Back in Jerusalem...

Arrived h0me (for the next month and a half anyway) from our Galilee road trip a couple hours ago. Vernon, Aubrey, Jennifer, Katie, and myself squeezed into a Ford and took in the major sites of the Northern portion of Israel, as well as terrific views of Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon (Not to worry, we did not attempt to enter any of them, we just looked). The past 4 days have been packed with sites and information.

Day One (Sunday):
Left earlyish on Sunday morning, after picking up the rental car. Drove a couple hours before our first stop at Caesaria. We then headed East to Mt. Carmel, where we had an interesting encounter with a Ray Vanderlaan (He introduced himself as RVL), none other than rabbinical teacher and mentor to Rob Bell. Perhaps more on that later. After Mt. Carmel we drove to Nazareth, and then ended our day by arriving at the Sea of Galilee just in time for the sunset. We stayed in a resort on the Sea of Galilee all three nights of our road trip. It was terrific.

Day Tw0 (Monday):
Drove up to a scenic outlook of the Sea of Galilee to start the day, and then headed to Gamla. After that we took in Caesaria Philippi (an old Roman city. It also has other significance, but more on that later.), Tel Dan (The northernmost city of old Israel and springs that feed the Jordan river), and Ben Tel (an old IDF outpost with phenomenal views).

Day Three (Tuesday):
Began the day with Capernaum, and then continued on to Kursi (A Roman colony that is believed to be the site of Jesus casting the demons into the swine. Mark 7) We took a quick stop to splash around in the Jordan river for a bit and then continued on to a reconstructed 1st century village. We then went to the traditional site of the Mt. of Beatitudes and ended the day by hiking down Mt. Arbel (Took us about an hour to go down this one, sometimes literally straight down the side of a cliff. Great times.).

Day Four (Wednesday):
Today was a short day. We checked out of En Gev (our hotel on the Sea of Galilee) and drove to Tel Meggido (Meggido valley), which is believed by some to be the site of Armageddon. We also took in Jezreel valley and Beit Shan while heading back towards Jerusalem. We drove up the border of Israel and Jordan on the way home. We also passed by Jericho, although we did not stop since it is in Palestinian controlled territory and the security would taken the better part of our day (There isn't much to see there anyway). We arrived back in Jerusalem around 2 in the afternoon.

We took too many notes and processed way too much information to post it all here. I will try to hammer out some thoughts in the near future, but for now I must go meet friends for dinner.

Alexander