Day 4 - Traveling to Nazareth, Megiddo, and Caesarea

Introduction

After just two nights, we've left the beautiful, tranquil Sea of Galilee and our hotel in Tiberias this morning and will visit the following places before settling into our Jerusalem hotel for the remaining days of our trip.

Just a few notes before getting into today's activities.  First, it looks like there were a lot of readers the last few days, nearly 200 if the behind the scenes statistics can be believed.  As I said in the "Welcome" post, what was intended for just a few family members has grown substantially.  Hope you continue to stop by and enjoy what I have to say.

Second, I have become aware that I have misspelled altar, spelling it alter, which is clearly not what I meant.  To be fair, I'm pretty happy if that's the only misspelling that makes it through given the short time I'm turning these around.

Third, in my haste to post yesterday's activities, I forgot to do something last night vital for vacations in exotic locations - I didn't charge the battery for my camera.  Sadly, I only got 18 pictures taken before the camera asked me to charge the battery.  Now I talked with some others from Harrison City and will be able to get some pictures from their cameras but that will mean this post will get an update sometime later this week.  A word of warning: although Dad will appear in most of them, several will likely include me as well.

Finally, feel free to ask any questions or put up other comments. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, we left Tiberias this morning, which happens to be the second lowest city on earth at 679 feet below sea level.  Jericho, in the West Bank, and a destination later in the week, is the lowest CITY at 846 feet below sea level.  The Dead Sea is the lowest LOCATION on earth at 1380 feet below sea level.

Nazareth

An insignificant village in the Galilean hills when Jesus grew up, Nazareth has a current population of 65,000 and along with being extremely busy with cars and pedestrians is filled with Jews, Christians, and Muslims, each trying to advance their religion.  They seem to do it pretty well and get along, unlike the problems evident in other parts of the Middle East.

We got off the bus and were promptly given a warning from Mick: "Watch where you're walking!"  Here's the reason:

These shin-shredder posts are likely in place to deter cars from using the sidewalks but due to their low height, apparently spend a lot of time attacking the lower legs of tourists.

Admittedly a little weird, here's another thing I find interesting traveling to foreign countries: man-hole covers.  I think it's interesting because in most of the US, they're very plain.  A lot of countries "dress them up" with something unique about that particular location.  Here's one from Nazareth:

Don't worry, things get better from here.

We walked a short distance to the Church of Saint Gabriel, built over the only Nazareth source for fresh water.  Not the best picture but this is the point I knew my shots were limited. I took this one, saw the problem and began conservation of the battery mode.

 

Here's one of the wooden pulpit and finally, what's referred to as Mary's Well:

From here we walked a bit through the town to a place where Mick purchased us a morning snack: Israeli pizza!  There were two kinds and they were both very good.  One had a spice mixture and sesame seeds on it and the other had goat cheese.  Here's the store front:

If I didn't know better, I would have thought that Mick was trying to get us lost as we wound our way through the back alleys of Nazareth.  Next interesting place we passed was this one (no sampling here, though :-)

Fresh goat and other meats ready for purchase!  Step right up...
 

The next actual destination was the Basilica of the Annunciation, the Catholic Church that enshrines a small grotto that many believe was the home of Mary and where the angel Gabriel appeared to her to announce she would "bear a son" and "call his name Jesus." My apologies again.  I would have liked to take several of this impressive entry way but the camera just didn't have the juice.

Here is the doorway depicting Christ's life:

And here is the altar (see - he CAN correct his own mistakes). Here, my friends, the pictures will sadly end for the day.  Until I can get SD cards from friends, you'll need to make do with some text about our last stops for today (to be clear, its Friday by the way as I type).  In an effort to make it up a bit, I'll leave you with this visual joke:

