Two of my unbending Rules for Effective Travel are : Keep track of your underwear and Learn the Local Currency as Quickly and Accurately as You Can.

That's that.
All else can follow...

That being said, my introduction to the shekel came as I dutifully doled out at least 35 of them for one beer at the kibbutz bar. With the shekels conversion rate being about 4 to 1 dollar, the bartender was clearly thrilled at my ineptitude. Later, when I figured out my mistake, I vowed to master the elusive shekel and its actually very easy to convert existence before I became known round the kibbutz as an insanely good tipper.

The underwear saga will come later.

To Israel and Back: Missing unmentionables, Dirty Popsicles and First Class Dolts.

Feeling like an interloper in my grubby jeans, sweatshirt and backpack I passed over my ticket to the skeptical Gatekeeper of the first class lounge. He scanned it, peered at it closely and licked it to ensure authenticity before passing it back and inviting me in. Loftily I breezed into the cavernous room, marveling at its emptiness and luxuries. Free beer? Peanuts? No children scrambling over already weary parents legs? Wi-Fi? Check, check and check. Not a bad way to start the trip.

Due to the overwhelming generosity of a certain individual, I was flying first class all the way to Tel-Aviv. This for the person who has never even had the tenacity to get herself bumped to first class...truly it would be the flight where dreams were made. On previous transatlantic flights I had always gazed longingly at the disheveled remnants of the First Class folk...the blankets strewn about, newspapers, totally reclined bed-chairs. When you're exiting an airplane, de-cramping your legs, bleary eyed and traumatized by over-excited children and you see the glow of the first class your first thought is what slobs those passengers were with their linen napkins and champagne glasses littering the floor, the feeling of rest and relaxation hovering in the air, strictly forbidden to enter the rest of the plane by the blue snapping curtain. You know that you would never simply toss those luxuries to the ground, were they granted to you

I am the sort of traveler who over-thinks inane things... I never think of downed planes or terrorist plots... I, instead, think that I am going to be that statistical passenger who gets the horrible leg disease where you don't move around enough and blood clots in your leg causing your heart to slow and eventually stop. For this reason I like to sit in the aisle seat and get up frequently, annoying all around me. I also, inevitably, have to go to the bathroom at least 45 times during the flight and if I am stuck in the window seat, I sit and plot about how many minutes until I can politely beg of the person next to me to get up, yet again. I also have this nagging fear that as the plane is taking off that I will see my checked baggage rolling around the ground outside of the plane as the attendants snicker and point at my face pressed against the plexiglass.

This trip abroad would be different though. First class would enable me to emerge in Israel a changed woman, super immune to the time change, bright, plucky, refreshed and sated. I would brush my teeth and be one of those travelers who thinks ahead and packs a change of clothes in their carry-on so they disembark looking as if they had just spent the previous twelve hours sipping complimentary cocktails and watching free movies, sleeping fully extended and being awoken by freshly squeezed orange juice and a fine sumatra blend.

Instead, I managed to disembark looking like I usually look... bleary eyed, stuffy nosed, books hastily stuffed in my backpack, same wrinkled clothes, same messy hair... I did manage to brush my teeth but new socks? Nope, not this obviously planning-inept traveler. I did manage to remember to grab my duty-free bottle of rum, however, so things were not decidedly all bad.
And thus, I entered Ben Gurion airport and made my way to passport control.