Day 1 of the tour

*This post will be short and sweet, with no pictures...I'm sitting in a lounge in our hotel in Tiberius and unfortunately I cannot upload pictures on this computer, but when I get to a computer that I am able to, then I will! Also, in the lounge a man is singing in Hebrew and although they might normally sound great, they are too much for me to handle after a long day of touring...and it reminds me of bad karaoke!

Today started out kind of hectic. At 2:30 am both my mom and I woke up and we were wide awake. Our biological clocks must still be on Texas time because both of us were up, tossing and turning until at least 4 am. Luckily we both fell back asleep, but that 6 am wake up call came pretty early! After getting breakfast, we checked out of our hotel in Tel Aviv and met up with our group to begin our tour. There's 11 people in our group total, so it is a very small, intimate group.

After boarding the bus, the first thing we did is drive through Tel Aviv and through Jaffa, which is right next to Tel Aviv and where Jonah was spit out by the whale. After that we visited Caesaria, where I got a lot of neat pictures of the amphitheater which was built in Herod's tim and it overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Again, it was a gorgeous view of the clear, blue water. After Caesaria, we stopped at a spot where the Crusaders has come through. Caesaria was destroyed in the 13th century when the Crusaders and Muslims were fighting over the Holy Land. Our next major stop was Megiddo, which is where Armageddon is supposed to occur as predicted in the Revelations. I took a video of the Valley of Armageddon, which I will post at a later date. Also at Megiddo we saw one of King Solomon's temples. This site also has two gates, which causes debate over whether or not Qeiyafa (where I am going for the dig) is the city of two gates or if it is at Megiddo. Either way, it was an interesting place to visit as most of Megiddo was ruined when German archeologists excavated the site. After Megiddo we went made a quick stop at Mt. Carmel and then we had lunch in Haifa, where we had a gorgeous view overlooking the city and the Mediterranean Sea. Following lunch we visited a temple in Haifa which a religious group, that is a branch of Islam, is responsible for taking care of. After Haifa, we originally were supposed to go to Nazareth, but we got stuck in Israel rush hour traffic, so Nazareth was added to tomorrows itinerary. Because of our changed schedule, we went to our hotel which is in Tiberius and it overlooks the Sea of Galilee.

The following are some random facts about Israel that I have learned thus far:
-They have three official languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and English--because of this most street signs and billboards are written in all three languages.
-Israel has Eucalyptis trees! They were imported from Australia years ago and are now found throughout the country.
 -Tel Aviv is not the capital of Israel, but it is actually Jerusalem. Tel Aviv is the center of Isreal, the most populous city, and the most secular city in the country.
-Where we categorize Jews into three categories (orthodox, secular, and hasidic), in Israel they are categorized into six categories.
-The Israelis hate Obama--as our tour guide was quick to inform us--because of his views on Israel's border and they think we have a great country which is being destroyed because we are too globalized.
-Israelis drive like New Yorkers. They weave in and out of each other, don't use their turn signals, and they honk a lot!


Ok, well that is all for now. Stay tuned until my next update!