Caesar Resort Hotel Tiberias

... also a large arab-israeli community here. The Bahai Gardens are the holiest site for the Bahai faith (that I'd never heard of before). The gardens are on 19 levels up the mountain and at the highest level, has spectacular views of the city and the med sea. We took the free tour and walked down the 700 steps to the bottom, snapping photos all along the way. It really was worth the trip out.
We then headed out straight away to the Kineret, about an hour away. I recognized the Holiday ...

... a checkpoint stop, showing our passports and answering a few questions to enter and exit. Very soon afterwards we saw the sign for Beit She'an and exited to find the Beit Sh'an Archelogical site. This site was as amazing as I had heard. It was extremely hot so we spent about an hour there mainly wandering the lower site of the Roman city that was one of the cities of the Decapolis. We were always in view of the ever-present tel hill ...

... Crusader city in existance today. It is almost fully-intact and well over 1000 years old. The buildings were impressive in their size and design. Here, knights lived and worked alongside the denizens of the town living within its walls. The site has remained intact despite successive occupiers who each added their own destruction or construction to it. Much was originally buried until achaelogists excavated portions of it. Today, people still live here ...

... across the very water I was crossing. The boat trip took about 30 minutes to get across to Tabgha (pronounced tahb'-gah), but the whole time I was on the boat, I felt like it was just me and God. It was such an incredibly worshipful time. I asked Michael to take a picture of me sitting at the front of the boat because I wanted to remember that moment forever. We were heading toward Tabgha since this is ...

... which brought back laughter and memories from the '34second' evening. We made our way back to Shimon's parents place only to find some random people in his bed. We gave each other a look and into one of the other rooms. At one point, his mom came into the room to give more blankets and when she sa me she said "dont worry, I dont see anything" It made me laugh cuz I guess she didn't realize I was Borik's sister. Anywya, I slept for about 2 hours then woke up to what ...

... and need to learn some tougher discipline. Here in the north, the beautiful green trees and forest hills represented a remarkable change from the desolate desert of the south, from which there was no recourse against the sun. Perhaps since this base could hold up to 3,000 soldiers apparently, the cafeteria food was actually not too bad. We slept in bunk-bed cots with about twenty of us per room. Needless to say, the first shower after Field Week was unbelievable. The few days ...

... a "Thayer/Hertzl Street" and Yarmouk University right there, which looked huge and is apparently famous. I understand that Jordan, a monarchy, is a pretty liberal country as far as Arab countries go. We were told told it's 95% Arab, 5% Christian, and they have a peace treaty signed with Israel. Somewhat related, the Jordanian Dinar is basically equivalent to the Euro, which is interesting. I kept a pretty sweet coin. The plan was to visit Amman the next day ...

... find pieces of animal bone, and sometimes teeth. We find flints, used for different household tasks. Sometimes we find "pounders" (stones used to, logically enough, pound things) and pumice grind stones. On very happy occasions we find beads or other kinds of jewelry or ornamentation. Those are rare. But mostly we find broken pottery, it is everywhere on the tel. In some squares (4 meters by 4 meters) we may fill with pottery sherds three ...

... the middle of the road right at a curve. It was pretty scary. Then a little bit later the same thing happened again, but with a kangaroo. Ok, I know what you are thinking. Evette did not believe me either, but it sure looked like a kangaroo! Now we are looking for a spot to stop & have a BBQ/picnic. We packed a tiny ...

... windy road back to the main lakeshore road and find a restaurant whose sign announces "Oriental food". Inside the menu has schnitzel and assorted salads. No matter, it is air conditioned; the people are friendly and the service quick. We drink glasses of water and then more water. And our eyes light up when the waiter brings a large dish of watermelon slices for desert! We're refreshed and re-energized! We find an ATM, and then drive to the Hula ...