Israel so far...

i feel like i can't quite put things into words yet. it all seems surreal. it's seems like i'm not anywhere different from every day life, but at the same time it feels like i am indeed in another country.

here is the breakdown of the trip so far:
Day 1 (plus a little)
- the woods dropped me at the airport in plenty of time to make my flights.
- the guys from charlotte area that were also going on the trip recognized me because of my LUL shirt that said travelers rest, SC.
- we flew to JFK, i had a very quiet seat buddy. but we had a few laughs at the fact we could not hear a word the flight attendant said.
- in JFK we walked possible a mile to our next gate. waited about an hour, then began to load for the 11 hours flight.
- sadly the plane didn't have individual tvs in the seats like i was told was possible. and i was asked to swap seats twice and ended up at a window seat.
- i slept a little bit off an on. watched most the ides of march. and did not get out of my seat until we landed. the people next to me were sleeping the whole time.
- we then met up with our group in the tel aviv airport and headed to the hotel.
- uncle paul and i went for a walk on the mediterranean sea for about an hour. i had no idea how big it is.
- we then did dinner with the group and went to bed.
Day 2
- didn't sleep super well with the jet lag and all. but good enough.
- ate breakfast, loaded the bus, found out the bus has wi-fi...but doing a blog post from my phone is too much work. but posting to fb is not.
- we first went to caesarea by the sea and saw some pretty cool ruins and such.
- we saw the roman aquaduct.
- then on to mt. carmel where God used elijah to defeated the prophets of baal.
- had my first ever falafel. im a fan for life.
- we then went to mt. megiddo which has layers of civilizations built on top of each other. it was very interesting.
- we then went to 'the nazareth village' where there were re-enactor types acting out what life would have been like in Jesus' day. it was mostly all replica, but there was an original ancient wine press.
- we then headed to our hotel on the sea of galilee.
- this hotel isn't quite as well located, but hopefully the haze will clear some tomorrow and we will have a better view of the sea.
- we are now winding down in the lobby before bed.

i am going to wait until i get home to do descriptive posts with pictures...but i will share a few for today:

 Mediterranean at sunset

 the roman aqueduct

my first falafel near mt. carmel

wildflowers in nazareth

in my mind things here should be dry and sandy all over. but it is actually rather green. lots of agriculture. and even little wild flowers all over. maybe Jesus brought his mom home little bouquets of these in the spring.