LET'S EAT GRANDMA

LET'S EAT, GRANDMA

------------------------------

commas save lives

(Tel) Megiddo

From Wikipedia, Tel (or Tell) is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries.  Megiddo, a national park, is known for it's historical, geological, and theological importance, especially under its Greek name of Armageddon.  It was a site of great importance in the ancient world and its position on the main thoroughfare between Egypt and Assyria meant it was constantly being attacked for control.  Archaeologists have found the city has been rebuilt (REBUILT) 25 times over 4,500 years.  The site was inhabited from approximately 7000 BC to 586 BC.  The site climbs dramatically from the valley floor it's located in and overlooks the valley believed to be the location of the final battle of good versus evil as recorded in Revelation.  In addition to walking around the top most excavated ruins, we had the opportunity to walk down steps in a deep shaft to a horizontal tunnel dug through solid rock to enable the inhabitants to draw water from the area's only fresh water source without being discovered by whoever was attacking them.  It was 180 narrow steps of varying heights to get to the tunnel.  And, by the way, how did a perfectly straight tunnel get dug that long ago without modern equipment?  These folks were nobody's dummies.  It was just 83 steps to get out but I could definitely feel all 260 plus in my left knee when I was finished.  From here it was time to eat again and we went back to the park restaurant at the visitor's center and had some excellent falafel (fa-la-fel, accent on the second syllable), fries, and a Coke.  No pictures today so you get home work.  Look up falafel!

Caesarea

With the world's first modern harbor built for this city on the Mediterranean coast in the 1st century BC, Caesarea is famous for its archeological remains from the Romans, Byzantines, and Crusader eras.  King Herod gave the city its name, dedicating it to his patron, Augustus Caesar, who had crowned him King of the Jews around 30 BC. It is truly spectacular and I was crushed not to be able to share pictures of it.  We first stopped at the 2,000 year old aqueduct.  It's just an amazing achievement to see.  I really hope to share some pictures soon.  From here we sat in the 4,000 seat amphitheater, saw where the harbor stood during the time of Herod, and walked past the hippodrome ruins before heading back to the bus.  Simply amazing to see in person.

From Caesarea we traveled to our hotel Jerusalem about 75 miles away which, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, will serve as our base of operations until our trip comes to an end. There were a few more things after Caesarea that I'll get into tomorrow but rest assured, gentle readers, I feel shame for not having pictures of Megiddo or Caesarea.  The camera batter is charging as I type and you should see more pictures tomorrow.

Thanks again for stopping by.
Tim

Day 3 - In and around the Sea of Galilee (and a few left over details on getting here)

Introduction

I'm not trying to mess with anyone's head or make you think we got stuck in a time warp.  We left on Tuesday, arrived on Wednesday, and slept, and here we are on Thursday.  So even though it's our first full day in Israel, the title of the post is accurate and not just a clever name.  It really is day 3 of our trip. 

The Last about Getting here

To recap a bit, a very full flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia combined with my boarding in the last group forced me to gate check my carry on bag.  I've seen this before but been fortunate enough to board early enough to get my things in the passenger compartment.

Although packed, the domestic flight was uneventful and we landed very close to on time at Gate A24 around 7:30PM.  Our international departure was to leave from A19 so I proceeded to the security checkpoint for the Israel leg and took shoes off, emptied pockets, etc.  While waiting to be screened, I heard a buzzing coming from the bin containing my cell phone and other pocket contents but obviously couldn't do anything about it.  After being declared "OK" I took my things around the corner and expected to see Dad, Pastor John, and the others from Harrison City.  I reasoned that since they had such a head start on me, they'd already have gone through.  I thought wrong.  I spent a few minutes putting myself back together and picked up my phone to see an unidentified call from the 724 area code, which is Western PA.  Turns out that Pastor John had gotten my cell number from Dad and wanted to make sure I'd gotten in okay.  They had been waiting across the hall from A19 to have access to restrooms and to be on the lookout for me.  Oh well.  Best laid plans and all that.  However, they started making their way over to the security checkpoint at A19 as soon as I had talked to the Pastor.  It was great to see Dad and I was reacquainted with Pastor John and quickly met a few others from Harrison City, including the Pastor's wife Patsy

After talking to them a bit, it turns they did land early, as expected.  So early in fact that A19 hadn't been turned into an international departure gate.  This meant that once through security, you didn't have access to rest rooms unless you exited the secure area, took care of business, then took your shoes, etc. off again to get re-screened.  They were (wisely) waiting for everyone to arrive before doing the security dance.  Unfortunately, I didn't see them and they didn't see me.


