Home sweet home (boo hoo)

Sleep will be a major casualty as we head back home. For those in the Eastern time zone, it means a 31 hour day. Bus loading is at 5:45 am, breakfast at 5:30. My late sleeping boys surprise me by being ready. They had talked about an all nighter which I agreed with. A final hasty breakfast and last goodbyes and we're loading the bus.  Five of my six juniors are all aboard and we're off to Tel Aviv-Yafo airport.  Traffic is generally light as we leave the highway for the airport.



The lateness of the closing ceremonies combined with a long bus ride home, gave us precious little sleep time. On my El Al flight home nearly all Maccabiah participants were sleeping for much of the first half of the 12 hour flight. Conversations were scarce but I managed to meet some wrestlers and other open athletes. Other than chess, this is not a flight for juniors in Haifa.

With all the new friendships formed, flight seats are swapped like clothing was the night before, so I move my seat to allow two golf team members 12 more hours to talk. I wind up seated between the gymnastics coach Daniel Ribeiro of Illinois, who has a major sleep deficit and works on it aggressively. I impress everyone with my ability to hoist myself over him and into the aisle without disturbing him.


My window neighbor is an interesting young open gymnast Cobey Pava. His biography page to the right of his picture:

I am Cobey Pava.  As you can see, I am African American; less obvious is I am also Jewish.  I am a student.  I will be graduating from Wolcott School in June, 2017 and starting at the University of Illinois, Champaign, in the Fall where I will be part of the Fighting Illini Men’s Gymnastics Team.  I am also a a gymnast. For those of you who know me, or even know a little bit about me, is  that I identify most as a gymnast.







There is one disruptive woman on flight who is yelling at just about everyone. She is temporarily restrained but fortunately she does not cause the plane to be turned around. We arrive at Kennedy without incident. An agonizingly slow luggage return extends our trip until we all go our separate ways back to normalcy.