it’s all about the journey

Lately, I have been much more chatty with the general public, and that was quite evident on my recent trip to Israel.   For some reason, I engaged in long conversations with all of my seat-mates on this trip.  This has not been typical of me on my recent spurt of plane flights, don’t know why. 

First up was Davey.  He’s probably 65 years old, has a wife, children, lots of grandchildren, and lots of ideas.  He got his pilot’s license at 50, is a speed-reader, and was down in Chicago pitching his idea to an online retailer with the hopes that it will someday get on some special Oprah show.  It’s called the Davey-bar, a telescoping safety bar that one would use in hotel rooms to keep unsavory characters from getting in.  He’s originally Icelandic, and I’m reading an Icelandic book for my book club this month, so we talked about that for a long time too.  He gave me his card so I could say that I knew him when, before he will become famous with his new invention.

Next was a guy who had been in a Canadian version of Peace Corps (World University Service or something), but in Botswana.  Now he’s a professor and is continuing to work on global development.  He was on his way to a conference in South Africa about getting electricity and water to the masses in southern Africa.  Since I lived in Zimbabwe and am still interested in that sort of thing, we had a lot to talk about.  He’s met Morgan Tsangirai.

(I had to transfer twice to get a cheap ticket, so had three flights on the way to Israel.) Last flight, from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv, I was sitting next to an older Israeli businessman.  He was quite wealthy, apparently, was in real estate all over the world, and was coming back from checking on his property in France.   We chatted, he was nice enough, we talked about Israel and Hebrew, and his son, daughter, and grandchildren.  At the end he asked for my card and almost immediately he emailed me wanting to get together whenever I’m in Israel.  Apparently he is not still married.  I wasn’t interested in getting together, for the record.

While in Jersualem, I went one night by myself (when Peter wasn’t around) to my favorite restaurant.  The waiter is a nice guy who stops to chat with me when I’m there, so I thought I’d catch up with him.  His english isn’t as good as I thought it was, because even though I had told him that I was here for work the last time, he thought I lived in Jerusalem, and asked why I hadn’t been back.  I said again that I was only here for work, for the week.  It was clear he still didn’t understand when he asked if I wanted to hang out with him the next week, during Passover.  I said I was leaving on Friday, so then he asked if I could come back Thursday night.  That was the end of that cute little interaction.  Maybe this is the reason why I’m not chatty, generally.

On the flight back, there were two very interesting women.  The first was a Canadian who lives on a kibbutz north of Tel Aviv and flies back to see her mom in Ontario every year.  She, her sister, and her mom were going to spend Passover together and it sounded like they were going to get into fights again.  Apparently this woman (my seatmate) always fights with the two of them about meals.  She eats a big meal at lunch, and they eat the big meal at dinner.  There is no compromise amongst the three of them, it seems, so my seatmate makes a big meal at lunch while they have sandwiches, and then at dinner they make a big meal and my seatmate refuses to eat their food and has something cold and small.   Sounds like it’s going to be a happy week.

The last woman was the most interesting.  She lived in Toronto but was going to see her boyfriend in Chicago — they were both artists who wanted to live abroad after they both graduate from their respective art schools, and it sounds like they are perfect for each other.  We talked about living abroad (they are thinking south africa or kenya), about Chicago, about Toronto, and about how the airline is so wasteful by giving every person a napkin with their drink [she yelled at the attendant]. 

There’s a point with everyone where you realize that our commonality only goes so far.

Anyway, I’m not in touch with any of these people [well, maybe Davey], but they were fun while we were together.  It’s all about the journey.

Posted by Marie on April 8th, 2007 under Uncategorized

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