Our flight landed around 6:45 AM, and when we got out of the plane there was a middle aged man from the AACI waiting right after we got through the walkway that takes you out of the plane and into the airport. He was holding a hand written sign with seven names, two of which were Horwitz and Levinson. He spoke with a heavy New York accent and when we had all assembled he led the way.
His name was Shmuel, and he had made aliyah in '69 (the airport was a lot less of a fortress back then, he said). Although AACI and Nefesh B'Nefesh do essentially the same thing - make aliyah easier for Anglos - the two have different feels about them. AACI is older, and its staff/volunteers seem to hail from older generations of Anglo olim. NBN is younger. And while NBN handles the group flights, AACI is there for you when you make aliyah as an individual.
This worked out perfectly for us. We followed Shmuel to the part of the airport where you get in one of the passport lines. We went into one of the empty Israeli lines and each declared aliyah (as in, verbally declared). After that, we took a nearby elevator up to the misrad klita.
Shmuel said that any group larger than about 8 or 9 gets taken to Terminal 1, the old airport. That's because the office in the new airport is tiny, with only room for a couple people. In Terminal 1 they have a much bigger, more streamlined office. Our group was small enough, which meant we didn't have to waste an extra hour and a half just traveling to and from Terminal 1.
All that happens in the misrad haklita office is that you are given a piece of paper to sign with you mispar zehut on it. You are then given a piece of paper to take to the post office (for your health insurance) and a piece of paper to take to the bank. Shmuel very clearly labels each sheet 1, 2 and 3, and writes where to take each. Step 4 is to go to your local misrad klita and just sum up all of what you've done.
Then you go into a room where a sullen Russian guy withdraws some cash from a giant ATM and gives it to you. And like that, you are officially Israeli!
Our cab was really more like a 15 seater van for just the two of us, which was good because we had so much stuff. We left the airport around 9 AM, confident that we would get to Haifa in plenty of time to meet our shippers, who were supposed to come that afternoon around 1.
However, when we called the shippers it turned out that they had to postpone our delivery until Tuesday morning. It felt like we had wasted the whole expedited processing for nothing. Still, Tuesday wasn't so bad. Aside from some traffic, it was a pleasant ride up to Haifa.
When we arrived at our new place, our landlady had adorned the door with a handwritten ברוכים הבאים sign. She greeted us warmly, and showed us to our new kitchen table, where she had set up cold drinks for us. A few minutes later she brought out a celebratory cake in our honor. As if this wasn't enough, she showed us where to pull out mattresses from storage after hearing about the delay in our shipping. We couldn't have asked for more.
The rest of the day consisted of napping, getting a few groceries and pharmacy items (see hydrogen peroxide), and using our laptops until their batteries ran out... since we didn't have adapter plugs. But it was better that our computers forced us to resist the temptation to use them, because the sleep into which we promptly collapsed was much-needed.
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