Trip of a Lifetime - Days 10 and 11

Okay, this blog is about April 2nd and 3rd, but I'm writing it on April 4th. I'm catching up a bit at a time. But every day I have to go out and see fantastic new things, so it's been tough! (Never has a sentence deserved so little sympathy.)

On Saturday we were enjoying the final day of our Israel tour before heading to Jordan on Sunday. If you've been reading this blog you may start to assume some things. Would we see something with religious significance? Maybe something very, very old? Yes on both counts!

We saw the spot where Jesus was baptized, and the famous ancient city of Caesarea. Then we drove to our hotel in Tel Aviv for our final dinner as a group.

At the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee is a place called Yardenit. It is believed that this is the spot where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. There are seven sacraments in the Catholic church: Baptism, Eucharist (Communion), Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders, Reconciliation, and Anointing of the Sick. When Martin Luther split from the Catholic Church, creating the Protestant Reformation and Luteranism, resulting in virtually all of the other Protestant denominations to follow, he kept two of the sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist. That's just to say that the Protestants and Catholics, and all the Orthodox Christians, too, really respect the sacrament of Baptism. (Especially the Baptists?) If you'd like to be re-baptized, this is the place to do it. The verses that talk about Jesus's baptism are presented on the grounds in over 80 languages. Pilgrims from all over the world come here for baptisms. Here's one of the ones we saw.

I stood in the waters of the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized!!

The people emerging from the water were filled with joy. It was fun to see.

From the Jordan River we went to Caesarea. This port city was crated by Herod the Great over 2,000 years ago. I wrote about him a bit in the previous blog post. This town looks like an ancient city. Lots of marble columns with corinthian capitals, a theater, a hippodrome, and lots more. Herod built an underwater concrete harbor here, which was the first of its kind in the world. It allowed ships from all over the Mediterranean Sea to stop at Caesarea, which made it an important and lucrative trade stop. This is where we got to walk the city, watch a movie, and enjoy a bagel sandwich.

From there it was on to Haifa, the third largest city in Israel, after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In Haifa we got to see the shrine to the Bab of the Bahá'í faith. Growing up just north of Chicago, we visited the B'Hai temple in Wilmette fairly often. The Bahá'í temple in Illinois is the only one in North America. There is one per continent (excluding Antarctica). Bahá'u'lláh was the founder of the Bahá'í faith. His history is more than I want to delve into right now, because I've just returned from a rooftop bar after two delicious tropical drinks, and I need to pack before checking out of the hotel at 8am tomorrow. But I will say that all the temples of the B'Hai faith are amazing, and the one in Haifa, Israel is the main temple in the world. It is located at the site where "the Bab" (Bahá'u'lláh) was banished and imprisoned by the Ottoman Empire in 1868. The temple stands in the middle of a hill, with terraced gardens above and below. You can drive to a site far below the temple, or far above the temple, but you can't drive TO the temple. The view from below and above is amazing. 

From Haifa we drove to Tel Aviv, where we checked into a hotel that used to be a movie theater. It's the Cinema Hotel, and it's super fun. They had Charlie Chaplain movies projected onto the wall in the lobby. Next to the reception desk was a gigantic projection system from the early days of movie theaters, and it happens to be the original projector from the original theater where we were staying. Throughout the hotel there is memorabilia from the early movie days. Our room had a photo of Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron from An American in Paris. The hallways and dining room had photos, too. 

Our hotel in Tel Aviv.

This is one of the projectors from the 4th floor. 

Animation cell from The Aristocats near the elevator!

We headed to our restaurant and saw this phone on the 2nd floor of a hotel on the way. It cracked me up! Talk about a direct line to God!! I want this phone!

The next day we were in the bus and off to Jordan. We went through passport control, got our visas, paid our exit tax, got on a different bus on the Jordan side, and ended up at the Landmark Hotel in Amman. An uneventful day, thankfully. The most significant thing to note is that Ramadan started the day we entered Jordan, so the country is fasting from sunrise to sunset. We stopped at a convenience store because the restaurants are all closed. The first things we saw in Jordan were Coca Cola and McDonalds signs. We hadn't seen any McDonald's restaurants in Israel. (Sorry, Jordan! Be thankful that we haven't exported Taco Bell to you yet!)

At 6:00pm we met the rest of our group. All seven of us from the first week in Israel will continue on to the second week in Jordan. But six others are only doing the Jordan part of the trip, so our group increased from 7 to 13. We all met at the meeting and prepared for a week of what Jordan has to offer. 

More on our travel companions later. For now it's time to pack up and get ready for a long drive to Petra and a new hotel tomorrow! G'night!!

Trip of a Lifetime - Day 9

Three Churches, Two Kibbutzes, and a Winery

Have you ever woken up in a Kibbutz?

I HAVE!!! 