Boarding the international flight, Dad and I were now in Group 6, again the last to board but we found our seats easily.  After a little shuffling of some of the other passengers, we wound up with all four middle seats in row 17.  It was really nice to have a little extra room.

The flight left a little late but we landed in Tel Aviv at 2:30PM, 40 minutes earlier than our scheduled time of 3:10. Some sleeping did occur on the plane but not nearly enough.  Luggage was all accounted for, we boarded a bus and headed north, then northeast to Tiberias.  Traffic was thick but not terrible.  However, it took about two hours, 30 minutes to get there.  We got our room keys then tagged our bags so they could find their way to our room by way of the hotel porters.  Dad and I enjoyed our first dinner in Israel with several others from Harrison City, including the Somes Family.  I finished the night adding a bit to the blog post for today and straightening out an email send issue.  Time for a good night's sleep.

Finally, sights of Israel.  Thanks for waiting patiently

The Sea of Galilee

Our hotel in Tiberias, The Royal Palms, looks out over the Sea of Galilee and Dad and I were lucky enough to have a room looking eastward.  Here was the beautiful view from that window this morning:

The Sea of Galilee is 13 miles long, 8 miles wide and located 700 feet below sea level, making it the lowest freshwater lake on earth. In biblical times the lake provided surrounding towns and villages with a source of fresh water, a fishing industry, and a means of transportation.

We got on the "Brown Bus" (EO distinguishes their groups by color), met Mick, our local guide for the trip, and headed just a bit north from our hotel for our first stop.  Mick let us know that boating on the Sea of Galilee was a favorite of his and he always looks forward to taking groups out. 

Once off the bus, we boarded the boat below and had a marvelous time cruising the tranquil Sea of Galilee.  Both Mick and Pastor John made a few remarks and at one point the captain turned the motor off and we had a few moments to meditate and take in the serenity of the moment.  We took the boat to the north west corner of the sea and disembarked long enough to use the rest room and purchase a few souvenirs.  Here are a few pictures, starting with the boat we traveled on and Dad with Nikki from the Harrison City church.

Here's Mick on the left and Pastor John on the right.

Dad with Susan from the Harrison City church

The flags raised for our trip.  They played the Star-Spangled Banner as the US flag was raised.

And seagulls flying near the boat looking for some bread, which I'm pretty sure was gone by then.

 Mount of Beatitudes

We boarded the bus and headed up the hill from the water and around to the northern end of the Sea of Galilee.  This tranquil hillside is the site of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew, chapter 5 and another of Mick's favorite spots.  Pope John Paul celebrated Mass very near here in 2000 with about 100,000 people.  Obviously, there weren't nearly that many here during our visit.  The beautiful church is hexagonal shaped and the Sea of Galilee can be seen from all of the windows looking south.

Here's Dad, inside the church near the alter and a pretty fountain we walked past on the way to the church.

Tabgha

Tabgha is the name for a cluster of holy places associated with Jesus' ministry in the Galilee.  The first site we saw is another of Mick's favorite places (noticing a pattern?).  It was the Church of the Multiplication, commemorating Jesus feeding the 5,000 and one of the group read from Mark, chapter 6.  The amazing mosaic floor dating from the 5th century depicts the two fish and five loaves that were miraculously multiplied to feed the crowd that were there.  Other mosaic designs are of flora and birds, and other geometric designs.  I'm thinking the folks reading this blog can figure out what's what as far as captions for the following pictures.

Another holy site nearby (and another of Mick's favorite places) is the Church of the Primacy of Peter.  The current structure was built in 1933 of black basalt but foundations of a church built in the 4th century are visible.  A limestone rock in front of the current alter is regarded as the "Mensa Christi", Latin for table of Christ and is regarded as the place that after his resurrection, Jesus fed the apostles after presenting them with a miraculous catch of fish, as recorded in Matthew, chapter 16.  Here's the statue commemorating the event.

