FLYING TO IRAQ WITH LIPA SCHMELTZER (Episode 1)

okay um it's been a crazy crazy day i'm in new jersey about 20 minutes away from newark airport and i just parked my car here and i'm waiting for an uber to come take me to the actual airport i'm about to get on a plane to baghdad iraq via turkey it's my first time heading over there and i'm going with a dear friend of mine and a very special person mr lipa schmelzer who is a famous hasidic superstar um it's a long story i'm going to explain more later i'm a little bit too nervous right now but we're just gonna get into the uber and get on the way okay so i'm at the airport it's an hour and 19 minutes before the flight leap was not answering his phone i wonder what how this is going to work out it seems like lipa got here already and he's checked in so i guess i'll meet him a little bit later 15 minutes five zero minutes before the flight i tried going through security and the tsa did not allow me through because they said my name was spelled wrong i need to get a new ticket i'm not checking again and the agents are working to try to figure it out so hopefully we make this flight i am drenched in sweat i'm at the gate waiting to board the flight the craziest things happened first my ticket wasn't good they had to change the name they changed the name twice csa wouldn't accept it i had to call the manager the manager did it then i went through security have all this electronics my microphones the cameras they made me go through again they put it through again because they wanted to check my cameras again finally i get to the gate area i realize i'm an entirely wrong gate area i have to go out back to the checking area go walk further down get into another tsa checkpoint i had a whole different side of the airport and i went through and i was sure i missed the flight and i got here and uh they're still boarding and almost no one's on the flight yet thank god thank you hashem okay so i'm here now with lipa at the gates yeah he's beautiful he says we're going to change our perception of iraq because i'm so afraid to be honest i was testing my belief in god because i have to be strong and believe in human beings that one day will all be a beast and we're taking the plans to go taking the leap of faith and uh yeah he almost missed it by a spelling mistake and this and that but we're finally here and uh we're thinking we're enjoying the ride we're taking it whatever it takes us 100 and this is going to be an amazing trip we're going to be safe we're going to be happy we're going to be healthy we're going to make amazing meaningful content we're going to change the world together so this is the kosher business class meal comes with a very cute sign here you're hungry i'm kosher we're eating dinner i gave away my cake i guess i'm generous to him and i'm generous to my body and i'm meeting mr healthy hamas yeah i'm very proud of lieber that he actually got on this flight because last night he had a little bit of a incident he decided not to come but he changed his mind at the end and i think i think he made the right decision i'll let you know on the way back okay so it's almost the end of our flight um we've been on the plane for about close to eight hours now so we're gonna be landing in istanbul thank god i got an amazing uh about four hour nap and lipo got some sleep too he is working learning how to use some of his musical gadgets so that he can produce some music on the go while he's traveling and we're going to do some writing having a good time anything to say yeah um i have fear but uh i'm gonna try to persevere because things can happen anywhere and things can be safe anyway there's uh there's something to to to think about when you go to a place where it's more dangerous than others you can't just be reckless but uh no pay no gain there's a risk in it and i think we're doing a mission to uncover colorful cultures that was varied for so long so i've been praying i'm saying from psalms to hillary because i promised god that if i make this flight i'm going to say the whole book today um it takes about two hours to say it and the little is drawing sketching so that's you saying and that's me having fear okay so we're in the lounge in istanbul we landed about an hour ago i'm going to be praying uh morning prayers here and uh soon we're off to back then okay so we just finished praying i'm gonna try to get a shower or something to change clothing a little bit because i can't wear my acidic jewish clothing in baghdad and uh our next flight is in about an hour and a half now we're in the uh turkish airlines lounge in istanbul this place is next level largest uh private bathroom shower i've ever seen at an airport look at this okay so i just finished my shower and i'm like a new person now comes the fun part i need to get rid of these and my skull cap and my fringes because i cannot walk around back there like that and i can't even be on the plane like that okay so we're at the airport in istanbul about to go back that lipa this is the last chance to check it out before we get on the flight oh it's not my last chance and it's not a chance to check it out because once i took the plunge and i said you know what i'm going to jump into it there's no way there's no way backing out i always i tell my friends that most people they say i'm not afraid of anything but then when something comes they go crazy i plan to be afraid beforehand and to get in my imagination the whole picture and all the case scenarios i don't want to say all the case scenarios but if i'm honest with you i did think of all the case scenarios and i made a decision to come and that's for me at this moment that i think and uh hopefully we'll be stable if you're safe it's going to be an amazing story so you sure you want to do this absolutely let's do it yellow but first a word from our sponsor mint capital is a residential mortgage brokerage firm we focus on brokering loans for one to four families private residence investment properties second homes purchases refinances cash out refinances we give the speed and ease experience for the client it just moves along so quick all you need to do aside [Applause] so we just took off for that we'll be there in uh two and a half hours here we go we just left third