Passporting

I flew into Rome today from Tel Aviv. My flight was supposed to leave at 6:00AM, but a schedule change made it 7:20AM. That didn't really matter much either way, as transport to the airport required me to leave Jerusalem this morning at 1:45. Not a lot of sleep.

Entering Israel overland from Jordan, which I did on the 3rd of this month, took about four hours total. There was about 45 minutes of general standing around wondering what was going on on the Jordanian side, a short bus trip, and then about two and a half hours of standing around knowing exactly what was going on (nothing) on the Israeli side. After standing in line for what seemed like forever, not because of there being so many people, but rather because the Israeli agents kept leaving their booths, ignoring people to chat amongst themselves, going on break, or changing personnel (our line processed about 10 people in those 2.5 hours) we finally got up to the agent.

Here I was barraged with questions: what was I doing in Israel? Why was I there? Why was I in Jordan? What did I do there? Had I ever been to Syria? Lebanon? Morocco? Egypt? Yemen? Where was I going in Israel? Just Jerusalem? Why? Was I going to the West Bank? Why didn't I want them to stamp my passport? Etc. Etc. After all of this, my photograph was taken, and they took a fingerprint from both hands - the only time in my life I've been fingerprinted. When crossing the border into a rogue Russian-supported internationally unrecognized breakaway communist state is EASIER for me than getting into Israel, I think that's a problem.

Leaving the country this morning was no easier. I lined up for security, which happens before you check in for boarding in Tel Aviv. While in line my bag was electronically sniffed for explosives and I was asked if I had any sharp things. Then someone checked my passport, and asked me why I was in Israel, when I had arrived, why I was in Jordan before, where I had been in Israel, if I had any friends, what their names were, and then if I had any other form of ID. I gave them a student card. They asked for another, so I dug out my driver's license. Apparently I didn't look like my photos, probably because I don't usually take my driver's license and passport photos at 3:00 AM after eight months of traveling around the world. I was handed over to another agent, who asked me all the same questions again. She handed me over to a third (my line was getting visibly annoyed at the holdup) who asked me all the same questions again, as well as a few more regarding whether I was keeping in touch with anyone in Jordan and who I was traveling with. Then she flagged my luggage.

I ran my luggage through the X-ray, and then because I had been marked I moved over to another counter, where all of my luggage was unpacked piece by piece in front of me and, again, electronically sniffed and x-rayed. After this process I was allowed to get my boarding pass.

That done, my passport and boarding pass were checked again, I went through a metal detector, and had my carry on luggage sniffed and x-rayed. THEN I went through passport control.

The entire process took about two and a half hours. I suppose I should be thankful for the super early airport arrival.

For your convenience, I have created a table that illustrates the amount of time passport control has required for the two latest countries I've entered. Like a good engineer, I've compared apples to apples by keeping the units the same.

Israel: 10,800 seconds
Italy: 5 seconds

Hmm...