Dec 29, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20
Well, we made it through our first full day of touring. I thought I would share a few non-tourist-destination type things. For example, the food. I’ve eaten more than a few things I don’t recognize, and a few things I do. Last night’s buffet at the hotel was amazing. We had kebab meat, no skewer, we had the best hummus I’ve ever had with fresh bread…name your type, they had tons of varieties of bread. Awesome guacamole, which we ate on bread also. Fresh native fruits: pears, apples, oranges, dates, etc. Olives have been on every buffet too. Some fish dishes, beef tongue (nope for this girl), and lots of salads and desserts. This morning for breakfast I had a cheese soufflé that was yummy, more bread of any kind, several kinds of cheeses were there, lots of cold fish (another no for me), and a couple of dried fruit and cold cereal options as well. I took a picture of a few things (the only food pic I remembered to take). So on this plate is hummus, cottage cheese, a grape leaf wrapped around I have no idea, and an egg, like baked to hard boil and swimming in what I can closest describe as like spaghetti sauce. Actually really good. The apples and pears were like right off the tree…reminds me of when my childhood friend would take me to her grandparent’s apple orchard and we would eat apples straight from the trees. Yum!!
Here is a picture of the hotel in Netanya where we stayed last night, the Ramada. And Evan on our patio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
We had a very nice room with what Evan and I both agreed was the best shower head ever. Of course, after sweating and traveling for over 24 hours straight, anything was going to feel good, but man was that a good shower. The room had a king size bed, but split into 2 singles to be kosher. Pastor explained to us that a man cannot share a mattress with his wife when she is ceremonially unclean, so they can sleep together with the same blanket and everything, just not the same mattress. Our bed tonight is the same way.
Here is sunrise outside our balcony. So beautiful. Sorry I don’t know how to change the orientation!
EO Tours has this process DOWN. This is a Whisper, I had never heard of it. It’s an earphone you can wear in one ear and can hear the tour guide no matter where he is, for tour info, where to go, when to move, when to go to the bathroom, when to head for the bus…man is that nice. No shouting, and we can always hear him. So handy!
We got to enjoy fresh squeezed pomegranate juice at one of the tour sites (Mt Precipice, I’ll write another blog). It was sour, and yummy!
I got my first Israeli money in change today when we went out for gelato. 20 shekel bill and 2 shekel coins. Value=~$6.37.
I thought this was a really cool looking tree, so I took a pic of it. Some other vegetation pics too, but this one was really neat I thought. OK, now on to the tourist stuff! Thanks for reading!
Dec 28, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
Well, we made it! What a marathon. We’ve been up for I don’t know how many hours, but still haven’t slept yet. We arrived safely, took us awhile to get through the line to have our passports checked, but then the tour company greeted us and were ready to load us onto the bus for the hotel. Tonight we are staying at the Ramada in Netanya. Very nice room. We are on the 7th floor overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We got to walk along the sidewalk above the shore a bit and have a quick photo shoot.
Our rooms weren’t quite ready when we arrived because it is the Sabbath here, hence the quick walk, even though we are exhausted. We are going to dinner tonight yet too, they advised us not to go to bed as we would wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. I don’t think they know how long my boy and I can sleep when inspired like we have been. We are in the room now though, and already had a quick shower to rinse off, and headed to supper. The planes were all super hot, lesson learned…wear cooler clothes, so we needed the rinse off!
Supper buffet was really yummy. Local fruits and veggies, the salad bar was yummy with guacamole and hummus with bread and some pea and carrot salads. The dessert bar was mostly little petit fours. There was beef tongue and spicy salmon and other fish on the main menu, I hear. None are my favorites. The potatoes and corn were good though.
Tomorrow we are scheduled to see Caesarea, Megiddo, Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee, if memory serves. We are staying the next two nights near the Sea of Galilee. Thanks all, for the prayers and well wishes!
Here are a few pictures.
First sunset on the way from Tel Aviv to Netanya. Shot from the bus at high speed, sorry!
The Mediterranean as we were coming into Tel Aviv. There is a God and boy does He make pretty pictures! Sorry, I don’t know how to change the orientation yet…
First glimpse of Tel Aviv from the air.
What a cool building.
First glimpse of the Mediterranean from the ground…almost to Netanya.
Again with the God thing…He was showing off today!
Another glimpse of Tel Aviv from the air.
So I know this is a crappy picture, but right below the no-smoking sign to the right of the cord is a rainbow. We were flying down the highway when I took it and had to go fast before it was behind a building. Rainbow on the first day! Yay!
A walk on the sidewalk next to the Mediterranean right outside our hotel in Netanya.
More pretty sunset.
Evan took my pic by an “I love Netanya” sign, but didn’t get the words in it…doh!! ; ). Lots of compliments on my snazzy shoes…in every country we’ve been so far!! Evan can’t stand it…he thinks it’s giving me a big head. I just told him I have excellent taste in shoes. He hates that. I love it!! LOL. OK, off to bed now, more tomorrow!
Dec 28, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
We have arrived safely in Vienna! Whoa was that a long flight. We stood up and walked and went to the bathroom one time for about five minutes, the rest of the 8.5 hours we were seated, sardined in. Evan said he lost part of his soul during the flight. I’m still feeling excited though, albeit with a serious case of tired rear end.
So it’s morning here, even though it is the middle of the night back home. Perhaps because we have been flying 700 miles an hour toward the sunrise for the past 8 hours. It was cool to watch our position on the map and see what we were flying over, even though we couldn’t see anything.
Our flight for Tel Aviv leaves in around an hour. Then we will have a bus ride for not sure how long, to get to the hotel. Evan and I will likely skip supper tonight to sleep through. We have some protein bars, and prefer that and sleep to the alternative. We had a fast food kind of chicken sandwich here at the airport, meh. Not great, but we’ll live!
OK, I’ll see if I can post some pictures too. Next stop, Israel!
Good Morning from Vienna!
Dec 27, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
At the airport! Just checked our bags for the first leg.
The morning went smoothly, even though neither one of us could sleep much with the excitement! We are at the airport now, eating lunch at Granite City. We got through the first, most lenient of our checkpoints, and had our first devotional and blessing as a group. We number 29 pilgrims in our group, all together.
We are hoping that Chicago goes smoothly as we have to recheck our checked bags there, and in Vienna as well, and hoping we can use our special pillows to get some rest on the flight. So far they have let us keep our snacks, so we’ll see how long that lasts.
Dec 23, 2019 | Nancy’s Holy Land Trip 2019-20, Uncategorized
Hi all! I’d like to invite you all to follow along as my son and I travel to and around the Holy Land for two weeks from Dec 27, 2019 to Jan 10, 2020! I will plan to post blogs regularly while we’re gone; I’m going to shoot for at least once daily. I hope you will enjoy reading about what we are doing as we see the sights in this amazing part of the world. Stay tuned, I’ll be posting more soon!