Here are two views of the church and another of Dad with his (cut off) feet right at the edge of the Sea of Galilee.

Finally, here is the Mensa Christi and one of the stained glass windows inside the church.

Capernaum

Jesus established his base here (you can clearly see the picture above calling Capernaum "The City of Jesus") and recruited some of his disciples ("Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" Matthew 4:19).  It is also the site of the house of Peter (well, Peter's mother in law, to be exact), where Jesus is believed to have lodged and another of Mick's... well, you know.  Archaeologists have uncovered Peter's house and a modern church with a glass floor is built on top of it. to allow you to see the ruins below.

Also at Capernaum are the remains of a limestone synagogue, reconstructed above a black basalt foundation from Jesus time.  Since limestone is not native to Israel, the ancient community went to great expense to transport the white limestone from a very long way.  Enjoy some pictures from Capernaum.  They should be self explanatory if you've read the short paragraphs above.

Lunch!  Mick LOVES this place!

We pulled into a resort called Ein Ger.  It is called a resort but appeared to have the makings of a farm with dairy cattle around.  We had menu options that included fish - whole or fillet, or vegetarian pizza.  Mick recommended the whole fish.  I couldn't resist.

It was really good and likely caught no later than yesterday.  We walked around the resort a few minutes before boarding the bus.  It was quite nice

Last stop for the day - Yardinet Baptismal Site on the Jordan River

Although this is very likely nowhere near Jesus' baptism, it is certainly where pilgrims coming to the Holy Land come to be baptized anew or to reaffirm their original baptism.  Two from our group (one was Nikki, pictured with Dad earlier in the day) braved the cold water and monster catfish (no, I'm not kidding) and had Pastor John immerse them.  Several others, including Dad, remembered their baptism remembered as Pastor John blessed them with water from the Jordan.  A very pastoral and serene setting for a very touching moment.  My vantage point did not provide any useful pictures.  Here are a few of the area.


Okay, this was our first day.  I'm finding that although Israel is certainly considered a first world country, Internet service at our Tiberias hotel reminds me of dial up service.  The text portions seem fine.  Things got very, very, very, very slow when I had to upload pictures to the website.  Pastor John and others that have taken the trip previously said that our hotel in Jerusalem (we'll be there tomorrow night) will have better amenities.  Hopefully that includes faster internet access.  We'll see.  Hope you enjoyed our first day.  See you tomorrow.  Shalom,
Tim

And here we go!

Our Adventure Begins!

I've checked in with the airline and I've made it through security in the Phoenix airport.  I'm typing this while waiting in the gate area for US Airways flight 421 to Philadelphia.  My suitcase is hopefully making its way to a cozy spot in the belly of the same flight.   I've got nearly two hours before departing.  I walked right up to a kiosk to get my boarding pass and somehow, I got TSA Pre-Check which seems to be a quicker way through the security line, although there weren't too many queued up in the regular line.  Pre-Check meant I didn't have to take off my shoes or belt or even take the netbook out of my backpack.  It seems that the length of wait in line for boarding passes and baggage check, as well as security are directly proportional to the amount of time (or lack thereof) budgeted when getting to the airport. 

Located directly across from gate A21 is a familiar site for readers from the Phoenix area.  Four Peaks Brewery, located in nearby Tempe has spot in the airport to grab a great local beer and some food.  I'll very likely be stopping by once I'm done with this post.

Weather here in desert southwest is very pleasant and typical for this time of year, clear and in the low 60s.  The same can't be said for my interim destination of Philadelphia or the Pittsburgh area where my Dad and other soon-to-be traveling companions from the Harrison City Community United Methodist Church will begin their trip.  Today, the Pittsburgh area is starting their morning with bone-chilling below zero temperatures and only expected to "warm" to single digits.  Just thinking about cold like that causes this thin blooded Arizonan to shiver.

