Day 1

3:30am wakeup Monday morning, 11:00am arrival in Tel Aviv Tuesday morning. Of course, that does include a time difference, but it has been a long trip getting here. The flight was uneventful-which is always a great thing. There was one interesting thing that happened on the flight. There was an Israeli choral group traveling back from a performance in NYC. About an hour before landing, they starting singing some of their selections. Beautiful! It reminded me of the Hallelujah flashmob. Several people-including myself-were recording them. A lot of people were standing in the aisles and watching. Eventually, the captain announced that everyone had to sit down and put on our seatbelts, so the show was over. But it was fun while it lasted. If the internet here weren't so testy, I would try to post the video. Maybe later. Mike and I weren't able to sleep on the plane, so we have pretty much been awake since Monday morning. Sooooo tired. 26 of us loaded up the tour bus at the airport and headed north to Caesarea. We toured the grounds of the Roman theater and Herod's aquaduct on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. For centuries, they had been buried beneath many generations of rubble. Universities and Israel has only been excavating it since the 1960's. The water of the Mediterranean is the bluest and clearest of any I have ever seen. And such a beautiful beach-fine white sand. There are several other tour groups around and many people were taking their shoes off and wading through the water. After that, we went about 40 miles north to our hotel in Tiberias. It was only about 3:00pm, so we were able to rest awhile and get cleaned up a little before meeting for dinner. The hotel sets up a buffet dinner where we have ample opportunity to sample many of the exotic flavors of this country. I was urged to try a "real" Greek olive-even though I don't like olives. Jackie assured me that these are different and that I would like it. Still don't. More for you, Jackie :D The hotel grounds are beautiful. We are right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Our room has the view of the Sea and the hotel swimming pool. Gorgeous! Tomorrow's tour includes the Mount of the Beatitudes, Capernaum, the traditional site of the multiplication of the fish and loaves of bread, and a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Early start: wakeup is at 6:00am. It is about 9:30pm now. So I will try this again tomorrow! Til then! :)