Israel Day One

Well, I have to admit that I wasn't really sleeping in that post from yesterday...  I just had some guy took a picture of me while I was pretending to sleep.  I actually got in trouble from our group leader for being away from the group rather than with everyone for the long layover.  I was just off reading and studying, but he was pretty upset at me later on!  I guess I am the rebel one on the trip...

So today was just a big long travel day.  The international flight was not too bad, really.  The 777 was roomy, I watched 2.5 movies, slept for a few hours, ate dinner, ate breakfast, then landed.  I sat next to nice smelling people, so it was okay.  

We are at our hotel right now in Tel Aviv where we just ate some dinner.  I asked at the front desk about internet access and they said it was $17/day.  But when I got up to the room and tried it out - I got on! For free. Nice.  The food is good here - different tastes, of course, but very good.  Olives - tons of the them.  We just stay one night here and then head off in the morning for Caesarea (Roman capital of Judea) and Mt. Carmel (Elijah calling down fire) and Megiddo.  We will head to Nazareth  and finish up in Tiberias where we overlook the Sea of Galilee that night.  We will stay at that hotel for next three nights.

I get to Skype with Bethany in a few moments and so I am looking forward to that.  They are meeting me at the church each day at 11:30am so that they can use my church computer to see and hear me from my laptop here at 9:30pm.  They both are macs, and so they have the mic and camera built right in, seeing as macs are highly superior machines...  Technology can be more cumbersome than it ought sometimes, but it's times like these that make me enjoy it.

This is our tour guide on the left who will be with us all week. Gershon is his name. On the right (not the one leaning over...), that is Clint Webb, our tour host (and the one who chewed me out...!)