Fortunately, although they got some snow over the weekend, no additional precipitation is forecast for today.  Cold is one thing when you're flying.  Aircraft are designed to operate in the cold when they're flying through the skies above 30,000 feet.  Cold and snow together just make for a bad combination.  Other than school kids hoping for a snow day, I can't think of too many people who get out of bed on a winter morning thinking "boy, I sure do hope the temperature doesn't get above 10 degrees and we get a foot and a half of snow."  However, I've lived in Arizona now for almost 25 years.  It's certainly possible that there are folks that think that way.  Here are the statewide PA temperatures for Tuesday morning:

As you can tell by the above picture, weather in Philadelphia will only be slightly better than in Pittsburgh with only about 10 or so additional degrees of warmth (if you can call it that).  Barring any delays, we leave Philly at 9:10PM on US Airways flight 796 and are scheduled to arrive in Tel-Aviv at 3:10PM Wednesday afternoon.  It's a non-stop, 11 hour flight.  Good that we don't have to change planes, wander around an unfamiliar airport, and potentially lose our luggage during baggage transfer.  Bad that we're stuck in a metal tube for 11 hours.  But at least we get to eat that awesome airplane food.  Oh, wait...

The weather in Israel when we land will be very similar to Arizona this time of year (here's a link if you're interested in details), and is forecast to be in mid to upper 60s and clear (AKA sunny) the rest of this week.  It should be cause for celebration by the PA residents who left home with cloudy skies and below zero or single digit temperatures.  I don't know if anyone will actually do a happy dance but it wouldn't surprise me.

Once through baggage claim and Israeli customs, we'll meet the other half of our group who are flying in from New York, board a bus and head northeast to Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, where we'll be for the first few days.

For all you reading on the east coast, stay warm!  For my Arizona family and friends, like me, I'm sure you're glad you don't have to deal with cold like that.


I expect this to be the last post about something other than actually seeing the sites.  Thanks for sticking it out this long.  The next post, along with actually talking about our first day touring and lots of pictures, will include an update on our trip over (assuming anything worth mentioning occurs) and a tally on the hearty souls in our group who didn't fall asleep on the bus trip to Tiberias, assuming of course that I'm not one of them.

Until next time,
Tim

Welcome to all of the new readers

As I write this the weekend before the trip begins on Tuesday the 28th of January, I'm trying to make sure I have pulled out everything I think I need without taking too many things I don't and getting all those items packed securely into my suitcase, my carry-on, or my one personal item that I can store under the seat in front of me.

I've also wound up sending out the blog web site address to way more people than I ever thought would be interested in this little adventure.  What had started out solely as a way to share Dad's and my trip experience with my wife, my two sister's families and our kids has expanded to include friends, work colleagues, as well as several others.  Those who have been following along for a while know that our trip to the Holy Land is organized by Educational Opportunities (EO) Travel and Dad and I are going with a group from his church near where I grew up in Pennsylvania.  I got an email from Dad's Pastor, John Ciampa, earlier this week asking if the church could publish the blog address in the bulletin and on the website.  Realizing that Dad's church friends and the Pastor's congregation may be just as interested in the trip as mine are, I replied to Pastor John with a very quick "yes."  To be clear, "Dad" is Harold Sanner to you folks at church.

With that rather lengthy introduction complete, I'd like to formally welcome the recent addition of  neighbors, more of my work friends, as well as everyone who stops by to view the blog from The Community United Methodist Church in Harrison City, PA.  Stop by as often as you'd like.  I've created an email group with all the addresses of those interested in updates and plan to send a notice when a new post is up.

I've also created draft posts for each day we're in the Holy Land with some basic information about each of the places we'll see.  I plan to then add my impressions, stories about our group, other information, and any anecdotes from our tour guides.  In addition, because I firmly believe in the adage "pics or it didn't happen," the text of our day's travel will be interspersed with pictures and possibly videos as well that will hopefully provide a visual tour of the amazing sites we see.

