When a War or Bureaucracy Are Not Enough, Nature strikes or How I Keep Failing To Go To India

BUREAUCRACY: Two years ago, after we had recently arrived in Israel, it was time for the Diplomat, Son and I to visit the family in India.  Procuring tickets from Tel Aviv to Chennai for less than one million dollars was a mammoth task, and the Diplomat came up with the brilliant scheme of flying on the cheap to Abu Dhabi, then grabbing a cab to Dubai, and flying from there on the cheap to Chennai.  One elusive element of travel to India is the fact that I need a visa to go there - an annoying formality to this pretentious American traveler. In the past, India, in a sudden progressive fit, had allowed for a visa on arrival in addition to applying and getting a visa online in advance. Well, apparently the sudden progressive fit was over, so e-visa it was. With the promise of getting the visa within 72 hours on the ministry’s website, I gleefully applied 96 hours because I am a CAREFUL PLANNER! As you can probably guess by now, I still had no visa on the morning of our flights. Emails and calls to the facility providing the visas were 110% futile because (a) no one ever picks up (which I can understand comes as a shock to many), (b) email responses take about 24 hours.  Undaunted, I got on the plane to Abu Dhabi with the grumpy Diplomat (who thought I should have applied, like, last year), and a nonchalant Son (who did not care one way or another).  I was CONVINCED that my visa would come through during the day. We made it to Abu Dhabi and took a $100 taxi to Dubai, managing to see downtown Dubai and the Burj Khalifa in the process (it is skinny and impressive). In a stunning turn of events (not), my visa did not come. At Dubai airport, the very compassionate and utterly unimpressed IndigoAir clerk firmly (but with a huge smile) refused to get me on that plane to India without the darn visa.  After hanging around the airport forlornly for about 2 hours, I called it a day, bought myself a ticket back to Tel Aviv, and went home while the Diplomat and Son flew to Chennai without me for a week. I received an email with my visa the next day. Naturally.

WAR: Accordingly, last year, we decided to try the trip again.  Never an easy feat given the lack of convenient flights from the places we have been living in the past several years, in 2021 we proudly managed to book a set of practically direct flights on Air India.  I had a visa, we told everyone we were going, this trip was HAPPENING! And then, on October 7th, some really bad things happened in Israel (unless you have been asleep under a rock for the previous 6 months, I will not explain what that was).  Which, naturally, meant that our flights were summarily canceled. Given that the airline was Air India, it also meant that we were not getting our money back without a massive fight, public shaming on social media, and an irrationally irate email exchange, in which I explained in minute detail to Air India exactly what I thought of them. We got our money back.

NATURE: Fast forward to April and we thought it was a very good time to try again.  Airlines were coming back to Israel, Son had a long spring break, I still had a visa, it all made sense on paper.  So, two months ago, I bought a ticket on Air India (I never learn) for a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Delhi.  For reasons too long to explain, but mostly having to do with the fact that he was procrastinating, the Diplomat had to buy his and Son’s tickets on FlyDubai instead with a layover in Dubai (this is all very relevant, I promise!).  The week before the trip, Iran decided to send some rockets in the direction of Israel. As you can guess by now, Air India promptly canceled its flights from Tel Aviv (we are officially done, I will never fly that blasted airline again).  I frantically rebooked myself on FlyDubai, and we were still on track. Until we got a notice that all of our flights were canceled because of apocalyptic flooding in Dubai. But I was more determined than ever! Despite a carefully planned trip around India, where we were booked to gallivant through Delhi for a few days for Son to see the sights, then see tigers in the Ranthambore reserve, and then go practice some yoga in Rishikesh before ending the trip with family in Chennai, we rebooked the tickets for several days later, hoping to save at least SOME of the itinerary. And yes, as you can guess how much all of this was costing us.  

