It is our first morning in Tel Aviv. We flew in yesterday on a long direct flight from Miami. El Al is the only airline flying direct from the US and we had to scramble to get tickets when our United flight was canceled. United cancelled all Tel Aviv flights till June. Might have been a little more helpful if they let us know more than two days in advance. But its ok- we are here.

Landed at Ben Gurion on time; sad to see such an empty airport. Sad to see the pictures of the hostages lining the walkway from arrival to passport control. The plane was totally full; the TV screen in front of you kept scrolling a poignant message: El AL will always bring you home. (Or some variation of that).

We took a walk on the beach last night. It was alive and filled with people. The traffic is still terrible; the food is still delicious; there seems to be more Israeli flags flying and of lots of signs referencing the hostages and a demand to bring them home – now.

Our plans this morning are to take a GET to Ramat Aviv and visit with our friend Adina who is now living in a some version of an Israeli senior living facility. Then we will meet up with the family and see how everyone is faring from their flights. I have made my first cup of coffee in the room – only one minor disaster- couldn’t get the Nespresso machine to work and had to switch over to instant spilling a fair amount of hot water. But I successfully updated my GET App (Israeli alternative to Uber). And I slept through the night. All is good.

My plan is a short blog a day while here. Maybe too ambitious, but at least it’s a plan. Shalom from Tel Aviv.

Ps – I am using my IPAD and can’t seem to control all the features so things like images are problematic. Hence screen shot above having too much info. Hey – you do what you can.