I started the blog back in November of 2013 about how the trip came to be and have added posts along the way with information that I thought was worth sharing about Israel and its amazing history.  There is a post about getting there, as well as a another about the optional trips we can take.  The blog software I'm using provides a "behind the scenes" capability for the author to manage posts, control access, and even shows statistics.  Although there haven't been many comments to date (okay, just one), I can see through the statistics page that there are always several "hits" almost every time I've announced a new post.  That's encouraging and I hope you keep coming back to read about our trip.  I also noticed that several of you have clicked on the author profile which until very recently had not been filled in.  It is now and, as you can see, shows up on the right side of the home page with a picture of yours truly enjoying a moment with my son, Kyle, from his wedding last March.

This was a pretty long way to say welcome but I'm happy to share this experience and hope that everyone that stops by enjoys following along our trip to the Holy Land.  And, so this post on my Israel trip blog actually includes a little about Israel other than just being our destination for adventure, I'll leave you with some information about the Hebrew word "shalom."

I had always heard shalom used as a greeting or farewell but wasn't really aware of its meaning.  Understood around most of the world as meaning "peace," shalom, as well as most other Hebrew words go beyond their spoken pronunciation to convey feeling, intent, and emotion.  So saying "shalom" in a greeting or bidding someone goodbye indicates a desire for the recipient to experience not simply peace but contentment, wholeness, well-being, and harmony as well.  What a wonderful blessing to wish on someone.  With that, I will leave you until next time.

Shalom,
Tim

We have some excellent optional trips to consider in Israel

The trip is getting close!  It's just 15 days until we leave as I finish this. 

Having been fortunate to have made several trips overseas with a few different travel companies, I'm familiar with the concept of "optional tours."  These are side trips sometimes advertised ahead of departure, sometimes not, that people can take by paying additional money.  However, from the perspective of the travelers, since we've already spent a great deal of hard earned cash to get to our destination, the "just a little bit more to see <insert amazing site name here>" is somewhat annoying.  Whether it's just a ploy to squeeze a little more money out of folks or for a different reason, it seems a bit silly to not include the optional trips in the total when the typical cost of each is $100/person or less.  Maybe these side trips don't appeal to everyone but with the exception of one optional trip I've taken, my experience has been that they've all been very good, informative, and reasonably priced.

We have three such trips to consider while we're in the Holy Land.  The order they appear on our itinerary is as follows:  We can see Jerusalem by Night the evening of day 6 ($15), take a day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea on day 7 ($75 including lunch), and take a trip to the Israel Museum and a Dead Sea Scrolls Tour in the evening of day 8 ($25).

In my mind, the second two are definite "must-do" trips.  Masada is a three level 18-acre palace/fortress just west of the southern end of the Dead Sea that was built on a mountain top by King Herod during the 1st century BC.  It is a stunning feat to consider trying to build something similar now, let alone that it's been in existence for over 2,000 years.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing it.  Take a look for yourself if you're not familiar with it.  Here's the link for the official Israeli Masada website.

That same day we also get an opportunity to see and maybe even float in the Dead Sea.  At over 1300 feet below sea level, it's the lowest place on earth.  The quantity of water that evaporates from it is greater than  that which flows into it and salinity levels here average eight times the salt level in the ocean.  At just $75, how could you not take advantage of seeing both of those sites?  Having already talked to Dad, he was very interested in going.  The only thing he wasn't crazy about was floating in the Dead Sea.  Since we'll be visiting in February with the average high temperature in the 60s, I'm kind of inclined to agree with him.  The temperatures I've been seeing for Israel are very similar to the Phoenix area this time of year - mid to upper 30s at night rising to the mid-60s in the afternoon.  The water in my pool right now is way too cold for any kind of swimming.  Given the similarity in temperature, I'm not sure whether I want to float in the Dead Sea this time of year either.  We'll see.  At any rate, I'm not planning on missing either Masada or the Dead Sea for just $75.

The Israel Museum seems like another optional trip not to be missed.  Among other items at the museum, their most famous as well as most important collection are the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Dead Sea Scrolls!  They're stored in the Shrine of the Book, a separate building inspired by the lids of the clay jars in which the first scrolls were found.  In all, nine main scrolls, including one engraved on copper, along with bags full of small fragments were discovered.  The museum possesses the most important and most complete of these ancient texts.  Although part of our trip will take us to Qumran where the ancient scrolls were first discovered in 1947, I don't know how anyone could pass up seeing something this significant.

