Let’s talk about olive trees. The olive is one of the seven species abundantly produced in Israel (the list of the other six are found in Deuteronomy 8:8). A few facts about the olive tree: – They live a long time. We’re talking hundreds, some toeing a thousand plus, years. – Their roots are long…

Today, we said goodbye to quite a few things. Firstly was a family that isn’t flying back with us (the dad is a Delta pilot and gets some mad perks) that I got to know and love. The four boys made up a chunk of our “youngsters” group, so their presence will be sorely missed….

Remember me telling you that we calculated out that we had walked 43 miles thus far? Here’s the result of it (well, me wearing Chacos that needed to be adjusted didn’t help much either). Luckily, we spent more travel time on the bus than on our feet, so they got a break and a chance…

Okay, so we didn’t walk 500 miles. But we did do the math and we have walked 43 miles so far! That, my friends, is a lot of walking. We stuck around the Old City today and packed A LOT in. In fact, we probably got a good 10 miles in of walking today alone….

We spent a good chunk of the day in Bethlehem. Our first stop was at a souvenir store! We received a warm welcome by the shop, serenaded by Christmas music overhead. I nabbed some earrings made of semi-precious stones. Our next stop was the Church of the Nativity, where they believe Jesus was born. It…

Today was a full day and a HOT day! I wasn’t quick enough on the draw with the sunscreen and got toasty roasty in a couple of places. Here is the view from our hotel room balcony! That body of water to the left is the Dead Sea! Very Vegas-esque. A whole lot of resorts…

Here we are, Day 6! It’s amazing to think of all we’ve seen so far and all we’ve yet to see! I have 5 more days of exploring and I am still stoked! We first visited Beit She’an, where King Saul’s and his sons’ corpses were hung from the walls (1 Samuel 31:10). It is…

If today could be summed up into one word, it would be: “synagogue”. We saw several ruins of several different synagogues in several different places and learned quite a lot about them. Fun Fact: Most synagogues were built facing Jerusalem! Only one we saw today was not. But before we saw all the synagogue ruins,…

Learned my first Hebrew phrase (besides the well-known “Shalom”): Boker Tov (meaning “Good morning”)! Well, I suppose for a majority of you, it’s good afternoon, isn’t it? Did you know that Israel is 7 hours ahead of my EST peeps? That still blows my mind! Even as I write this, the sun having been set…

Our hotel was called the Island Luxurious Suites Hotel. With a view like this, I’d say it was appropriately named. I hope I never forget how it felt to sleep horizontally, in a bed, after 36 hours of straight travel. I could have cried, it was so relieving. While tossing and turning on the plane,…