Hey everyone! Today was an eventful day! We were all split up from our groups to fly to LA on about eight different flights. I (Ahuva Fried) was on the 6:05am flight and got no sleep. We arrived in LA at about 9:00am. Everything was going great until we were at baggage claim and I was the only one who did not receive my luggage. At first I was very nervous but my counselors told me not to worry, they would find it. So we waited for the luggage by the 7:45am flight but it didn’t come out there either. We made a claim but the lady behind the desk, Tanya, said that the luggage with my name on it was scanned and was definitely in the airport. I went through every luggage until I found my name on someone else’s bag. That morning the woman who checked us in confused our luggage and many people had different names on their luggage than their own. Tanya found the only name tag that did not arrive which was my luggage and assured me that it would arrive on the 11:30 flight. In the meanwhile, I had a very interesting conversation with Tanya about the conflict in Israel and Judaism. Tanya also asked me why all of the girls on the flight were wearing skirts and that led to a whole conversation about modesty and Jewish ethics. Finally at 11:30am a few friends and counselors waited with me for my luggage to come and everyone cheered when it came out. Tanya announced,  “Congratulations,” on the loud speaker and thanked me for having such an intellectual conversation with her. I am so glad that I was able to educate Tanya about Israel and Judaism and it was definitely worth having my bag misplaced, as I would have never had a conversation with her had I not lost it. Overall, it was a very meaningful day for me. We finished off the day by going to the pier and being reunited with the rest of the group. We are so excited to get our west coast trip started!

 

P.S. Thank you Jesse Zucker and Yosef Garbow for waiting with me for my luggage.

 

By: Ahuva Fried