The third trip, Jerusalem by Night, is the only one that I'm just not clear what it's about.  Certainly the price isn't a concern.  At $15, it won't break the bank.  There's just no explanation other than indicating it's an option.  Since the trip is sponsored by EO, a Christian organization, I very much doubt it will feature any Jerusalem bar hopping.  I did send Dad's Pastor a question via email late last week but I haven't heard back from him yet as I'm writing this post (for those new to the blog, the Pastor has been on the trip several times before and is going with the group this year as well).  We'll find out soon enough.

I'm really looking forward to going.  First, I get to take the trip with my Dad.  I can't tell you how much that means to me.  Second, what an incredible location to visit!  This will be a great opportunity for both of us to see these places that have so much religious as well as historical significance.

Until next post,
Tim

Pictures and videos and links. Oh my!

Introduction

So as I promised in the previous post, this won't focus so much on the trip as it will the mechanics of formatting (see those impressive heading separators?) and adding some fancification (it's a word now, trust me) to future posts and letting all 6 or 8 of you reading this see something of Israel once we're in country.  As I said previously, "pics or it didn't happen." 

In addition, I know there's just so much of this mellifluous* prose that can be properly appreciated at any one sitting.  The pictures should help break that hypnotic spell. *Ahem* I heard both of you laughing.  Stop! :-)

As far as getting there goes, I sure am glad we're not leaving right now (January 4 as I'm typing).  There is extreme cold and snow throughout much of the country that's cancelled a lot of flights and stranded travelers all over the place.  Hopefully we won't have anything like that to deal with.

On we go to the including of links, pictures, and videos into the blog.  All three seem like they should be pretty easy to attach.  So here goes...

 

Links

Educational Opportunities Tours are the organizers of the trip that Dad and I are taking.  They travel to destinations all over the world but seem to focus on trips to the Holy Land and most of their tours appear to have a Christian emphasis.  Here's a link to the trip we're taking called "Holy Land Classic Tour" (fair warning, the site has an auto play video but it is about the Holy Land).  I'll try to make sure that links open new windows rather than leaving the blog and having to return when you're done.

 

Pictures

So you can attach a face to a name and know exactly who to blame for wasting your time reading the blog, below are two pictures of me taken from my son's wedding in March of 2013.  They're followed by a couple of my Dad.  Since I'll be taking most, if not all, of the pictures that will be posted, these are likely the only ones you'll see of me.

The first shows my wife pinning my boutineer on shortly after we arrived.  The expression on my face was a moment of pause and reflection, not any feeling of terror that she was going to try and hurt me with the pin.

This next one shows a much happier me talking and laughing with my son not too long before the ceremony was to start.  See?  Just like I said, the expression above was pause and reflection.  I knew there was nothing to fear from the flower pinning.

As mentioned, the next two show my Dad.  The first shows him enjoying a conversation with the father of the bride and the second was him being recognized at the reception.

Videos

I have the ability to take video with my camera and will certainly do that if something warrants it.  In the meantime, here's a short You Tube video (less than two minutes) from 2008 talking about the Sea of Galilee (which some of you may know is actually a fresh water lake).  Israel was in the middle of a drought at the time and it's believed that the reduced water level exposed ancient harbors that were being used during the time of Jesus' ministry.

 
And just so this post isn't complete fluff, one of the sites we'll get to see on our first day of touring is the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus is believed to have delivered the Sermon on the Mount and recorded in Matthew 5-7 and in Luke 6.  Although the scriptures don't provide a specific location, this site, located on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, had a Byzantine church built on it in the fourth century and has been commemorated for over 1600 years.  A Roman Catholic chapel was built in here in the late 1930s.  The area is elevated above the water and looks very beautiful.  Here's a link if you'd like to investigate further.

It looks like the links, pictures, and videos are showing up.  Let me know if you have problems viewing anything.

