Today we began our drive to Galilee, and on the way Nassir, our guide, gave us a history lesson on Israel, starting from Moses looking across at the Holy Land, up to 1948. Thanks, Prof. Owens, for all those Thursday night OT1 lectures - once again, I am an informed pilgrim!
We had an early breakfast and made the drive up to Caesarea, where we saw amazing ruins of one of Herod's temples, the amphitheatre where an important discovery confirming our Biblical story was found during excavation - a stone with Pontius Pilate inscribed on it. Caesarea is also the place where Paul was under house arrest (recall also in Acts where Paul participated in his defense at a Roman hearing in Caesarea).
...and Nazareth in the afternoon. There we saw churches on sites where the annunciation supposedly took place.
We made our final stop of the day at the Sea of Galilee, where we'll be staying for the next two nights, and the place where I'll spend my birthday - the Pilgerhaus, a monastery/hostel type place. It is quite nice, almost resort-like and very peaceful. Definitely a place I could come back to!
My roommate Caitlin and I made a quick business of checking into our room , changing into our swimsuits and heading down to the water. It's gorgeous! The only challenges were getting past the boulders and rocky beach to the water, but once we got past them, the fresh water was surprisingly cool and a welcomed relief after spending a hot, sandy day along the Mediterranean. We swam around for nearly an hour, humming hymns and thinking - funny how being IN the Sea of Galilee causes you to think of hymns about Galilee! Justin joined us about the time we had climbed out of the water, so we spent some time just sitting, watching the change of colors during sunset.
Dinner at 7 - in an air conditioned room - yay! And afterwards we had a group reflection followed by compline - not very pleasant. I am not confident that our SSJE leader has a handle on his role as trip chaplain. Our reflection felt more like required group therapy at a rehab facility. But afterwards Caitlin, Patrick, Justin and I met up for a rematch game of Spades - the Sewanee team against the PKs again. It was an odd game, with scores often in the negative numbers from our over-eager betting! We were also joined this evening by Joseph, the owner of Pilgerhaus and a joy to talk to. He is a native Palestinian who spent some time in the States working for Johnny Cash. He told us great stories of his time with Johnny, the places he's been, the people he's met, as well as perspective on his country - both its history and current events.
The only downside to my time in Galilee so far, is that I'm having a hard time with swollen feet, on which ice packs and ibuprofen don't seem to have any effect. I suppose the combination of heat, sun, walking, and sea level combine for a puffy ankle experience - ugh!
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