Soccer Dad: To israel and back in pictures

June 20, 2007

To israel and back in pictures

June 12, 2007 at Dulles.
We were sitting on the runway a bit. So I took a picture of the nearby wing.

Soon the overcast skies turned to rain. Actually, it was a thunderstorm, necessitating a delay of about 1.5 hours.

Sunlight again as we approached Madrid. I had hoped for a sunrise picture, but somehow I was apparently facing west.

I didn't know what this international symbol stood for. Given the apparent urgency of the fellow, I thought it was for bathrooms. My father told me it was an exit sign.

We headed to the airport June 17, 2 AM, Israel Time. One fun thing about available light photography is that doesn't take a lot of skill to have your photos look like artwork. Riding in a car going 70 kmh or something like that is sufficient.

Ben Gurion airport has become a lot busier over the last 20 years. The airport has expanded and that's reflected in the number of international flights available. The international flavor of Ben Gurion is reflected in the shopping. For example, 20 years ago the candy shop carried only Elite products; now the airport candy stores are owned by foreign concerns and carry a variety of European products and you have to check to see if what you're buying is Kosher. It's no longer a given.

I'd estimate that these two islands were somewhere near Italy. I couldn't get to the north side of the plane to see if there were any land masses on the other side that would make identification easier. There were a number of boats suggesting we were passing over a shipping lane. Also two of the boats appeared to have nets floating behind them suggesting that they were shipping boats. My guess is that these islands are too small to show on most maps.

The above two pictures are of the eastern Spanish coastline and a lake slightly inland. As with the islands above, I'm assuming that these are too small for identification purposes. I tried last night with Google maps, but I'm guessing it would take quite a few hours to go over the territory to find landmarks this small.

Finally a picture of clouds and their shadows. One of the most amazing sites you see from an airplane is an object with its shadow. (It's also neat to see the planes shadow on clouds.)