Vacation with the Girls

Sometimes I miss college. Not the stress and weariness that haunts every step from midterms to finals,making your prayer life a whole lot stronger, but the full time learning and the opportunity to experience life's struggles and triumphs with your friends. Last week, I enjoyed reliving that old college time with close friend from PCC and two other girls. Thankfully, we didn't have to share many struggles together - at least not anything serious. Our struggles amounted to nothing more than blowing Lorina's apartment fuse right before the sabbath so that we had to spend the weekend in the dark without heat, getting lost in the Bethlehem border crossing, getting lost first on foot and then in the car in Tsfat and tramping all through the city for hours and not finding our destination until right before sunset, getting lost in Haifa (do you notice the getting lost pattern?).

Before I go any further, let me introduce you to the members of our exploring contingent, fearlessly traipsing into any interesting area armed with a map and little clear sense of direction. Lorina is standing next to me. She is a Hebrew Uv. student living in Jerusalem and studying Islam and the Middle East. Anna, my four-year PCC friend, is between Lorina and her cousin Christa. Anna and Christa rented a car when they arrived at the airport and did quite a bit of touring while Lorina was occupied with her papers and I was occupied with teaching, kids, etc. Together, we met up north at Tiberius for a couple days. Anna, Christa, and I drove up earlier and met Lorina there Tues. evening. On our way to meet her at the bus station, guess what - yep, we got lost! I think I was navigating at that point. I guess I should leave that to Anna! We hadn't made any hotel plans for the night because all the hotels on line were expensive resorts. We headed north anyway, hoping to find something cheaper when we arrived. Stumbling across a simple but clean apartment-like hotel, we spent the night; ate a modest breakfast with our four cups, one plate, one knife, and no silverware; and headed out.

Rain was threatening the whole time, but thankfully, it did no more than just threaten. We explored Capernaum, the Mount of Beautitudes, Banyas (Caesaria Phillipi), some pretty waterfalls, Nimrod's castle, and Tsfat and Haifa. Climbing up through the clouds to Nimrod's castle - an old Arab/Crusader castle - we emerged to a sunny day above the clouds. It felt like we were in an airplane looking down on the clouds from some great height. Then there was this picture of our rental car with the castle as a backdrop. Doesn't it look like a shot from some car commercial? It was the first time I'd been to Nimrod's castle and it was really cool. You could hike all over the ruins. There were very few rooms that you could go into, but a lot of the towers and walls of the castle were still intact and safe. There was even a "secret tunnel" that ran under the castle, dripping water on your head and making you wish for a torch or something to help you see. The scenery in the north is beautiful!

Our trip to Bethlehem is worth its own entry. If I'm on top of things, which so far I'm not since this is about 2 1/2 weeks old, I'll get that entry out soon. For extra pictures, look under the link "More Pictures" then "Vacation with Anna."