the road to jerusalem

it was flawless. not only did we fly to london first class thanks to a frequent flier mile upgrade, we also got bumped up to business class on the second leg (with no FF miles spent). for the entire 17 hours of travel, i could fully straighten my legs without hitting anyone else's seat.

security on arrival was also a lot easier than i feared. my brother had warned me when he visited israel last year, it took him 1.5 hours of questioning because of the lebanese stamp in his passport. i have both a lebanese and syrian stamp, so i thought i would go through at least as much as him. they did see the stamps and took me aside for questioning. but all they asked was my profession, why i was visiting israel, how long i was staying, and whether i wanted them to stamp in my passport. after giving 4 one-word answers, i was sent through.