Flight out

5 hours hanging around Newark (because the hotel check-out time was noon). There was another layer of security at the gate, which was odd- I suppose I probably should have expected that. I also should have expected to find the gate full of obviously Orthodox Jews, but I didn't expect that either. It was a very strange, very sudden culture shock. Perhaps one-half obviously observant Jews, and the rest all still looked Jewish, a handful of Muslims, me, and about three other families. It was... strange. Much, much stranger than I had prepared myself for, even though I obviously should have been prepared.

The flight itself was strange too. I have never been in a more religious group. Everywhere, people were reading out of books that were obviously scriptures of one type or another. Three or four different little kids were being told religious stories, Christian or Jewish. Two times during the flight a large group of men, completele with shawls and phylacteries, gathered in the only open space (a little exit-row bulkhead area) to pray, and people stood alone in the aisles at various places rocking back and forth. Three times Muslims spread out little prayer rugs in that same bulkhead space. When the meals were served, I heard two varieties of Christian grace and some other prayers. The sheer extent of it was truly and deeply bizarre.