And so it begins.

I can pretty much guarantee that this travel blog won’t be as interesting or as detailed as others you might have seen, but I figure I'll give it a try.

I'm typing this on the first leg of my journey, which is from JFK to London Heathrow. It’s a 7-hour flight, and I can't sleep because it's the middle of the day and the seat's not very comfortable. It was an 8:40am flight, which meant that I had to leave Fairfield at 5am, which, let me tell you, was not fun at all. Of course, once I got to the airport, there was almost no one there so checking my bags and getting through security took almost no time at all… which meant that I probably could have slept for another 45 minutes or so. But, you know, it’s better to be safe than sorry, and all that crap.

So I was sitting in the terminal for about an hour and a half playing the waiting game. The Colbert Report was on TV near the flight gate though, so it wasn’t a complete waste. I also discovered that apparently there’s only free Wi-Fi in the JetBlue terminal, but not the rest of the airport. But I found a bank of Ethernet connections, so it’s all good.

Just as an aside, I'm flying on British Airways, and the flight crew’s accents make me happy. I love non-American accents.

But enough of the boring "this is what happened" stuff. This will be my third visit to Israel, after the March of the Living in April 2004 and Birthright Jamaica Queens in January 2007, and I'm definitely excited about getting back to the country, despite my arrival time of 5:30am. (Say what you will about the politics and military action; it really is a beautiful country.) For those who don’t know, I'll be living in a town called Ramla, which is about a half-hour from Tel Aviv, and I'll be there until November 24th. I’ll be participating in an Oranim program known alternatively as "Community Involvement" or "Israel Service Corps," although, I don't actually know what that means yet. Details are pretty fuzzy, but here's what I do know (I think): The first week is orientation, and then the next couple of weeks are for Ulpan, which is a Hebrew language immersion class. After that, the volunteer period starts, but I don’t yet know what my placement will be for that. Details forthcoming.