It has been a tough week getting ready to leave with multiple minor disasters, none on our schedule, requiring significant time to address.  These include a partially destroyed boat covering (a day to rebuild), dead cars (two - each requiring battery charging and multiple efforts) and a plumbing meltdown the evening before we left.  And it started to snow, though not sufficiently to entice us to clear the driveway before we left.  Yeah, first world problems.  In spite of our whining, we got off in good order yesterday and began the long slog to Israel.  First up was the "short" hop to Seattle with one of the largest humans we have recently encountered on an airplane, sitting between us.  Inexplicably he refused our generous offer to let him have an aisle seat and so for Craig at least, jammed as he was between the cabin wall and the Hulk, it was his most painful flight since Aeroflot in the 1980s.  (Phyllis was actually quite comfortable on the aisle.)  Nonetheless we survived and once we arrived at SeaTac, after dining at the Brewtop Social courtesy of Priority Pass, we set up camp in the British Airways lounge.  

After a mere five hours at SeaTac we boarded a British Airways 787, this time happily ensconced in business class for the eight-and-a-half-hour flight to London (thank you tail winds).  This was the best business class seat we have ever had.  Craig could actually stretch out full length.  Then nine hours in the Heathrow BA lounge and off to Tel Aviv.  Again we were in BA business class in a 787 but with a dramatically different setup.  This time Craig could stretch out as long as he wished on the lay flat-seats -- so long as his wish was to lie in a fetal position.  It was, however, better than the alternatives and it was only five short flight hours until we landed at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.  Passport control and baggage were very efficient and we soon found ourselves in a very nice arrival hall about 5:00 a.m.  We were not meeting our driver until about 8:00 so we spent three hours productively . . . getting shekels from an ATM that we thought our research showed to not charge fees, installing our Israeli SIM in Craig's iphone, and wandering around the cavernous arrival hall.  That is, Craig wandered -- Phyllis made a beeline to a nearby coffee shop for her first mocha of the trip.