The Joys of Travel

So I'm sitting here in the Newark airport waiting for my plane to Tel Aviv. I've got a long layover, but it will be better in about half an hour when the Husker game starts. Thank God for the internet. I haven't missed watching or listening to a game in years, and I'm not about to start right now. GO BOFENSE!

This is my first time in New York, and I guess I'm not even really in New York. I did see the Empire State Building as we came in. I did my best to imagine King Kong smashing planes on the top. I think it worked. Everything else around the airport and the river looks like I thought it would based on crime and mafia movies. It was dockyards and big metal crates all over. I did my best to imagine some sort of "deal" going on in there. I don't think it worked.

Thus far, its been a pretty uneventful flight. I guess that is what you typically want when you fly. Typically, the only times you hear about a flight being eventful, bad things happen. At the very least, you miss your connecting flight and lose your luggage; at the other end, the plane explodes and you die. I'd prefer neither of those to happen, so I'm hoping my next and longest flight will be uneventful.

C'mon, Let's Light This Candle!

Needless to say, its been kind of a boring week. Not boring in the sense that I have had nothing to do (because I've kept myself reasonably occupied despite my new lack of both employment and work at the church), but the feeling of being in a state of stasis as I wait to leave tomorrow. Speaking of leaving, I'm pretty much all packed and ready to go. It still doesn't feel like I'm leaving, and I don't suspect it will until I'm waiting around at the airport. I've almost forgotten the joys of air travel.

Anyway, its been a good summer, and I'm looking forward to heading of to Israel so that I can do some adventuring and take my last steps towards graduation. I am, however, going to miss some things:

- my family. Thats kind of a no brainer.
- my friends. That includes the bros in Lincoln, everyone at HPEFC, and those in California.
- the college football season. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid. But its my favorite time of the year, and I really want to see my Huskers play. Oh well, thats why internet radio was invented.
- my bike. I wish I could have ridden more this summer. And the Vuelta begins this weekend.
- the fall season. I don't think I realized how much I love autumn until I moved somewhere where it doesn't really happen. I'm guessing Israel is similar.

This isn't everything. Not by a longshot. Just a few things that came to mind right away. But for as much that I will miss here, I'm sure there will be awesome stuff waiting for me in Israel. Well, I hope so, or else this will be a long trip.

By the way, I got a Skype account. If you want to call me on it, you can find me as mike.awtry. Also, I've still got AIM (my name is theawtch). I'm not sure how much I'll be on, but these would be some effective ways to communicate with me, if you ever felt the need or desire.

Welcomes and Other Awkward Introductions

This is the inagural post of this blog. If you're reading this, I guess you are in the loop of people who have gotten the address for my Israel blog. If not, then I guess you are some random stranger who happened to wander over here. That's fine, you're more than welcome to check back here as often as you like.

I guess I'll go ahead and state the reason why I've made this blog. In just a few scant days, I will be leaving to go live in Israel through the IBEX program through my school, The Master's College. I'm going to be gone until the middle of December, so I'll get the experience of living in the Jewish culture for about 4 months. I'm not going to be able to call anyone very often, though I will have my email ready. So in order to keep in semi-contact with others back home, I've made this to post my stories, experiences, pictures, and possibly videos while they are happening in Israel.

Thanks for tuning in, I guess. I plan on updating this on an almost daily basis, so check back often. Also, I know it kind of looks a bit rough. Over the semester, I'm going to try and make this look a tad bit better.