The USA was, is, and always will be my dream land.
It took me several years to overcome my fears and make my first step on USA soil. Isn't it surprising that me, being an Israeli, am not afraid to travel all over my country, to walk for my pleasure on military paths near the boarders, under the eyes of the Hezbollah, visit any mall I wish, travel by buses, but shivered only from the thought to walk on the streets of New-York City, or travel along the country?!
Well it was the time before Mayer Giuliani, when the newspapers and films covered the stories of crime all over the country, like bands of motorcycles, and the situation in New-York City, especially the underground.
After I visited the USA for the first time, on 1993, it became like a magnet to me, and I visited the USA five times more, during the years 1994 thru 2001. Each visit lasted a month. So, I can say, proudly, that I lived in the USA for a period of half a year.
I had in my mind thoughts to put on some media the descriptions of those trips.
The last trip that I and my wife took was on 2001.
We started our tour on the 23rd of September and ended it on the 17th of October, having in mind to travel the state of New-York during the "Indian Summer".
For those who have no patient to read my entire story, I can summarize in brief that the root was from Chicago through the states of Indiana, Ohio, New-York, New-Jersey, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, and back to New-York City.
I always start planning our trips several months ahead. As the USA is so convenient for the tourists, I manage to plan for each day the places to visit and places to stay for the night. We find Super8, Best Western and Comfort Inn to be chains of perfect motels for our needs. I start my planning by marking on the map the places were those motels are, and I build the plan of the day to drive no more then 150 miles, because my back pains.
We booked our flying tickets on July 2001 to take off on the 23rd of September. Then happened "September 11". After we recovered from our shock, we decided that it is not typical for us, being Israelis, to cancel such a trip. Our family members and friends tried to prevent us from going to the USA in such a time. Now I felt for the first time the hesitations of those who want to come to Israel. But from our experience we knew that such terror activity cannot take place again too soon.
I myself felt that I have to "support" the American people with their grief and shock, after the long years they supported my people.
We passed much stressed days because all the flights to the USA were canceled, but we were lucky that several days before the 23rd of September, the flights were renewed.
So, the happy day came and we started our trip, flying with Lufthansa to Frankfurt to continue with them to Chicago.
I don't know how other people manage to sleep the night before the flight or during the flight. We slept very little, if any, before the flight, as the flight was due to take of at 5AM and we should be at the airport 3 hours before embarking the plain, because of the Israeli severe security check up. We couldn't also get some sleep during the flight because we were excited and worried about our connection. It was one hour interval between landing and taking off in Frankfurt, and according to the captain's announcement we were half an hour late. As the plain landed we rushed to the appropriate gate and to our astonishment we found ourselves in a long line. Immediately we felt at home: severe security check up! As it was only a few days after the renewal of the flights to the USA, the checkers did their job very slowly and according to the questions they asked one could feel the embarrassment of the security guys.
At last, after one hour delay we found ourselves in the air. The flight was very convenient, and after 8 hours we landed at the international terminal of Chicago airport. We were asked only about our purpose of coming, we got a tourist visa for 6 months, and we rushed on our way to our hotel, one of the Travelodge chain.
Chicago.
We woke up in the morning after sleeping some hours, with the known feeling of jet lack. The sun greeted us as a familiar friend. We liked the city from the first moment, almost like San-Francisco, the city we like most in the USA. It is a pleasure wandering through its streets especially the Michigan Ave with its lot of street sculptures. Where else can you take a picture with President Abraham Lincoln or ride an ox? In the back of my head I could hear Frank Sinatra singing his famous song about Chicago being his home town.
