Sitting around while they load our many boxes into the shipping crates — why not design a new blog layout? Since I’m a bad decider, what you’re seeing may change several times over the next few days. Currently it’s brightly colored fabric that looks like it’s from India (like most things here).
While I’m waiting for something interesting to happen (since 4 of us sharing 2 sleeping bags on 2 twin beds in the middle of piles of boxes isn’t of interest), I have several of Calvin’s trip reports to share. He wrote them from his iPod touch (which is an impressive feat of patience) and then they all were emailed to me automatically at the end of the trip when he connected to the airport wi-fi on the way home. These cover their travels around the country, excluding their time in Jerusalem. I’m hoping I can convince him to write a few more about their time in the Old City and at Masada.
Israel June 17 2012
Yesterday was a long day for us. We went from Tel Aviv to Tiberias which should have only taken one hour but, dad decided that we should take the scenic rout which took us four hours. Dad says it’s because we stopped to look at things and if we hadn’t, it would have only taken two hours (but I don’t believe him).
First, after we had woken up and eaten breakfast, we got in the car and went to Caesarea. When we got to Caesarea, it was already kind of hot outside. We paid for our tickets and went inside. It was really cool being able to see Caesarea and all the different things like the palace, the hippodrome, the lighthouse, and the theater. It was cool because they were setting up for a concert, but we could not figure out who was playing. When we got back to the Main area, we saw a ten minute video from the time of Caesar, till now. It was pretty cool to see what it was like in Caesar’s time and how much it has changed till now.
Later on, we went to see Haifa and we drove along the coastline there. After that, we went to Akko ( it seems as if everybody but dad spells it Acre. Who knows) and saw the ancient port. We got an audio tour first, so that guided us through the citadel. It was really cool to walk around the city and see what it looked like. My favorite part was crawling through a tunnel in the citadel.
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| Akko/Acre (ha!): Underground sewage passageway |
Then, we went to the hotel. Our hotel has an awesome view of the Sea of Galilee and the light show that we saw last night. We went to the pool when we got to our hotel. After the pool, we went and walked around the harbor for a little bit wile we waited for the light show. The light show turned out to be a bummer. It was good for the first five seconds until the lights stopped working. The water kept on going but the lights didn’t work so they had to shut it off. We saw it later that night from our room, and I have to say, this one was better than the one in Dubai.
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| Sea of Galilee |
Israel June 18 2012
Yesterday was an early start and a late end. We woke up early and went down to breakfast. When we got in the car, we headed up to the church of the beatitudes. It was nice, and had a great view of the Sea of Galilee, and had a beautiful garden.
When we went inside the church, all the tour groups were in there. I tried to get a picture but everybody kept on getting in my way. Afterwards. We went to Capernaum, and saw St. Peters church which was really nice, then we saw St. Peters house, and then we saw the White Synagogue where Jesus preached. After we went to Capernaum, we went to Matula to just look around, because it’s this small town that is right on the border of Lebanon. What surprised me most about Matula was how nice it was. Matula was nicer than almost all of Israel. It wasn’t as nice as the company buildings, but it was nicer than most of the houses that I’v seen. After, we went to see the Golan Hight’s and have lunch. It was weird because because it was like as soon as we crossed an invisible line, everything in Hebrew, turned into Arabic. We ate lunch at this small place and my dad spoke Arabic to the guy (and talked about other things that I have no clue of.) wile we ate. Apparently, if your on the top of the Golan, on a clear day, you can see all the way to the Capitol, Tel Aviv. Now that’s a long way. The Golan Heights are on the boarder of Seria, and Tel Aviv is way down south. That is looking as far as it takes you to drive one hour on the freeway. After, we went to drive in the Jordan Vally. As we drove through, it was cool to see the shelters alongside the road. We went all the way to the west Bank boarder. After that, we turned left and went in a big circle to get back to Tiberias. In all, we saw three countries, and the West Bank.
Israel June 19 2012
Yesterday, we went to see the Wedding Church where Jesus did his first miracle, then, we went to Nazarith to see the Basilica of the annunciation, and finally went to the the top of Mt. Tabor to see the church of transfiguration. The Wedding Church Was really nice, but it was really lame that people had graffitid on the old stones on the inside of he church. On our way back to the car, dad met some kids running a shop and so they had us come in and dad talked with them and they exchanged numbers and stuff like that.
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| Church of the Annunciation |
Then we went to Nazarith, it was nice, but the roads were really bumpy so Carter got car sick and threw up. Dad cleaned up Carter and then we went to the church.
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| In Nazareth — churches and mosques side by side |
The church was amazing. All the mosaics were beautiful, and very colourful. Then, we went into a bazar of sorts and wandered around a little until dad found another friend to talk to. Wile dad talked to his friend, me and Carter wandered the store looking at all the neat things he had. We finally left ( after Carter had bought a barf shirt) and wandered our way back to the car. We had shawarma for lunch and a sprite and then we were on the road again. We drove to the base of Mt. Tabor, then drove through the town. This town had bumpy roads so then I got car sick. I didn’t throw up though, just naseaus a little. When we got to the top, we had a great view of the valley and the farms. We went inside the church and I was going to take a picture of the mosaic, but dad told me not to. He said that it would be weird because everybody was praying and whatnot.
We went back to the hotel and went to the pool. Me and Carter had been wrestling and having a great time, when this lady comes up to us and starts yelling at us in Hebrew. There were some pretty sorry swimmers in the pool that day. Some seventy year old man had fins and big gogles on and was finning the width of the pool (which couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet. There was some lady who was doing a combonation of doggy paddling and freestyle, she would do doggy paddle with her head in the water then, lift her head out of the water to take a breath, then throw her head in the water. It was pretty sad. It was the same lady who had yelled at me for getting to close to her stuff he other day. They had come to the pool after us and had dropped there stuff on the pool deck, and had just jumped in. My dad had chased me out of the pool and as I walked around the pool she said ” Yeah, sure, go walk all over my stuff” I wasn’t even close to her stuff. Her stuff was closer to the pool water than I was to her. Anyways, were leaving today to go to Jerusalem.
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| McDonald’s are everywhere. In Jerusalem, a “value meal” costs about $8 |
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| At the start of the hike up Masada |
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| At the top — Dead Sea in the distance. They hiked it in about 40 minutes. |
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| Ein Gedi falls |
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| Swimming in the pools at Ein Gedi |
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| Jerusalem |
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| Hezekiah’s tunnel |
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| Garden tomb |
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| Carter’s souvenir purchase — a shofar |
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| At the Western Wall |
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| Jerusalem/Dome of the Rock at night |
