Israel

Here I am in Israel. I might combine some days, but this is a busy one, so it gets its own day.

There aren't a lot of countries I really want to visit. I would like to see France and England again. I would like to go through the Panama canal. And Israel. That is pretty much it. So Israel - check.

We start off by getting on our tour bus. You can visit countries on your own. I would do that in some countries, but here I feel a lot more secure being driven around. Also our tour guide is good. She is Jewish and knows her stuff. For some reason saying someone is Jewish sounds fine, but to say someone is a Jew sounds kind of Nazi-like. Maybe that is just in my head. But, I digress. Back on the bus.

We drove north along the Mediterranean. We got out at Caesarea Maritima. It was built by the kiss up Herold the Great to honor the current Caesar - either Julius or Augustus. It has the remains of an ampitheater and a race track a la Ben Hur. It also had a pool that overlooked the Mediterranean. Lap of luxury. Caesarea is in pretty good shape because it was covered with sand for centuries.

We stopped briefly at an aqueduct. Then on the Mount Carmel then Mount Meggido. The things they call mountains we probably only call hills and we probably wouldn't even give them names. It was like a five minute walk to the top. From the top you could see the valley of Jezreel, Mount Tabor, and Nazareth. 

From there we went to Nazareth. They had the location of the homes of Mary and Joseph. I'm a little suspicious that they would know that, but whatever. From there we got to our hotel on the Sea of Galilee. That evening we could walk to a McDonalds. It said it was a Kosher McDonalds. I think that means their bacon cheeseburgers probably don't have a lot of cheese or bacon.