS I THINKING MOVING HERE AND GOING TO A SCHOOL IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE" meltdown, I went to Ben Gurion airport to meet my brother, Zushye. Did I mention the time was 6am? Best big sister award? I think yes.

I've deserved the best sister award ever since I let Z use my pink bouncy chair

I took a cab since I knew at 6 am I am in no state to be figuring out a bus situation. No state at all.
When I got to the airport I looked at the board with the times and lucky me his flight was delayed 40 minutes.
I was very on top of being there on time because the night before my best friend, Daniella, made aliyah and to cut a long story short which I would like to think was no one's fault I missed it. Yes, I was sitting on a bus to the airport with all my welcome home signs for D when I got the dreaded phone call. "Ummm so they said if I want the free cab I can't wait for you any longer and I need to leave." So I cried. Got sushi. Went home. Holding the welcome to Israel signs. It was such a breakup scene.

Me & Daniella back in 9th grade. Peace yo. 

Anyhoo back to my wonderful Tuesday morning in the airport. So the flight was delayed and I needed to kill quite a lot of time. I saw everyone was holding balloons, so I figured better to be in the trend then out, so I went to the balloon store. I don't know why but I was in the "yay let's speak Hebrew" mood. I whipped out my handy dandy iPhone (I promise I did not take it out as dramatically as I am making it seem.) and looked up how to say balloon in Hebrew. Obviously it's one of those words that are the same in Hebrew and English, but to be fair to me without nekudot it's very difficult to tell. So in my head a balloon was a belon. To be fair to me again at this point it was 6:29 in the morning, my Lacoste thinking cap was still not turned out.
I turned to the women looking at her with the "you think I am a tourist but actually I live here and I am going to show you that with my rocking Hebrew", and asked her for a belon. Yes, a belon. It rhymes with melon. Duh.
She rightfully so said "MAAAA". So I said it louder "ANI ROTZAH BELON." This went on for about 5 minutes. I was pointing to the "belon" so I don't understand why she had to play along. Just give me the belon and let's get on with our lives.
Finally. And I mean finally. Like after the flight from Moscow and London landed she goes "ehhhhh at rotza BALLOON?" Now, as I've said before I am never wrong, so I told her she has to idea what I want and she should start reading the Hebrew dictionary so she could learn what a belon is.
I will remember for the rest of my life now a balloon is a balloon. Why I need to make simple words so difficult, I have no idea.
Anyway, I left the store belon-less and got front row seats to see Z come out.
One of my favorite movies (I promise this is not an ADD moment, it really has to do with the blog post, it will all come together in about two lines) is Love Actually. To sum it up I love movies with obvious endings. Suspense is so not my thing. SO the opening scene in Love Actually is this-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDZUfGBUSeY
Favorite scene in the world.
There was a flight from Bangkok. Full of Israelis. It was that scene but violent. I never knew someone could miss each other so much they can fall down hugging them. It was pretty intense. They were probably gone for a week, why this needs to be so intense I have no idea. Let's just say my foot was stepped on several times and rolled over by suitcases before I decided I would rather not be suing these people for a broken toe their first day back in Israel.  I took about a thousand steps back and let these people do their thing.
The next group of people to come out was from this place that three eyes me (I decided not to wear my glasses or contacts that morning. Ha. Not like I ever wear either of them) saw was from UFO. I was thinking wow what a funky name. A flight from space or something. These people looked so Russian or Polish I can't even tell you. I thought they would kill me with their stares. I googled UFO, Russia turns out surprise that place doesn't exist. It was UFA, Russia. Ten dollars goes to whoever can figure out what that stands for.
These people were on some program. I really hope the program could manage to get some sort of smile out of them because landing in Israel certainly didn't. They straight up looked like they were going to a funeral. Communism ended 20 years ago... SMILE!
The name of their program was called Flying Carpet (is anyone else thinking that their mascot is Aladdin?). They all walked into the arrivals terminal wearing stickers that said flying carpet. Some poor guy (who I sincerely hope was making thousands of dollars) was holding a sign that said Flying Carpet. These people looked at the sticker on their shirt, looked at him, looked at the sticker again, until I am assuming the guy said (in Russian)"yes, you smartie pants, you are wearing that sticker because that is the name of your program. I am holding the sign because I am in charge of the program. Whom let's put two and two together and tada YOU are on my program"
The guy holding the sign for the program had to say about a thousand times (I am taking upon myself poetic license or whatever that is called to describe what he is saying. This is at least what it sounded like to me.) "Hello. Welcome to Flying Carpet (name of the program). Welcome to the 21st century also. We no longer wear our hair like Heidi or wear Amish style skirts." I'm sure he said more but I was so proud of him that he had the nerve to tell them that their hairdo's were bizarre looking. Again, poetic license.
Finally Newark (no no not New York which would be coming from JFK airport, but NEWARK, yes an airport in the greatest state of New Jersey.) was next to make the entrance. I took out my really pathetic looking sign and my non existent belon and waited for Zushye.
There were chassidim one after another. I had no idea Zushye was actually on a flight that left from Uman for the ones that got left behind post the chaggim). Black and white. Black and white. Black and white. Suddenly RED. Us Kestenbaum's always know how to make an entrance.

Yes, there is the red shirt. He's baaaaack!! 

So basically this post was not so much to write about how happy I was to see Z (because obviously I was thrilled) but more about my airport experience. So I'll stop writing now because once I saw him I don't really have anything else to share. Unless you are interested in the cab ride back to my apartment in Givat Shmuel (Yes, the move was successful!) and bumming around for the rest of the day. I think I will spare all of you.
Well as we say in Russian- do svidaniya (that's goodbye for you non cultured people)