Israel (Part 1)

Israel was definitely the highlight of the trip. I have wanted to visit Israel since I was a child, and this visit was the top of my to-do list during our year abroad.

I had tried without success to find a tour guide in Israel. I had contacted at least a half dozen people. All said they were already booked. I was desperate. Luckily, Linda found a group that would let us join them for a couple of days (at extortion prices, but desperate times called for desperate measures).

The cruise ship said we would dock at 7 and we would get off sometime between 8 and 10. The tour company was going to pick us up at the terminal. Linda told them 9:30 to give us some cushion.

It was a disaster. We were very early to the disembarkation point, but they were very far behind. They didn’t let us start getting off until well after 10, and then we had to go through passport control and multiple rounds of security. We didn’t have cell phone reception or wifi, so we couldn’t tell the driver we were going to be late.

Eventually I got a sliver of wifi and I sent off some quick messages.

When we finally got out of the cruise terminal it was still chaos. No clue where to go. Blockades everywhere. We went down some stairs but there was a lady collapsed on the ground with police helping her. We went to another place only to find a dead end of barricades. We asked an officer there where we should go. He told us to just climb around the barricades …

So, we found ourselves in a random parking lot. We hadn’t had anything to drink in a while, and it was very hot. We didn’t have any cell service or wifi.

I stayed with most of the kids while Linda and JJ went looking for our ride and/or wifi. Eventually they found the car we were supposed to get in, but the driver wasn’t there. We waited there for a little while and luckily the driver came back. He had been looking for us somewhere else.

We drove to the Sea of Galilee. By this point we were late enough that we missed the boat ride, but we were still able to have a pretty authentic lunch.