We left Jerusalem on Tuesday evening, which was the same day Condi was in town causing all sorts of traffic jams and mayhem.

There’s one Delta flight per day from Tel-Aviv to Atlanta that departs at 11:40 p.m. We’re flying on pass, which means we show up at the airport and hope there are open seats. There were none Tuesday night so we had to find a hotel in Tel-Aviv, which is about 20 minutes north of Ben Gurion Airport.

Tel-Aviv is a tourist/vacation town located on the Mediterranean. Summer time is when most Israelis are taking there vacations and all the hotels we called didn’t have any rooms available, except one: The Ami Hotel. By the time we had called hotels, rounded up our bags, got a cab and got to Tel-Aviv, it was 2:00 a.m.

When we arrived at the Ami Hotel it was difficult to discern if it was a crack house or a whore house. Maybe both. One thing was for sure: my family was not going to stay in this place. Things got even better when we realized we had no more sheckels (Israeli currency) for paying additional taxi fare to search for hotels up and down the main strip.

It was unclear whether our taxi driver was in a hurry or just a dick when he left me, my wife, two little girls and all our baggage in front of a crack/whore house, speeding off into the night without even giving me the change he owed me.

We went to a hotel across the street from the Ami. It was nicer than the Ami and the front desk guy wasn’t loaded. They didn’t have any rooms available and no, our children could not sit in the lobby while one of us walked up and down the main strip inquiring about room availability at the many hotels that lined the street. So at 2:30 a.m., I found myself standing on a street corner in Tel-Aviv with a pile of luggage and two very tired and cranky little girls while Kacey went across the main strip to check for room availability at the hotels there.

At one of the hotels, Kacey encountered an angel of a woman at the front desk who actually called other hotels to see if they had a room was available. She found one and we hauled our bags several blocks up the street to the Shalom Hotel. It was a meager hotel, but very nice and clean. It was 3 a.m. by the time we got checked in and to bed.