After being delayed 24 hours by a blizzard in the Northeast, we began our journey with a bus trip from Greenville to Charlotte (due to the back-up of air traffic, there were no options out of Greenville). After a quick flight from Charlotte to Philadelphia, then a 3 hour layover, we finally boarded our flight to Tel Aviv at 9:15 PM. Due to all of the ticketing changes due to the weather, the best seats we could find were in the very last row of a very large plane. The good news is that Deb had an aisle seat and Jeff had a semi-empty seat on his right, which was used intermittently by crew members. The bad news is that we sat right next to the lavatory and right in front of the galley. Still, it was relatively quiet and we settled in for an 11 hour flight. Somewhere around 1:00 AM we took our Benadryl and tried to get some sleep –which was not very good quality . We arrived in sunny Israel at 2:30 PM their time (they are 7 hours ahead of EST) , went through passport control, got our bags (which arrived , miraculously), and met up with our group to board the tour bus. With the day’s delay and the long hours of flying, it seemed like it took forever to get here, but compared to the Israelites ( who, after crossing the Red Sea, wandered 40 years in the wilderness before arriving), it was a pretty quick trip.
We were introduced to David, our Jewish tour guide, who will accompany us on the entire trip. We drove through the rush hour traffic of Tel Aviv, the modern capital of Israel- a bustling metropolis with a skyline made up of skyscrapers and populated by 1.5 million people. It is the economic and technological center of Israel.
Because we lost a day of our tour, our schedule changed to allow us just one stop for the day , the city of Caesarea. Founded by Herod the Great in 22 BC; it was the seat of Roman government for over 500 years, named in honor of Augustus Caesar. The city and harbor were built to establish a port in order to send grain grown in Judea throughout the roman Empire. It was the home of the Roman procurators, including Pontius Pilate. The theater and aqueduct were built by Herod the Great, but the walls and gate to the harbor were built during the 12th Century crusades. Philip was the first apostle to preach in Caesarea (Acts 8:4, 21:8-9). Peter came to Cornelius’ home here (Acts 10). Herod Agrippa was struck down by God here for persecuting the church and accepting worship as a god (Acts 12:19-24). Paul visited the city 3 times (Acts 9, 18, 21), then spent 2 years in prison here, standing before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa II (Acts 23 – 27), prior to being sent to Rome in chains.
We ended the day with another 1 ½ hours of travel, by bus, to the Sea of Galilee which will be our base for the next 2 days. We ended the day with a delicious buffet dinner of various Kosher meats and vegetables, as well as desserts – a tremendous treat after 24 hours of airport and airplane foods. We made it to bed before midnight, with a wake-up call coming at 6:15.
Lila Tov (Good Night)
