ISRAEL! Flying to our 96th country (our crazy travel day)

Well, we have officially made it into our 96th country of Israel. However, my bag did not.

And I think there's about a 75% chance that it was stolen.

Go to the airport.

Today. Could get interesting. I hope it doesn't, but there's a good chance that it will.

We are planning our entire lives at the very last moment right now. And it's been working out for us, but occasionally it turns into a mess.

We're in the middle of a big mess.

It was an insane few days here in New York. We didn't have time to plan anything. We were thinking we were going to get on a standby flight to Israel last night. That didn't happen.

We spent a few hours with the everything that we own sitting at Chipotle trying to figure out what to do.

Who goes to Chipotle for Wi Fi. And long story short, we are back at the airport again today attempting to fly standby, but this time not directed to Israel because there's also no availability for that. Today we're just trying to head in that general direction.

Today we're flying to Naples, Italy.

The thinking is like, that'll get us halfway there, and then we'll figure it out from there.

We've never been to Naples. We're not planning on going into Naples. We just needed to leave the United States. That was the first priority. Second priority is to get to Israel.

For tax purposes, we can only spend so many days inside of the US or else we pay a lot of taxes. So today is the last day that we can be the US or we lose a lot of money.

So once we get to Italy, we.

Have no plan because we're flying standby. Nothing's for sure. Which means that we can't plan or book anything else in advance. Based on what I've seen, there aren't a lot of easy connections between Naples and Israel. It's a mess. But life could be way worse right now. Based on the amount of availability that's on this plane, we're probably going to be sitting in business quite soon. We realize that our lives are crazy and unrelatable. All right, let's see if we get on this flight.

We made it.

If nothing else goes as planned today, this was a win. Now we have eight hours to Naples, Italy.

Oh, fancy. I'm pretty sure this is the exact same amazing kit that we had last time we flew All United, so I don't think I need to go through every little thing. I am going to put my socks on.

This is seriously the softest Bow we've ever had.

To get it right now.

Yeah. Push over limits with you right now.

Gotta get it right now. Yeah. Push your limits with you right now.

Gotta get it right now. Yeah. Push over.

Right now.

We don't belong in business class.

All right. We are in Naples. Our bodies think it's 2am and not sure this is the best time to be making a lot of decisions, but.

It was a great flight.

Got out of the US in business class.

So, so sleepy.

Also developed a major head cold on that flight.

Hopefully we can find somewhere with some good Italian.

What's up? He.

How's it going?

What's up?

Okay. This is so crazy, but as soon as we landed, I turned on my phone and I got a text from our friends. He's and Alyssa. And they were like, oh, my gosh, guys, we're on our way to Naples right now and we have extra space in our Airbnb, so if you get stuck in Naples, you can come stay with us. I can't believe the timing of this. Like, how well this is working out. Like we literally had nowhere to go, no flight booked, and now we get to go hang out with some friends. So I think we're just going to get a coffee and hang out until they get here.

All right. We're just use McDonald's as our office for the last seven hours.

I'm so glad you here. This is so random. I love it.

This is so random.

This is great.

And three days later, we are back in McDonald's at the airport. We had such a fun, unexpected weekend, hanging out with Heath and Alyssa, seeing their new baby eating way too much pizza and gelato, if there is such a thing. And the place that have I they booked for us to stay was like a museum slash mansion. It was awesome.

Ciao, guys.

We really didn't do that much because Nate's cold. That he got on the flight on the way here has gotten worse.

Hurts.

So sad. But the good news is we officially have flights to Israel tonight at 10:00pm it's going to be a long night.

Even plain old lounge pasta is good in Italy.

All right, now we have a two hour flight to Barcelona.

I'm already so tired.

It's 10pm.

We're in Barcelona.

Cold here.

We board our next flight in an hour. All lounges are closed.

I think maybe if I go on the plane like this, nobody will sit beside us.

We are boarding about 30 minutes late, but we are on the front of the plane, which means we can probably put our bags up and have Leg room. Unlike the last spot, we have four hours to to.

Hopefully we can get some sleep on this flight. No one's sitting between us. We didn't know.

They worked. I don't know why no one wanted to sit here. Welcome on board.

We are now getting ready for takeoff. Please fasten your seat belt.

Make sure your seat is in the upright position with the armrest down, the tray table stone and the window blinds. Ra.

Thank you.

Well, we have officially made it into our 96th country of Israel. However, my bag did not. And I think there's about a 75% chance that it was stolen. Karen and I were sitting on the other side of the room waiting on our bags to come down the conveyor belt. I saw Kara's bag fall out. I saw what I thought was my bag fall out on top of it. And then we slowly made our way over there to pick up our bag. Kara's bag was there, Mine was not, and mine never showed up. So one of two things has happened. Either my bag just never made it here. That's the ideal scenario at this point, or someone intentionally or unintentionally stole my bag bag. Which is like, a big deal for any traveler, but, like, that's pretty much everything I own and have owned and have used for the last four years. It's currently 8am we can't check into our Airbnb till 3, so we just thought we'd hang out at the airport and hope something good happened.

He did everything that he's supposed to do. He went and filled out a bunch of stuff in case somebody brings it back. Just stinks.

But I am wearing my favorite shirt.

After many, many hours at the airport, we can finally check into our Airbnb. So we are attempting to catch the train into town. Unfortunately, I'm still bagless. Feels so weird. I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something. I called right before we left, and it's not, like, promising. Nobody knows where my bag is. We're not gonna let this ruin the trip, though.

