Where to begin? Galilee is AMAZING. If you ever get the opportunity to come to Israel, a few days in Galilee is a must. A few weeks, even better. I spent 11 days and we all wish we could have stayed the whole semester!
We left on Easter Sunday. We were able to attend the sunrise service at the Garden Tomb. It was very evangelical, so it was a lot of fun! We are all still singing "Happy Day". Then we departed to head up north. We stopped first at Megiddo and toured the tel. I saw the famous stables of Solomon and learned that they probably weren't stables after all. The tell overlooks the Jezreel Valley aka the valley of Armageddon. Next we stopped for lunch in Afula which is famous for its falafel. There is one falafel stand where the guy does tricks and throws the falafel balls up in the air and catches them in the pita; it was really cool! Our last stop of the day was Sepphoris, Herod's Pearl of the Galilee. It's near Nazareth, so it is possible that is where Joseph, step-father of Jesus, may have been employed since the city hired lots of artisans as it was being built up. The area around Sepphoris was so beautiful that it reminded me a lot of home and even made me a little homesick. That doesn't happen much-- that tells you how beautiful it really was! We finally arrived at Ein Gev, the place we were staying. We stayed in little bungalows near the Sea of Galilee.
Day 2 was a field trip day for my class. We are divided between the two religion classes. We only kept one bus all week, so the two classes would alternate. When one class was on a field trip with the bus, the other would have a class day. We started off with a boat ride across the lake. It was a beautiful and clear day, something we learned was rare because there is often a haze over the lake. On the other side there is a museum with a fishing boat that was found that dates back to around the time period of Jesus, so it is often called the "Jesus boat". It was found about 13 years ago in the mud around the lake during a drought. Next we made our way to the Mount of Beatitudes were there is a beautiful Italian church that was built by Mussolini actually. His people accused him of not being a good Catholic so he built this church. We had our lecture about the Sermon on the Mount up there. After lunch we toured the Byzantine basilica-style chapel at Tabga which commemorates Jesus feeding of the 5000 with 2 fishes and 5 loaves, then walked over to the Crusader chapel commemorating St. Peter's Primacy, when Jesus told Peter to "feed my sheep". Our last stop was at Capernaum where Jesus based much of his ministry from. Archaeologists are confident that they have actually identified Peter's home because of the many other chapels built over it over time. There is a Franciscan church suspended over it now, but you can see beneath to the ruins.
Day 3 was a class day for us, so we had 3 hours of New Testament class in the morning outside on the lawn overlooking the water underneath the blooming trees. Spring is here in the Holy Land. Roses are already blooming too. Summer isn't here yet though, which means swimming season is not yet, so we weren't allowed to go in the water. Our director begged for us and arranged for each class to get one day of swimming though. This was our day and we got 4 hours to spend in the water. It was great! The temperature was like Hayden Lake in August= perfect! We had lots of fun playing in the sand too, as you can see from pictures!
The next day we had a field trip to Gamla. This is the place where Josephus, the Jewish historian, had command during the first Jewish revolt in the first century. The Jews ended up committing suicide by jumping off the cliffs rather than being brutalized as Roman slaves, so that is what it is known for. You can still see where the wall was breached by Roman battering rams. We climbed up to the very top of the hill. We had not been sufficiently informed about the nature of the field trip that day and many girls wore skirts because of the heat. Bad idea! It was really windy and we had a time trying to not flash everybody! I ended up just tying my skirt around my legs, or as I called it "girding my loins". It was really fun still and really beautiful. If you have seen the new Pride and Prejudice movie it looks like the area of the peaks in the movie. After Gamla we went to Qazrin, a village where the people had lived Talmudically during the period of time when the Talmud was being written, sort of an experimental village where they would see what things worked and what didn't. That night our class got to go to the fish restaurant and eat some St. Peter's fish, an indigenous species that has always lived in the Sea of Galilee. It was pretty yummy. After that we went to Tiberias for ice cream.
