Adventures in Israel, part 2

Day 1

After 3 days, 4 cities, 3 countries, 1 bottle of hand sanitizer & 1 Ambien….we arrived in Israel! College Station to Houston to Miami to London to Tel Aviv.  The flights were long but good.  London was misty & cold.  I looked for Adele but did not see her.   All 48 of us arrived in Tel Aviv minus 2 suitcases.  My mom’s & another woman’s.  There were several other people on out flight whose luggage hadn’t made it.  Grrr British Air!  We filled out all the paper work (guess who helped speed up the process by getting a stack of the forms & pens & passing them out to people in line so they didn’t have to wait to get to the counter to start filling out the lengthy form….this girl!  They were so ready to hire me.) & left with faith that the luggage would be delivered to one of the hotels soon. 

We immediately boarded a bus & headed west to Joppa!  The distance was short but the traffic was bad & so it took a while to drive through the city.  All of a sudden we saw water ahead of us!  The Mediterranean Sea!  We went to Simon the Taner’s house where Peter raised Dorcas/Tabitha from the dead in Acts 9 & then was given the vision of clean & unclean animals soon afterwards.  Funny note: the house is privately owned now & so under the handwritten sign “House of Simon the Taner” is the family’s name.  There’s also a small hole in the door with a camera lens pointing out.  Don’t mess with these people. 

After two days of travel...but happy to be at the Mediterranean Sea!

Then we drove north along the Mediterranean Coast to Netanya to spend the night.  Our hotel room balcony looked out over the Sea.  Beautiful!  Dinner was AMAZING!  Pita bread, two kinds of hummus, olives, lamb, chicken, vegetables.  All my favorite things!   So good! 

Dinner was quickly followed by showering, taking Ambien & SLEEPING!

Day Two

PTL for sleep!  We both slept well & were awakened at 6am by a wake up call!  Breakfast at 6:45, on the bus at 7:45.  Ready for a big day!  

We drove north to Caesarea—a harbor town built by Herod the Great (not a great guy—he was the Herod who killed baby boys trying to kill baby Jesus—but a great architect!).  We walked around the artificial port city, a theater, horse/chariot race track & saw the aqueduct he has built to bring fresh water in.  Great builder!  This is the port city Paul sailed from to make his appeal to Caesar.  Super old stuff.  A coffee shop was playing old school TLC--I don't want no scrub....   Super funny. 

Theater at Caesarea

Then we drove north again to Mt Carmel.  Along the Mediterranean we saw fish farms.  Made me think about Thanksgiving 2010’s family excursion to the fish hatcheries of South Texas.  My dad cannot say he caught all these fish like he tried to claim in Texas.  While at Mt Carmel we went to the top of a monastery & looked out over the surrounding area.  Talk about cities on hills—none of these places can be hidden!

Next up: Lunch!   Bonnie, I don’t know what you were talking about—falafel is delicious!  Pita bread, fried chick peas (hummus), pickled hot pink & neon veggies?!—what’s not to LOVE? 

Next we went to Megiddo & learned what tel means.  A tel is basically a city built on top of the runins of another city, built on top of the ruins of the previous city, etc.  Twenty five layers have been found at Tel Megiddo.  Walking around the city is like walking through a site where a house is being build—you see the outlines of things.  One of the coolest parts was seeing where the stables had been & some ancient mangers were still there—stone mangers.  There’s not much wood in Israel but there’s a lot of stone!  Jesus was probably placed in a stone manger when he was born.  The mangers we saw were about waist high, but only several inches deep at the top so that a horse wouldn’t have to lean too far down to get food.  I know the manger in Bethlehem were Christ was born was probably not just like these but it was so cool to be able to think that this could have been just like Jesus baby bed.  :)  Our guide, Naomi, made the point that mangers are feeding troughs and that this is how Jesus, the bread of life, came into the world.  Side note: Our guide Naomi is wonderful!  She is a Messianic Jew who was born in Israel to Messianic Jewish parents & has lived her whole life here.  She’s so knowledge!

Manger--I'm guessing the horse isn't part of the original city.  :)

The end of our time in Megiddo was spent climbing down into the water system of the city.  The spring’s source had been covered up so that the city’s residents could go underground & climb through a tunnel to get water without being seen by enemies or outsiders.  Totally like climbing through the 3^rd Tunnel between North & South Korea—only this tunnel was about 2 feet taller than my head, was shorter in distance, had better handrails & was better lit.  Also no little Japanese women stopped to laugh at me because I was too tall to fit in there.  But otherwise I totally had flashbacks to Koreapalooza 2011.

Climbing down....

Climbing out!  That's water on the sides.

OK getting tired, so going to wrap this up.  We drove North East to the Sea of Galilee through Nazareth.  We didn’t get out, but got to see that it’s a much smaller town—combine the Texas hill country’s hills (but a bigger & rockier) and the way towns in Dallas/Ft Worth area or New England all run right into another town—that’s kind of what this felt like.  One minute we’re driving through Nazraeth, the next minute we were in an Arab town, then another.  I’m sure they all have names, but I don’t know them.  Lo siento.  We missed getting to Mt Arbel by 3pm (which was the plan since they stop letting people in at 3) so we re-routed to the Mt of the Beatitudes.  Saw the Church of the Beatitudes where they love the Pope just as much as Jesus.  We then planned to go shopping at a “nice shop” owned by a Christian who exports a lot of his goods to the US.   My dad totally would have loved this—while on the way to shop we detoured to go check out a boat—the Jesus Boat—2000 year old fishing boat that was discovered on the Sea of Galilee.  Really cool.  Google it. 

Church of the Beatitudes

Jesus Boat

By then it was 5 o’clock.  We headed to our hotel—the Scots Hotel—“on St Andrew’s Galilee”—you know, Andrew the Scottish apostle.  The waiters & bel hops wear kilt like aprons.  The hotel is beautiful—google it.  Dinner was AMAZING.  Good thing we walked a ton today & climbed up about 400 steps because I am eating a ton!  It’s so good!

Surprises so far: Israel is greener & more agricultural than I thought.  The food is awesome.  Sometimes your best shopping is done when you have to detour to go check out a boat.  Well, that’s not a surprise.  J

One other funny thing—so we’ve seen people at the hotels wearing costumes like bunny ears, or clown wigs, etc.  Our guide told us today that it’s the Feast of Purim—when reality changed for the Jewish people—so during the feast people dress up like American Halloween.  It’s pretty funny. 

Great day 2, ready for bed!  Well, really, I’m ready to get online & check out the new iPads!  Then bed.  And dreams if iPads.  And getting on the Sea of Galilee tomorrow!  Fish with the head still on, here I come!  

Mazel Tov!