I have never checked the weather forecast with such trepidation, monitoring the rain and humidity predictions. Believe it or not, the weather cleared, the epic flooding subsided, and we actually made it to India in the end. You can’t say that I am not tenacious! 

x

Good Food and Two Weddings

It has been pointed out to me that it has been well over a year since I last wrote, and that I should really stop being so lazy and get back to informing humanity of the inane and vastly unimportant details of our lives. It is pointless to try and update on everything that the Diplomat, Son, and I have been up to during that time – one, it is a lot; second - I can barely remember what I drank with dinner last night, so anything before that would be even hazier. I guess most importantly, for those who have not realized this yet, this is the second consecutive country with 1) an active war 2) that broke out while we were there, that the Diplomat and I have served in. This will be my one and only, clearly self-serving comment regarding the ongoing conflict here.

After several months of utter shock after October 7, Tel Aviv society has more or less returned to “normal life,” which is to say that we once again need reservations for dinner at least a week in advance for even the most basic, hole-in-the wall kind of restaurant. Despite the astronomical prices in every single eating establishment in Israel, restaurants here are always packed and if you are naïve enough to go downtown Tel Aviv on a Thursday night, thinking you will have dinner before 11:30 pm, you are a tourist. Another elusive idiosyncrasy of Israeli nightlife is how many restaurants are actually closed on Friday night in observance of Shabat. As a result, the few that do stay open for those hungry heathens who refuse to cook at home are booked weeks in advance and those lucky diners pour over the pavement, eating at miniscule tables crammed next to each other in order to maximize space. At the least the food is epic, and that is an understatement.

I have eaten all over the world as eminently evidenced by my less than svelte figure, but Israel’s food is on a whole different level. As I have already mentioned, I have never, ever had a bad meal here. I have had expensive meals, I have had meals with bad service, I have had very messy meals, I have had exceptionally expensive meals, but bad food has never been the problem. I don’t know how they do it but it is a stuff of legends. have also developed a falafel/hummus/pita problem, which I now wear comfortably as an added layer around my waist.

This last weekend, the Diplomat and I had the privilege to go to a (somewhat nontraditional) Israeli wedding. It did not have a rabbi or any official ceremony, but rather the family and close friends of the couple gathered under the spacious chuppa (the canopy under which a Jewish couple stands during the wedding ceremony) and everyone told an apparently hysterical anecdote about the pair, of which we understood nothing but thought delightful as everyone around us could not stop laughing. It did have a ton of appetizer food (of insane variety and quality) BEFORE the anecdote ceremony, and then a serious late lunch AFTER it (of crazy variety and unreal quality). All the while we were drinking excellent wine and some other highly spirited drinks that I do not seem to remember well now. And then we danced. And then the Diplomat said we should be going home because he was tired. I think he did not have as many of the highly spirited drinks as I did, because I was of a different opinion. He won.

I should mention here that some months ago, before the war started, we also went to a Christian Palestinian wedding in Jericho, which is located in the West Bank. Here is a side-by-side comparison of both:

Palestinian wedding	Israeli wedding
Copious amounts of excellent food	Copious amounts of excellent food
Many, many dressed to kill guests	Many, many mostly casually dressed guests
Hours of constant dancing by everyone	Some dancing by the young ones
Really, really nice, interesting people	Really, really nice, interesting people
One bottle of scotch whiskey per table, which I took on as a personal challenge (wine and beer on demand)	Open bar, which I took on as a personal challenge (including the random arak shots)
DJ fond of Arab music, all of which sounded like one endless same song to me	DJ fond of 70s music, sprinkled with what sounded like Arab music but in Hebrew (I was told it was Moroccan Jewish)
I had a ton of fun but had to leave because of Embassy curfew on staying in the West Bank, which was unfortunate because by midnight, the wedding was just heating up	I had a ton of fun but had to leave because the Diplomat claimed to be tired

Now all I have left to do is attend a Bedouin and a Druze weddings to complete my local anthropological research of the region. I am open to invitations.