Cesarea and Tiberia Day One

So what I decided to do, since I haven't had the chance to be near a computer since 2008, I will pretend that these are separate blogs, when in fact this is all being transcribed from my journal I took on the bus at once. I am currently at my cousins' house in Karkur, just outside Haifa and a short train ride from Tel Aviv. It's a welcome change from the hustle of Mayanot.

But let's ignore that bit and pretend I just landed in Israel....

Holy crap this is it! Israel! I've been waiting since forever to be here, and I'm lucky enough to be here with some really awesome people. In the airport I met Kaila and Emma, Max and Jonathan, all of whom seem pretty cool. We talked in the food court, enjoying our last bit of American cuisine. Some of us nursed our hangovers. I'm pretty sure Eric was still drunk. The plane ride was SO long, and El Al kept feeding us like every two hours, thereby making it impossible for me to sleep soundly. Either way, I had a great discussion on the plane with the other John, his two sisters and their friends from home Andrew and Amanda about music, movies and other cool things.

We landed in Tel Aviv and applauded. It was a good 50 degrees warmer than in New York, and we were all tired, jet-lagged and anxious for whatever adventure we had to look forward to. Emma, Max, Eric and I talked about hot flight attendants, more to ease the tension we were all feeling more than anything. After getting our bags and having yet another orientation, it was off to Cesarea.

Cesarea are ruins from Herod's time along the Mediterranean. Aka, these things are fucking old, but regardless there are kids playing on the ruins, and cats EVERYWHERE. Now, the first cat we saw was pretty cute, and kept invading our ice breaker game. The Israelis say you can spot a tourist from a mile away because they keep playing with the stray cats. Either way, we toured the ruins, and heard stories of Jewish uprising against Pontius Pilate.

We returned to the hotel in time for Shabbat. I roomed with Mikhail and Eric, which was a decent living situation. We showered and napped in shifts, and got ready for Shabbat. The service was not unlike that of our own Chabad house. The dinner, our first authentic Israeli meal, was deep fried crap. Those of us who were brave enough to stay up past 6PM played more ice breakers and swapped embarrassing stories. Made it to bed around 9, and slept till about 11 the following morning. A spectacular way to end that godawful jet lag.