Holiday Inn 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.<br>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 ...

... on site for the stone seats. Otherwise, the place is set up for modern concerts, with seat numbers on the stone rows, a fancy light-show, and great sound.<br><br>Anyway, we were there to see Glykeria (a Greek singer popular in Israel) and Boaz Sharabi (a good pop singer big in the '80s)--perhaps not the lineup I'd have dreamed of, but the performances were good, and they both really got the mostly middle-aged crowd going (although there ...

... 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 ...

... the table in front of the parents. Curious. The view from up there was incredible in every direction, with more green fields and hills than one would normally associate with the Middle East.<br><br><br><br>One other cool scene we saw from the car came on Friday night, driving up the windy roads on the way home. From there, we could see the outline of the Haifa Bay lit up by the city lights down below. That was the point on the map where the coastal Israel landmass ...

... we could always refill. The chip cost $30 and minutes $15. After walking around the mall, only entering a few stores of interest, we stopped at the food court to eat. We love having the "chain" restaurants from NY, in a kosher version. Some of us ate Sbarros pizza and some of us ate McDonalds. A rare treat we've been dying for. Dinner cost us $45 USD for the 5 of us. More than NY, but not too bad. The mall closed at 11 PM &amp; we left too &amp; slept almost right away.

... like brushing off surfaces to look for finds. Other times it is back-breaking, like when we pickax hard soil to turn it up, or shovel it into buckets which are dumped into wheelbarrows, which must then be pushed to the end of the Tel and emptied down the side of the mound. The 3 ½ hours from starting time until breakfast are the longest stretch without a break and usually the most physical. This is the most challenging stretch of the day. Next post, I'll describe breakfast.

... day (7th day for Reform Jews and Jews in Israel), Moroccan and Turkish Sephardic Jews worldwide have a celebration called Mimouna which is usually celebrated in their homes. Mimouna is a celebration of freedom, community values, togetherness, friendship, and is a demonstration of great hospitality. It is also a celebration of ...