From home to home

A few days ago I have landed back in the US after a 10-day visit to Israel. It was really strange to be flying “back” but away from my friends and family and the home I’ve lived in since I was a child. Because both places are “home” to me, but it doesn’t feel like I’m going “back”, no matter what the immigration officer said.

When I arrived in Israel two weeks ago, I immediately felt at home, even though I haven’t been there for half a year. My house, my room, all stayed the same as if I have never left. I was surprised how quickly I have adjusted to the 10-hour jet lag and to being at home. The first weekend was spent mostly playing my suitcase-full of board games. The weekdays were mostly spent at the Technion, meeting old friends and research colleagues, though I didn’t do any new research. In the second Friday, we hosted a mini boardgame party in our house, and the next day I went to my brother’s house in the center.

In between all that, I managed to review 12 papers, do some family tech support, and realize that my backup HD is officially dead (I’ve placed an order for a new one).

Some information about my flights: On the EWR-TLV (Newark - Tel Aviv) leg, I was in a fully booked brand new 777-200, with personal touch-screens and on-demand video, much better than the channel-based entertainment personal system on the 767. Therefore, I was surprised to see that channel-based system on the 777-200 on the way back. Luckily, I had an encapsulated entertainment system called “a book”, that’s even allowed during takeoff and landing. The next leg (EWR-SFO) was on a brand new 737-800. The plane was so new that they didn’t install the entertainment system yet — not even audio or public TVs. On the plus side, the plane was almost empty and I took over a whole row in the back of the plane, and lied does while using my paper-based entertainment system.

Now I’m back at Stanford, trying to do some new research.

Syndicated 2008-03-13 21:23:30 from Alon's Blog