Safe at the Sea

I have safely made to the Sea of Galilee! My journey here was not too bad. My layovers in Chicago and Toronto were not very long so I did not have to do much waiting. Oddly enough, I had to go through customs in Canada for my connecting flight. The flight from Toronto to Tel Aviv was the longest flight I have been on. I slept most of the way. Air Canada made my day because I was able to watch the Princess and the Frog in French! I arrived in Tel Aviv a little before noon local time (8 hours ahead of Central). Unfortunately, the bus was not due to leave until 6 pm so I had to do a lot of waiting.  I finally met up with some of the other people and we began to get to know each other. From the airport it was a two and a half hour bus ride to the place where we are staying. The view along the way was beautiful though! Until I met up with the others, It was quite lonely. I said little more than thank you or telling the flight attendant what I wanted to drink. No one to talk to, no one to watch your stuff for you. There is a small group of people from Truman State, a couple from the University of San Diego, and the rest of us are all here as individuals. A few returners, but mostly first timers.

Today was just orientation at the site. We went over what our schedule will be and learned about the site and what we would be doing. It was quite interesting, a lot of information all at once though. One of the few rules is to drink lots of water. I am bad at doing that at home but I am doing better here so far.  I caused a little panic among the adults in the group when I got a small nose bleed, but honestly I was fine.  In the afternoon, there was no pottery reading, so we were free until dinner. A group of us went swimming in the Sea of Galilee and just relaxed. Despite it only being 9 pm, I about to go get ready for bed. Our mornings start with the bus leaving at 5:30 am to head to the site. It will be interesting to see how that goes for me.