All the flight things and Day 1

 Hello everyone,

By popular request, I will be attempting to keep you all relatively up to date with my travels and adventures in Israel. Please bear with me because I am new to this and also have an assignment I need to work on while I am away (hooray). The purpose of this blog is mostly to experiment with something new, so your suggestions are very welcome 😊

So without further ado-

Here is the summary of the journey so far!

First stop: Istanbul Turkey (The airport terminal 1 April)
I have very little to say about the airport other than to say that it is huge! Because the stop was so long, I also ended up working on my project at 5am. While I realise for some of you students this is a norm, I cannot say I enjoyed the experience. 
I have attached a photo from the flight over. I would also like to praise and thank Turkish airlines for their amazing hospitality- they have an animated Signed safety video for the Deaf which is definitely something I have never seen before.

Where am I right now? (Captain's log: April 2nd 17:50)
I am currently in Tiberias (or Galilee if you will) and have had rather an exhausting day. To provide some background, my family and I are part of a tour group and are visiting various religious and significant sites in the country. At each stop, we get out our Bibles and read a some extracts that mention the site. The aim of the tour as described by our guide is to come away being able to "Read the Bible in colour". Each evening we are also working through some of the gospels (John and Mark mostly), which I am really looking forward to. 

Today I have three main highlights to share:

1. Visiting the city of Capernaum where Jesus was based for much of His ministry. The countryside is stunning and much of it has remained relatively unchanged. While the ruins we visited are actually built on top of an old synagogue, this is one of the sites at which Jesus could possibly have taught. Regardless of whether or not He physically stood there, I was honoured to visit such a beautiful place and be able to imagine what it would have been like to step out of Synagogue straight out onto a view of the lake. It's a gorgeous view! 

2. I went sailing on lake Tiberias/the Sea of Galilee! We read the story of Jesus calming the storm and the one about His walking on the water. The captain of the boat taught us a traditional Galilean dance as well which was rather an enjoyable experience. 

3. We went walking up one of the mountains and read Matthew 5 which is "The Sermon on the Mount". While we were there, I picked some beautiful wildflowers. It was incredible to picture what it would have been like to be a part of the crowd listening to Jesus' teaching. 

Four aside notes to mention:
A. There seem to be hundreds of stray/feral cats in Israel. All are pretty friendly though which makes me VERY happy. I am making friends with them and the ones I manage to photograph I intend to name after Biblical characters they remind me of 

B. I was so excited to see "The Rock Badgers" as our British tour companions kept calling them. They were Dassies... 😒

C. I am driving through mango, banana and orange plantations. This means I have many questions for a certain Agri science student when I get back 😉

D. For my dear friend who's name rhymes with Bee, the dominant rock type over here is Basalt. The original synagogues are built out of that and not limestone as I was lead to believe.

Here are the Photos from the day, enjoy!

Solomon my fury friend
Our Vessel "Reuben"


Selfies with the Sea

Wildflowers on the mountain



Synagogue ruins






 

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