·:[ Arik’s blog ]:·
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Well, I’ve landed. On the 18th actually.

The flight here was strangely eventless. Frankly, I expected more “security”. Ever since September 11th, and even before, there was a lot of “security” around flights to Israel, but this time everything went so smoothly I was surprised.

When I tried to check-in online, I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t. When I came into the airport, I tried the kiosk, not really believing I will be able to actually get boarding passes from an automated machine. Sure enough, as I finished entering my details, I was told to call an attendant.

So I did, and the attendant looked at the kiosk’s screen, and then she did something to the kiosk (which I’ll refrain from writing about online). To her command, the kiosk stopped showing the dumbed-down clean interface and started spewing useful information on the screen.

It told the attendant that I am travelling internationally. It told her that there is a list of documents that she needs to make sure I have. The list contained one item: a passport. There was more information than I knew the airline knows on the screen. There was my passport number, and there was text explaining how the passport needs to be checked. There was general travel information about Israel, and there was information regarding Palestinians when they travel to Israel.

The attendant asked for my passport, checked a “verified” box and hit a button. The kiosk returned to the dumbed-down mode, and I was able to continue my check-in, select a seat, get the boarding passes. And that was that. I didn’t even get the dreaded quad-S tag on my boarding pass. It was that easy. No additional security on the connection, no cordoned area near the gate, just showed my boarding pass and the US-VISIT barcode and I was on my way.

Speaking about US-VISIT, this is the first time I get to use the US-VISIT kiosks. You wave the machine readable part of the passport under a scanner, fingerprint your two index fingers on a reader and have your picture taken, all on your own. The kiosk then proceeds to print out a HUGE 2D barcode. I need to scan it and see what it has. Maybe it has a really low-res version of my image. I don’t think it’s an invasion of privacy. After all, the US has my picture and fingerprint several times over now, what with the requirement for my work visa and all.

So now I’m in Israel. I’m still trying to sell my car here, if you want a 98′ Opel Corsa, stick shift, 160,000 km, 1 year “test”, well treated and at a bargain price, contact me.