I don't know what the locals call this handsome guy, but I call him Bill. He's very vocal, and not at all camera shy, so I was very pleased with our encounter.

I met Bill at the edge of our kibbutz, on my way down a trail along shore of the Sea of Galilee. Our guide, Naz, explained that it's actually a lake, and it's never been called Sea of Galilee except for in the New Testament. It's called Lake Tiberias, and it's the largest fresh water lake in Israel. This is where Jesus recruited some fishermen to follow him, where the fishermen made the miraculous catch of fish, and where Jesus walked on water. The shores of this lake are where Jesus fed 5,000 people, and delivered the Sermon on the Mount. I wanted to go down at sunrise and snap some photos. The trail went along the lake for a very long time before it opened to a clearing where I could take photos, and by then I emerged at a marina. 

When I was at the kibbutz at 6am I was hearing the thumping of some techno music somewhere to the south. I didn't know what it was, but I followed the shoreline and discovered that the music was just beyond the marina. There were hundreds of people dancing, in what I termed "Tent City Dance Party."  When I got back to breakfast, Naz explained that those are Muslims partying right before Ramadan, when they will fast. Someone said, "Oh, like Mardi Gras!" He nodded. Not a perfect parallel, but that's the idea. Ramadan started yesterday in Israel.

Tent City Dance Party

At 7:00am we enjoyed another fantastic breakfast of fresh veggies, hummus, grapefruit, omelette, cheese, couscous,... I'll stop there. The buffet was three tables full of food, and I sampled quite a lot of things. All of them were fantastic. 

We boarded the bus and were back on a tour of a second kibbutz, three churches, and a winery. Maybe that should be the title for this adventure! (By this time the consensus of the group that it would have been preferable to have three wineries and one church, rather than three churches and one winery, but I was content with all the churches.)

I'll discuss these events out of order, starting with the kibbutz. The kibbutz movement took place in the early 20th century, coinciding with the rise of socialism around the world, and the Zionist movement that led Jews to emigrate back to their homeland. In order to worship, observe kosher dietary restrictions, and preserve their way of life, immigrant Jews coming to Palestine from all over Europe and Asia needed to join together in community. The idea behind a kibbutz is that everyone contributes to the community in the ways they are able, and everyone shares the yields of the community equally. The community should be able to sustain itself. Some members of the community are teachers, some are plumbers, some tend animals, and some are electricians. And all will receive an equal number of eggs, for example.
 

The kibbutz where we stayed, overlooking the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee, was Kinneret Kibbutz. Its main source of income is from guests like us. They have several buildings that serve as lodgings for guests. The rooms are simple, but have everything one needs for a comfortable stay, including WiFi and a TV. 

We visited another kibbutz further north, on the northeastern edge of the Sea of Galilee. There we spoke to a resident who was born there. His father was also born there, and his children will be born there, too. He explained that his father's parents came to this kibbutz from Germany in 1944. My mind halted right there. Jews coming here from Germany in 1944?! I wanted to ask him to tell me that story, which must have included a great deal of lived experience in Nazi Germany before and during World War II. But he just brushed over that sentence like it had no particular significance except that's when his father's parents moved here, and got busy helping to establish the community, which was still quite new. We parked in a parking lot near the cattle lots, then walked along the paved sidewalks between modern homes with trampolines and children's bicycles in the yards. I guess I was expecting something more.... I dunno... Amish-ish? But this was pretty modern! The guy we were talking to was in jeans and a t-shirt, he has traveled all over the U.S. and Australia and Europe, and his English was perfect.

This is their stockyard.

I wish I could remember his name. He was born here.

Busy making milk for sale. 

If the profits from the stockyards don't support the community, they will be closed down and efforts will be redirected to a source of income this is sustaining.

Also on the day's itinerary were some pretty important holy sites. 

• Nazareth, the Church of the Annunciation
• Capernaum, The Mount of Beatitudes
• The Wedding Cana Church
• Kfar Nahum (Capernaum) National Park

The Church of the Annunciation, in Nazareth, was built on the spot where the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would deliver a son. It's pretty stunning. It's the largest church in the Middle East, and when you walk all around the grounds you can see the preserved and protected ruins of Mary's neighborhood from 2,000 years ago.

Church Of The Annunciation

Interior

Under the main floor you can see Mary's house.

Separate section, same church. Did I mention it's the biggest church in the Middle East?

We also saw the Cana Wedding Church, where Jesus performed his first miracle -- turning water into wine. It stands above the ruins of the original site.

Cana Wedding Church

This is what they meant by "pot of wine." I always pictured a large clay pot that might hold maybe four gallons of wine. Nope! This thing would hold an awful lot of wine!

These ruins of the original church (4th Century Byzantine) are under the Cana Wedding Church.

This section of ancient ruins from the original church can be seen from the upper level of the church, beneath the floor, made visible with screens.