Day 5 was another class day. That afternoon many of us went on an optional hike up in the Golan. We hiked among the hills and up to a waterfall. We got to swim in the pool at the base and it was FREEZING. Think Lake Pend Orielle in the spring. When our bus brought us home, our driver favored us with a sample of the Muslim prayer call. Apparently Ata, our driver, is a local celebrity of sorts. He does the prayer call for the mosque next to the Dome of the Rock every weekend and is broadcast to Jordan too. He just spontaneously did part of a prayer call for us on the bus and it was really cool. He is the nicest man and definitely the nicest bus driver we've ever had.
The next day was another field trip day. We first went to Beth She'an. This city was Hellenized so there are a lot of Roman ruins. This is the city where King Saul's body was hung on the gate (after he died in battle nearby) before the Israelites sneaked and took it down to bury it. We climbed all over the ruins. Next we went to the area of the Seven Springs. It's a national part now, but it has been people have been going bathing there for centuries. There are these 7 natural thermal springs that bubble up in one area. The water was clear and beautiful and warm, like a pool in August. There were lots of fish in the water and there was this one that kept biting everybody. It even drew blood a couple times! We went to Bet Alfa to see a cool mosaic floor that has been well preserved, then to Nain to the little chapel that commemorates the miracle of Jesus raising the widow's son from death. We ended the day with a taxi ride up the 17 switchbacks of Mount Tabor, one of the mountains that the Transfiguration may have taken place. Up on top we met Truman G. Madsen, a well known historian.
Saturday was Shabbat and we went to church at the little church building in Tiberias. It is the only chapel for our church in Israel. It used to be a house that was converted into a meeting house; It is beautiful and overlooks the Sea of Galilee. Church was the only thing scheduled, so we got the rest of the day to ourselves. I spent it reading and writing in my journal on the lawn looking out over the lake. Life is tough.
We had class the morning of the eighth day, so in the afternoon lots of us climbed up to Hippos. It was a Hellenized pagan city on a nearby hill. It is speculated that this was the town Jesus was referencing in talking about "a city on a hill cannot be hid". It was a fun adventure. One kid had been up there earlier in the week and accidentally dropped his camera down a hole into a cistern or something like it. This time he brought rope and the boys were able to lower him down into the hole to retrieve the camera. He got it back and it still works too! From the top of Hippos you can overlook the whole lake.
Day nine was a little rainy. We first went to Hazor which is the biggest archaeological site in Israel. Then we went to Tel Dan, which is now a preserve and so has lots of beautiful greenery everywhere. After this we went to Caesarea Philipi and then to our final stop of the day: Nimrod's Castle. It's actually a crusader castle that was then taken over by Muslim conquerors. But it's a real castle! It was a lot of fun to crawl all over it.
Monday we were to go to the world famous Bahai Gardens at the headquarters of the Bahai faith in Haifa because they rescheduled our tour from Monday, but we were still in Ein Gev in Galilee and couldn't make it to Haifa in time for the tour so we missed it. We were all really sad. Instead we went the place that commemorates the miracle of the swine, and Chorazim before heading to Nazareth. In Nazareth we went to the Church of the Annunciation and then had some free time to walk around the city. We also went to Acco and toured the Crusader citadel and the al-Jazaar Mosque. My camera batteries died in Acco, so I didn't get any pictures of it unfortunately. That night we stayed in Haifa on the coast of the Mediterranean.
Tuesday was the last day of the trip. Since we couldn't go to the big gardens, we went to some smaller Bahai gardens instead. They were still very beautiful and incredible manicured. We did do a drive by of the Bahai headquarters to take pictures. We were supposed to go to this cool Templar cemetery, but our bus driver got lost and we ran out of time to stop there, so instead we stopped at a beach by an ancient aqueduct to eat lunch and stick our feet in the water. Our last stop was at Caesarea Mauritania, where Herod had a man-made port constructed. Finally we made it home and have since caught up on our laundry and are back in the usual grind.
As long as this post is, this I barely skimmed over what we did! At least this will give you a dialog to follow as you look at pictures. Now it is very late here and I have another field trip to Tel Aviv in the morning, but I had to finally get caught up with this! Check out the pictures, all the Galilee ones are up.
