Flight Date Set

A Minus: 3 Months, 4 Days

A few minutes ago I received an email from Nefesh B'Nefesh. They confirmed my flight date as Tuesday, August 15th, which happened to be exactly my target date. Excellent!

Last year, almost all flights left from JFK in New York, but there were so many Canadians making aliyah as well that they decided to have two syncronous flights, one leaving JFK and one leaving New York City, which landed in Tel Aviv simultaneously amid great fanfare. This year, NBN 0pened a new office in London, so there will be three simultaneous flights landing in Tel Aviv. What's next, Australia?

This year there are so many people who want to go that the New York flight is overbooked, so we West Coast folks are being shifted over to the Toronto flight. Fortunately, my friends Meshullam and Miriam, who helped me so much with my Hebrew, later moved to Toronto, so I'm going to try to swing in for a quick visit if possible.

The latest issue to deal with is my Visa, which NBN requires before approving me for my aliyah flight. My shlichah told me she would mail me the application forms for the visa, but they never arrived. When I tried to call her today, I got a message saying she's out for a week or so. I called the Los Angeles consulate and they told me that there is some sort of "Booking form" that I need to send them before they will send me the visa application. I don't think it's a problem. Then again, I have no idea what they're talking about, so maybe it is. Just one more thing.