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Trip report: Israel 1/3
Sep. 24th, 2011 07:48 pmAny travel to Israel starts and ends with airport security. After reading several scary stories, I was surprised how fast and easy the screening process was for us.
There were just two things that we were surprised about.
1. There was an armored vehicle with a machine gun on top near El Al airplane right on the airfield in MUC.
When boarding was complete and engines started, I expected it to stay, but it was accompanying the aircraft until take-off! (It decided not to fly with us) Same on the way back.
2. There is a special terminal in MUC one have to use to fly to/from Israel! Officially it is part of a terminal 1, but it is a separate building located quite far from both terminals. It takes a while to get there following signs. There is a shortcut somewhere but we did not look for it.
"Extra security measures" were in fact 5 minutes chats with security officers. Both times they were young, nice and polite. Besides obvious questions regarding our baggage they were interested in our itinerary. I had an impression that on the way back they checked if the answer to a question "what places have you visited" matches with an answer to "what do you plan to visit".
While in the country, we did not see a lot of security measures - just bag checks to get to a supermarket (like in Istanbul), and plenty of young soldiers off duty, some with guns but w/o magazines.
( Read more... )
One thing I was surprised about was plenty of cotton fields we've seen in country side. I reckon cotton is very labor intensive culture to grow, and the need for workers is seasonal. Picking cotton should be hard, I wonder who works there?
Also it was quite unusual to understand (and experience!) that every 6th person around likely understands and speaks Russian. There is no shortage of Russian speaking population here in Germany too, but it feels like an funny lottery in Israel.
Most of our pics from Israel are in a picasa album
There were just two things that we were surprised about.
1. There was an armored vehicle with a machine gun on top near El Al airplane right on the airfield in MUC.
When boarding was complete and engines started, I expected it to stay, but it was accompanying the aircraft until take-off! (It decided not to fly with us) Same on the way back.
2. There is a special terminal in MUC one have to use to fly to/from Israel! Officially it is part of a terminal 1, but it is a separate building located quite far from both terminals. It takes a while to get there following signs. There is a shortcut somewhere but we did not look for it.
"Extra security measures" were in fact 5 minutes chats with security officers. Both times they were young, nice and polite. Besides obvious questions regarding our baggage they were interested in our itinerary. I had an impression that on the way back they checked if the answer to a question "what places have you visited" matches with an answer to "what do you plan to visit".
While in the country, we did not see a lot of security measures - just bag checks to get to a supermarket (like in Istanbul), and plenty of young soldiers off duty, some with guns but w/o magazines.
( Read more... )
One thing I was surprised about was plenty of cotton fields we've seen in country side. I reckon cotton is very labor intensive culture to grow, and the need for workers is seasonal. Picking cotton should be hard, I wonder who works there?
Also it was quite unusual to understand (and experience!) that every 6th person around likely understands and speaks Russian. There is no shortage of Russian speaking population here in Germany too, but it feels like an funny lottery in Israel.
Most of our pics from Israel are in a picasa album