day coaching with flights to back up okay so we just arrived in baghdad here is a replica of the ishtar gate an old babylonian thing it's actually it's it's not as hot as i was expecting it to be what's this case the ishtar gate this is a replica of a babylonian uh what would you like [Music] so we're here at the tigris river and uh lipa very much wanted to come here to work on his project which we're we're gonna talk about his project when we get to the hotel but he came here and he composed the beautiful song on the spot i'm talking a little bit quiet because as an american and also the world where i come from the culture the security told me not to say to anybody like here my nationality nationalities it's usa but i'm talking a little bit quiet i'm looking around like an unconfident person but i want to tell you that every stone here in this place every stone will tell you the story of the history of our people the jewish people the talmud was written here come that's why it's named talmud badly by the by the babylonian sages of ours and i'm writing now songs about it and that's why i risked my life to come here i cancelled the trip made a decision to come back but i want to say that every stone can tell you the story of our people but every human being here will deny the story of our people and it's a shame i wish i would have the power to change the world not to point fingers on this type of person that type of person just to be a human being just to be together you know to show love and compassion to one another and every minute i'm here it's a miracle but nothing happened to me but you know what every minute of my life is america okay so we just arrived at the hotel we're outside and security's gonna be letting us in very shortly okay so we're finally in the hotel um i have a lot to tell you from when we landed in baghdad until we got to the hotel so basically we landed in baghdad we immediately got off the plane the airport is like kind of old um at least the terminal that we saw and there was really good air conditioning in the jet way and the ramp going from the plane to the terminal the second we got into the terminal it got really really hot and it got hotter and hotter every minute i told lip i feel like i'm gonna slow cook or keep you know getting hotter and hotter um we went to passport control and they sent us away they told us to go to a special visa counter we went to the visa counter and we had to hand in our passports and then they made us wait for like a half hour until everyone else was processed and we were like the only two people left in the terminal and then some guy came over to us and he's like 77 from each of you so we just gave him cash and a minute later we had our visas then we went back to the passport control and they allowed us through then we had to go through customs we had to put all our bags through uh baggage scanner then outside we met our guide and our driver they drove us to the hotel on the way we passed uh the exact location where kasom solomani the iranian uh kudz force general was assassinated by the united states in the in january of 2020. there's a big mural of kasim solomoni and it says we will not forget the blood of our martyrs is the exact spot where they killed custom solamani wow look at this is literally the shrapnel hit the wall he was assassinated right here i don't see anything oh that is his car no way that's custom solomon's car out there you can't really see much but it's called and there he is here is the crime of american terrorist terrorism these people were with him yeah wow so that was pretty crazy we passed by and there's literally you can see shrapnel marks on the wall and there was his car all blown up and mangled on on display and it says we will never forget the blood of our martyrs so pretty like uh pretty intense stuff and historical stuff that we saw and then finally on the way to the hotel our god this is really crazy i can't believe this happened um our guide pointed out that they were we literally saw like shells or missiles being fired into the air and i was like are we safe and it's like yeah they usually don't land here and i was like oh my gosh i never seen live fire before like that heavier artillery uh turns out that there was a drone that was threatening uh us military interests and they shot it down we literally saw it happen and i checked now i see it's in the news and someone's had to be a video of it happening so it's pretty crazy that we saw that i definitely did not feel safe when that was going on but uh thank god we arrived at the hotel the hotel is beautiful um especially the lobby areas a lot of cool stuff that i'm going to show you guys in the morning leepa's choosing a room on the high floor so he can go out on the river you want to talk explain what you want to do yeah i want to be here on the river i want to paint a little bit i want to take some pebble stones i want to hold it i want to touch it i want to feel it i want to talk to it i want to hear back i want to be silenced and just listen to the border and the word should help tell me the stories of the past the pain of the past the flourishing of the past the beauty of the past the sadness of the past the the toilet of the past and uh and i want to connect i want to connect to the to the universe from vovo from the babylonian times until today and everything in between okay so we're just eating dinner it's after 2 a.m and we have to get a little bit of i have to get some rest i don't think leap is gonna sleep he was just gonna rock it out all night to make art and then at nine in the morning we're going out again and we're gonna see what we came to see so it's like 4 30 in the morning i was in my room taking care of some emails and stuff and beautiful vigorous river it's getting light outside sun is going to come up soon i still didn't even go to bed i have to jump into bed for a couple hours so i have some energy for tomorrow i'm very tired so i'm gonna get to bed um this is the room sorry about the mess two beds there's a little mini fridge over there and this is the bathroom very nice happy with the hotel the ac works well today's gonna be a really hot day over 110 degrees fahrenheit anyway that's that have a good night or good morning and we'll see you soon