Is that enough church for you for one trip? 

No?! 

Well then let's head over to the Mount of Beaitutdes, north of Capernaum! This church was built on the site where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. There were 8 beatitudes, so the church is an octagonal structure, with each wall featuring a stained glass window of each beatitude, in Latin.

"Beati pauperes spiritu quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum."

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The Beatitudes, in English, line the main sidewalk. 

Tiles like this display the Beatitudes in Korean, Sri Lankan, and many other languages.

Another bus ride, another stop, this time in Kfar Nahum National Park and St. Peter's Church in Capernaum. This is where they believe the Apostle Peter lived, and the church is built over the excavation site where the earliest Christians gathered. This is considered to be the site of the first Christian worship gatherings.

The front of St. Peter's Church.

Underneath St. Peter's Church.

Center of the interior of the church, with glass floor to reveal the site where the first Christian worshippers gathered.

Byzantine synagogue in Capernaum.

Oh my goodness, this is a long blog for a long day! But I'll conclude with the wine tasting experience at Golan Heights Winery. We started with a tour of the facility, including the cellar full of barrels of wine. Then we went into the wine tasting room to try two whites and two reds and two dessert wines, paired with a beautiful platter of cheeses and crackers. 

Wine in oak barrels.

These are the ones we tried.

Mom hanging on for balance after tasting five delicious wines.

Remember when I said I was presenting these out of order? It would have been perfect if we had ended the day after the wine tasting, but this was somewhere between several church stops, so we still had a lot to see when we boarded the bus after this experience. It was a very full and wonderful day that ended back at the kibbutz. 

Be sure to check the next blog. We visited.... churches!

Trip of a Lifetime - Day 8

Okay, I'm a few days behind. We get back to the room at night and I elevate my knee, and usually fall asleep, often before 8:00pm. One night I missed dinner, which was fine considering how much I've been eating on this trip. Yesterday my goal was to walk LESS than 6,000 steps. I tried really hard. We toured Caesarea, which is an amazing place, and I avoided SO MANY RUINS! I just walked the shortest path between the entrance and the exit, and still ended the day with 8,000 steps. The other days have been between 10,000 and 14,000 steps, so 8,000 is still better, and my knee feels better today. So anyway, it's time to catch up. I'm in a van with WiFi, riding from Tel Aviv to Amman, Jordan. I'll have some time to catch up over the next few hours.

Thursday morning we checked out of our Jerusalem hotel, then headed south to Masada. Have you ever seen the movie Masada? It came out as a made-for-TV mini-series in 1981. I was twelve when my family watched it. It depicts the story of the Roman siege of Masada. A few years before the siege there was a Jewish uprising against Rome. This was a small group of rebels against the largest, mightiest military in the world. As expected, Rome crushed the rebellion completely, and in the process they razed Jerusalem to the ground and left the Temple Mount a pile of rubble. We talk about the Pax Romana as a period of nearly 200 years of peace in the Roman Empire, beginning with Augustus Caesar. But this is how the peace was kept -- through the violent squelching of local uprisings.

One group of Jews that survived the Roman onslaught fled to the south, where Herod had built his fortress on Masada. Now I have to go back and talk a little bit about Herod. History knows him as "Herod the Great". 

• Christians know him as the King who ordered all baby boys slaughtered because the Wise Men told him there would be a King born there, and he didn't want to be supplanted.** 
• Jews know Herod the Great as the man who rebuilt the Temple to be one of the grandest structures in ancient Jewish history, but he kept a firm and tyrannical rule over his subjects, so he wasn't a just or well-loved leader like Solomon or David. 
• History tells us that there was probably never any order to massacre boy babies. There is no mention of it in the other gospels, or any other book of the Bible, or any other piece of parchment ever found in Israel or ancient Rome, and it would have been a very big deal to never mention.*** History also tells us he was an incredible builder.

But just because historians call him "great," and refute the notion that he ordered the slaughter of babies, doesn't mean Herod wasn't a horrible guy. He did kill his wife and two of his sons for suspicion of trying to overthrow him. Augustus said of him, "It's better to be Herod's pig than Herod's son." (He was a strict observer of kosher law, so pigs were pretty safe.)

This is what Herod the Great looked like. The internet doesn't lie.

Anyway, history calls him Herod The Great because he oversaw the building of some pretty amazing things. The second Temple Mount was doubled in size, and the grandeur of the renovated Temple was incredible. At the coastal town of Caesarea he created the first underwater concrete harbor in history, to create a safe port for trading vessels. He named this port city Caesarea. Not Davidstown, not Abrahamville, and not even Herodopolis. Caesarea, after Augustus Caesar. This was an acknowledgement of Roman authority and might, and a show of deference to his political superiors. Herod knew how to play the game.