We think this is the right train. It's not the one that Google Maps said to take, but a random guy on the platform told us to get on this one. It'll take us where we need to go. He seems pretty confident with how my day is going. I'm sure we'll go straight there.

I'm so sorry.

I'm really okay. I think I just need sleep. Yeah.

We just got off the train and now we catch a.

Made it on the bus.

I cannot get over how perfect the Weather is.

It is perfect.

And when I looked at the weekly forecast, it's the exact same every single day. High 70s, low in the high 60s.

Oh, it's working.

Couch, bed.

Kitchen.

And.

This is what $100 a night gets you in Tel Aviv. A tiny apartment. Yeah, it's really not bad. It's in a great location, I think.

Hopefully near some good food.

Oh, there's air conditioning. Okay. We're great. Wow, it just got way better.

The giant outdoor patio.

Oh, it feels so good.

Okay, now for real. I've waited so long for this.

True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature. If you followed our journey for any amount of time, it's not a surprise to you that Nate has great character. But after the events that have unfolded the last couple of days, I feel like it's really, really showed. He had every right to be angry and upset. He's sick, he hasn't slept, and everything that he's been traveling with for the last four years is lost. But the way that he has responded to this situation has been so inspiring to me that I just wanted to share, because he doesn't talk about himself often. So just for a little context, we left to travel four years ago, and Nate has seriously been traveling to the same wardrobe ever since. He's only replaced things that absolutely had to be replaced because they had a hole in them or were just too gross to continue wearing. Basically, he doesn't value stuff. Nate is so good at looking at the big picture, and I am very, like, in the moment. Like, I'm very emotional, and I'm emotional about what's happening right now. It's really hard for me to zoom out and look at the big picture. And he is so good at that. Like, he does that immediately. It's like his default. Not only is he not upset, but when we got to our Airbnb, I begged him to go to H and M to use the insurance that we have with our credit card that we use to book this flight to go and get a whole new wardrobe and get it reimbursed, and he wouldn't go. Like, he just wanted to let it sink in for a minute that he only had the clothes on his back in his electronic bags. Thankfully, I finally got him to go to H and M last night. I told him that I wasn't gonna shower or change clothes until he got new clothes, so maybe that was it. Instead of Replacing his entire wardrobe. Like, he could have. Like, I would have, for sure. He looked at this as a challenge to live more minimally, which I thought we were already doing. He came back from H and M last night with one pair of pants, one T shirt, one jacket, a bathing suit because we're at the beach, and a pack of underwear which had three pairs, and that's it. And he truly thinks that that's enough to get him through the rest of the year. That's all he needs, which seems crazy to me, but, like, how cool that he took this situation, that, like I said, he. Nobody would have blamed him for being angry, but he hasn't been for a single second and has completely twisted this situation to be a fun challenge. So whether Nate's bag finds its way back to us or not, this has been a really cool experience to watch unfold. I really don't know why I'm sharing this. I think I just knew that he wouldn't. I'm so blessed that he's mine, and I get to grow and learn from him every day. I am definitely a better person because I have Nate. It's very inspiring.

Thank you for calling Welling. Please let us know what type of.

Problem you had with your luggage. Lost. Okay, check the status. Only works if I speak in a terrible English accent.

Your luggage has been located, and we have started to arrange delivery to the address stated in the purse.

No way.

What?

Oh, this is crazy.

I was positive that someone had taken it. Oh, and I just bought all these new clothes.

Still sick. I was realizing, like, as the day went along, just how annoying this was gonna be. It was, like, every step of the day, I'd be like, I need. I need a tooth. I need the charger for. I need new underwear, deodorant, socks. I was really okay with having two shirts and two pairs of pants, so I was kind of excited about that. Now to.

Message our Airbnb host friend, whose WhatsApp number he gave me if we need to arrange delivery. We're still not out of this yet.

There's still a chance we're never gonna get the bag.

Do you speak English?

I don't know. I don't know the speaker. Ah. Hello. Grey one on top. Yay.

I don't think it's gonna tell me where I got lost, but isn't there.

A chance that it was never lost at an airport and that somebody took it at the airport and then returned it to the airport?

I don't think we'll ever know what happened.

Nate.

It's just funny how okay I had become with losing all this stuff. Okay. This four, four adapter thing, they don't make this anymore. I was really, really sad about losing that.

Me too.

So sad. It was really inconvenient losing our water bottle purifier, like, everything in this toiletry bag. Not having that was annoying. That's especially now. I'm sick of anything so bad. There's one more thing in here that was like the most annoying thing. I never, ever put electronics in this bag. But we were flying buing and they're like a budget airline who charges you for having too much weight in your carry on. So, like, I moved everything that, like, wasn't a battery or breakable into this bag. So I was missing, like a bunch of annoying, random. This one. This is like the other half of the drone charger. So I couldn't charge any of our drone batteries, which was a tragedy. And the thing that came us most.

Seems very simple. This little expandable coffee maker. I'm so happy, very, very excited to have it back. But I also think this has made me, like, rethink how much stuff I really need. Like, it's just been building up over the last few years.

I want to give you a kiss, but I don't want to get sick.

Don't get sick. It's not worth it. It's not worth it.

But she sees the phone out. She, like, will look right at it. I think that was a frown. I think that was a frown.

No, it was a smile. It was a smile.

Oh, there it was. How cute is this?

I almost hoard all the cheese on the ticket.