7 years ago
Apr 1, 2006
(Yesterday at the train station I realized that my camera didn't have a memory card in it, this means no pictures for a bit. I going to steal pictures from everyone else. That way I don't have to an annoying American always taking pictures of everything. Speaking of annoying Americans, since I have been in England I have been asked if I was from Canada and been told that I don't act like and American. Even better was the guy that sat next to me on the flight to Tel Aviv. He was from Israel and he assumed I was from Israel as well. That made me so happy! I am not the loud, obnoxious, stereotypical American! Yay for me. Alright, on to the day's happenings.)
Today we got into Tel Aviv at 4:30 in the morning. The flight was pretty much awful. The plane from Germany to Tel Aviv was delayed over and hour or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention because I was so tired. They forgot to fuel it up or something so that took forever. Anyway, after we got all our luggage and whatnot on the bus we were off.
We first stopped by Joppa and saw the house that is apparently in the same location as the house that Peter saw his vision in Acts 10. The sun wasn't even up yet so we couldn't see much. However, we walked into a greek orthodox church to look around a bit and when we came out it was bright! That was pretty sweet. We looked at the Mediterranean sea for a bit, left Joppa, and headed for breakfast.
We went to get breakfast at this really posh hotel. I'm not even joking when I say this was the best breakfast I have ever had. Maybe it is because I was up all night or something, but I think it was just amazing. I has a lot of fruit (strawberries, kiwis, apples, pears, oranges, everything), a lot of different kinds of cheese, some amazing bread, a ton of olives, a couple of pastry things, and seconds of everything. I literally wanted to keep eating just because it tasted really good. Everyone knows that's not in my character at all though.
After the delicious breakfast we headed for Caesarea. That was so cool. We stood in the theatre that Paul gave his defense and testimony in front of King Agrippa (Acts 25-26). The theatre originally held roughly 4000 people but it doesn't have the third story anymore because it was dismantled (twice!) by people to build other cities.. I probably walked on some of the same marble stones that Paul did when he was giving his defense to all of the officials, that made me happy. The theatre was also used for all kinds of entertainment. Heck, they would even fill the bottom of it up with a few feet of water and have women play around in the water naked for people to watch. That usually brought the biggest crowd.
We walked around where King Herod's Palace was. Trying to imagine what it would have been like was hard. All we saw were some pillars and his pool and stuff, but there was also a whole second story. Wild. We walked around where they had horse races. Some of the original paint is still on the walls from when it was built. Amazing.
When we were walking around the ruins and stuff I found a coin. I have no idea how old it is, but our guide said it was a coin. It's copper and all tarnished. I like it. It's really old and spiffy.
We then headed for this great example of someone's bling bling back in the day. One of the main ways to show off your wealth was to have mosaic floors. The smaller, more colorful, and more elaborate the pieces in the mosaic were, the more expensive it was. So we walked up this hill to some guy's inner courts. The inner courts did not have a roof over them, the house was built around them and the roofs were pitched in towards the middle to gather water in a cistern. Most rich people would have their elaborate mosaic floors in their house, but this guy was so rich that he had the most amazing floor for his inner courts, out in the weather. There were all kinds of animals and designs and stuff. It was probably about 50 by 50 feet as well. Ritzy.
After that we went to see some of the aqueducts. The one we saw was headed into Caesarea and was about 10 miles long. It was huge. I couldn't believe that they could make something like that.
Finally we headed towards Jerusalem and stopped on the side of the road to look at a tomb. This tomb is probably the best example of what Jesus was buried in because it still has the stone rolled right next to the door. It's not at all what one might imagine. It's much smaller than everyone makes it out to be. The stone could easily be rolled by 2 men. It was only about 3 feet tall. So it's not like in all the movies where you see people standing in the tomb. You have to crawl on your hands and knees.
After that we went to one more place, but I slept in the bus. So now I find myself in this really posh hotel and it feels strange because it's really really nice. The hotel has free wireless internet. That makes me happy. And that was my first day in Israel.
Oh, and there are stray cats everywhere! I love it. Way better than stray dogs.