So this was Herod. He was a paranoid megalomaniac. He licked the boots of Augustus, but he didn't really trust him, so in 30 BCE he began construction of a fortress near the dead sea. Masada. 

One century later, in 70 CE, Herod was dead (died in 4 BCE) and the Jews rebelled against Rome, leading to the total ruin of Jerusalem. About 1,000 Jews fled to Masada. The fortress was stocked with giant cisterns full of water, as well as provisions for a town to survive for some time. The Romans pursued them, but couldn't immediately defeat them. Ultimately there would be 15,000 troops deployed to Masada, and still they were unable to reach the Jews with arrows or catapults. They decided to build an earthen ramp. It had to be wide enough and strong enough to roll a giant battering ram and hundreds of armed soldiers. It took months for thousands of men to build the ramp. Finally they were able to reach the fortress and batter the walls down. When they entered the fortress they found 960 bodies. The Jews had committed mass suicide, rather than surrender to slavery under Rome. 

Full disclosure: This isn't my photo.

I was twelve when I watched that movie, and I can still see the defeated expression on Peter O'Toole's face. Priceless. 

With all that said, this is the site where we began our day! (What a lead-up, huh?)

Thankfully, we didn't have to hike the switchbacks up the side of the mountain to get to the plateau. We rode a cable car to the top. It holds 65 people, and leaves every 15 minutes. Those who hike take about 1 1/2 hours to get to the top, and it is strongly discouraged in the summer months because it is so hot it can be dangerous. Naz told us that a few years ago a group defied the caution against hiking, and two of them died. It's late March for us, we were there in the morning, we rode the cable car, and we were still sweating like crazy.

Once at the top it takes about two hours to walk the perimeter of the fortress. I didn't walk the entire perimeter. There were ruins on every part of the plateau. Over the centuries the original structures took a lot of damage, mostly from earthquakes. But with the renewed interest in Masada over the past 2 centuries there has been renewed interest in rebuilding Masada. Some of the buildings have black lines around them. Everything below the line is original, and everything above the line has been rebuilt using the original stones lying around the site. I stared at the walls, comparing what was below the line to what was above the line, and I couldn't see a difference in structure. They've done an incredible job rebuilding.

The crows were very insistent. Not an informative photo, but I like it, so here it is!

That's me! At Masada!

Bathhouse. See the black line?

Israel's flag flying over Masada.

Mom reading the info that's presented in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Far below the fortress are some squares like this one. These were the Roman encampments.

After two hours we were back on the cable car, back to the bus, and on our way to the Dead Sea. I'll shorten this part because I just made you read a lot of information about King Herod. The Dead Sea was cool. Lots of stairs, so any benefit I hoped to receive for my knee, with the miraculous healing powers of the Dead Sea mud was offset by the many, many stairs we walked down to get there, and back up to get showered. Floating in a seated position was everything I expected it to be. Once we emerged from the water we could visit showers on the beach. Those who didn't shower were coated in a layer of minerals and salt by the time they got to the top of the stairs. Rather than feeling sacred or holy, there was a spring break party atmosphere there. Loudspeakers played loud music, mostly Spanish pop music, and people were drinking and laughing and enjoying the outdoors. They had an open-air bar where they served snacks and drinks, and there were people from EVERYWHERE going up and down the stairs to the water. There was also a swimming pool at the entrance, where many people were playing.

Back to the bus, we headed to our next stop. Remember the Bible story about Zachaeus, the wee little man who climbed up in the Sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see? (earworm) There's a church built there. That tree is still there, although it's just a large stump encased in glass. There is a living sycamore tree right next to that case. 

What's left of Zachaeus's sycamore tree.

The church built at the spot where Jesus sang, "Zachaeus, you come down, for I'm going to your house todaaaaaaay."

Then another short drive to Temptation Mountain, where Jesus spent 40 days during lent, and then we drove through Jericho. Jericho is the oldest city in the world. Human civilization is believed to be 10,000 to 12,000 years old. Jericho is dated to 10,000 years old. The story of Joshua entering Jericho at the end of the 40 years in the desert was about 3,400 years ago. For millennia, if you lived in the area but weren't living in Jericho you were living in the desert, working desperately to find anything to eat or drink. If you were living in Jericho you were living in an oasis, full of fruit trees of all kinds, and a source of fresh water. This is why the people in Jericho built the wall that Joshua destroyed. It was border control of a sort. Jericho is still an oasis in the desert. We drove from the dead sea through miles and miles (kilometers and kilometers) of rock and desert, and then we came to Jericho and all of its palm trees. It's still a very busy city.

At the end of the day we checked into a Kibbutz in Tiberius, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Dinner in the dining room was excellent. Accommodations were simple and comfortable. My leg was swollen and tired, and I slept hard.

So ended day 8. That was Thursday. Today is Sunday. So much more to share!