*Mel-lif-lu-ous - sweet or musical; pleasant to hear.  See Tim's blog posts.

See you soon.
Tim

Happy New Year! And a GREAT way to start it off!

Hello you handful of lurkers.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and got to enjoy some time with your families.

It's early in the morning of New Year's Eve as I start writing this new post and the trip begins exactly 4 weeks from the 31st.  Hard to believe we're that close to leaving but the calendar doesn't lie.  My flight itinerary and some additional trip information arrived from EO Travel the day after Christmas.  Although excited to see the flight details, I was disappointed that it didn't look like I'd be flying with the rest of the group from Harrison City.  Everything I'd heard from Dad indicated they would be flying from Pittsburgh to New York to Israel.  That meant we wouldn't see each other until we got to Israel since the Pastor has taken this same trip multiple times and had only mentioned an international departure from New York City. 

I called EO that day thinking that my flights wouldn't be the same as Dad's. They indicated that it would cost additional money at this late date to change my itinerary but did say that the flights our group was taking arrived in Israel at roughly the same time, around 3:00PM.  Not wanting to chance any travel problems with a late flight change, I opted to leave things as they were.

My flight plan takes me from Phoenix to Philadelphia to Israel.  The return trip home is the same in reverse and I'm on US Air (which has recently merged with American) for all legs of the journey.  So  I was happy to have finalized flight and lodging details but was not pleased at all that I wouldn't see Dad until we got to the Tel-Aviv airport.  Ultimately though, it was more important for him to have a "buddy" during the international flight than me and he'd be with his Pastor and other friends from church.  I could deal with that. 

However, I talked to Dad on the phone later that morning and found out that he, along with all the of the other folks from Harrison City, will also be flying out of Philadelphia.  We were both very happy knowing we'd be each other's travel companion during the 11 hour flight to the Ben Gurion Airport.  2014 is getting off to an excellent start!  What I can't figure out is why the person I spoke with at EO didn't let me know this when I called them.  I identified myself, told them I was traveling with my father, and gave them his name.  They had all the puzzle pieces and could have ended the conversation much more quickly than they did.

The international leg is non-stop, which is good and bad.  Good from the standpoint of no additional plane disembarking or embarking in an unfamiliar airport and less likelihood of not meeting up with my luggage in Israel.  Bad from the standpoint of being cooped up in an airplane for an 11-hour flight.


One of the other pieces of information I received in the packet from EO was a list of all the names and home towns of the people in our touring group. Of the 34 total, it looks like 17 are affiliated with the church in Harrison City although two of those, including myself and another gentleman from Alabama are meeting family or friends in Philadelphia.  There are 12 from Lewisburg, PA, a town in the central part of the state located north of Harrisburg and south of Williamsport, the home of Little League Baseball.  There are three others from Bellfonte, PA, Benton, PA, and Selinsgrove, PA that may be connected with the group from Lewisburg since those are all central PA cities and not too far from Lewisburg.  Time will tell.  The remaining two are from Silver Springs, FL.  Besides Dad, the only other person I've met is Pastor John.  I'm looking forward to making some new acquaintences.


Once we've landed, reclaimed luggage, and gotten our passports stamped going through Israeli customs, we'll board a bus and head north east from the airport to a hotel in the city of Tiberias, a 135KM drive (about 84 miles) that will take approximately 90 minutes according to Google Maps.  Tiberias is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee and not far from Nazareth, destinations during our first few days.  Having taken several international trips before, I'm thinking between the time change and most people's poor ability to sleep on an airplane that at least two thirds of my new traveling companions will be asleep within 10 minutes of leaving the airport.  I'll try to take an actual count of sleepers, assuming that I'm not one of them.  We'll be in Tiberias for two nights and then will head south to stay our remaining time at a hotel in Jerusalem.

That's about it for this post.  Unless something more interesting comes up, next time I'll attach a few pictures and links to make sure I'm clear on how to do it while we're in country.  You know why, right?  Because pics or it didn't happen!

Happy New Year!
Tim