After many leaving parties, tears, saying goodbye to family and friends and worries about my packing I finally arrived at the airport to move to Israel and make aliyah.

After checking in my luggage and having my last Starbucks for a while (hello Aroma!) I headed for the gate, a mixture of nervous and excited. Well, mainly excited - I couldn’t wait to tell every El Al staff member I came into contact with that today was my special day.

Before deciding to move to Israel I worked for the JC, in customer services. And, in typical journalist fashion, as soon as my colleagues found out what I was doing they asked me to write about it. Coincidentally I made aliyah the week of Yom Haatzmaut and the JC ran a series of articles about the birth of Israel and what Israel means to different people both living there and in the diaspora. One of these pieces was written by me, looking at my decision to move out of my home and to a completely different country at the relatively young age of 21.

As I was on an El Al flight there were a fair few JCs floating around the plane and I laughed to myself as I saw my photo on the front page in other passengers’ hands.

I turned to the lady sitting behind me and casually suggested she look at the front page. When she realised what was happening, she leaped up and wished me Mazel Tov. The man I was sitting next to also joined in the conversation and it was nice to feel so much support from my fellow passengers.

Arriving at Ben Gurion was a different experience to previous trips, when I’d just been on holiday. I had to find a man from the Jewish Agency (the organization through which I made my aliyah) holding a sign with “Olim” written on it. This man escorted me and a group of other people making aliyah – including a guy who turned out to be on the same ulpan course as me and who I have now become close friends with - to process all our documents.  This took hours! My main concern throughout the whole process though was that I was missing all the Yom Haatzmaut celebrations! After about 4-5 hours of waiting, I finally got my documents and then I could go to collect my luggage.

The Jewish Agency staff saw us into complimentary taxis and we finally started to make our way to the ulpan and our temporary residences.

Arriving at the ulpan, my nerves kicked in: how am I going do this all alone? But as I was taking my luggage out the cab a group of friends walked by. They asked me if I was moving into the building and when I replied yes, they were so quick to help me with my luggage - perfect timing!

Eager to get out and celebrate my aliyah and Israel’s 70th birthday I didn’t even unpack; I grabbed a change of clothes and headed into the centre of Tel Aviv. There were street parties everywhere and the best atmosphere. What a great way to start my new life in my new homeland.

Next time: the realities of making a home in a new country