Departure to Israel
We loaded our first plane toward destination - Israel "The Holy Land" bible tour. We hardly knew our group and we were so excited to get to the airport, that we forgot to meet everyone in the entryway of the airport to get our first group picture! We felt bad, and I wanted this moment documented, so another group member offered to take our picture. Here we are! Let's check this one off of our Bucket Lists! There were a total of 40 members attending the tour, so we were split between two different flight routes.
Our first stop was to New York. God must have known that we wanted every experience out of this trip, so he put us with the drinker side of the group. We were allowed to go our separate ways in the airport for our 3 hour layover. But we all ended up at a restaurant bar, where we enjoyed delicious appetizers, wine, and beer. It was just what we needed in order to relax a bit and get to know some of our group members.
Our next flight was from New York to London, England. This was a long 7 hour flight! But the entertainment and service wasn't bad at all. We enjoyed movie time, a yummy meal, and tried our best to get some sleep. The time difference from Israel to Indiana was going to be 7 hours, so we needed to get the most rest possible on this flight! When we got into London, we were exhausted and hoping to peek outside to at least smell the London air. We walked across the airport and stepped outside for a brief minute to get to the other side of the airport. It wasn't what we had necessarily hoped for, but at least we can say that we have now been to Europe! At this point, we were able to meet up with the other half of our group members. It felt good to know that we were all safe to this point of travel.
The last flight to our destination was from London, England to Tel Aviv, Israel. We were getting excited! When we landed, we were told to stay together and keep an eye on our passports. We got into lines in which our photos were taken for our visas into the country and we were then led to our tour bus. We would spend a lot of time on this bus for the next several days! We met our bus driver and our tour guide Eli Shukron. We loaded our luggage under the bus and then we headed to our first stop. As we drove, we happened to pass by the field that David and Goliath fought in. It was too dark to see, but just knowing that we were so near to such a historical spot was amazing enough!
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| Flight from Indianapolis to New York |
Our first stop was to New York. God must have known that we wanted every experience out of this trip, so he put us with the drinker side of the group. We were allowed to go our separate ways in the airport for our 3 hour layover. But we all ended up at a restaurant bar, where we enjoyed delicious appetizers, wine, and beer. It was just what we needed in order to relax a bit and get to know some of our group members.
Our next flight was from New York to London, England. This was a long 7 hour flight! But the entertainment and service wasn't bad at all. We enjoyed movie time, a yummy meal, and tried our best to get some sleep. The time difference from Israel to Indiana was going to be 7 hours, so we needed to get the most rest possible on this flight! When we got into London, we were exhausted and hoping to peek outside to at least smell the London air. We walked across the airport and stepped outside for a brief minute to get to the other side of the airport. It wasn't what we had necessarily hoped for, but at least we can say that we have now been to Europe! At this point, we were able to meet up with the other half of our group members. It felt good to know that we were all safe to this point of travel.
The last flight to our destination was from London, England to Tel Aviv, Israel. We were getting excited! When we landed, we were told to stay together and keep an eye on our passports. We got into lines in which our photos were taken for our visas into the country and we were then led to our tour bus. We would spend a lot of time on this bus for the next several days! We met our bus driver and our tour guide Eli Shukron. We loaded our luggage under the bus and then we headed to our first stop. As we drove, we happened to pass by the field that David and Goliath fought in. It was too dark to see, but just knowing that we were so near to such a historical spot was amazing enough!
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| Our tour bus and Eli Shukron speaking |
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Here is a picture out of the bus window. The closest we would be to Gaza while on our tour. This is a very unsafe area in the world at this time and friends and family were nervous about this part of our trip. We were safe! |
We arrived to our hotel about 7:30 pm (Israel time) and checked into a beautiful room! The balcony showed us a view across the street to the Dead Sea. Our hotel even had a pool filled with water from the Dead Sea. We were warned not to drink any water from the sea. Because there is so much salt and sulfur in the water, it would dry out your lungs and you would surely die! We did not end up swimming in the pool. The dinner downstairs was incredibly delicious! We were so excited to try new Israeli foods! We went to bed about 9:30 pm so that we could wake up the next morning and start our first day tour of the Holy Lands.
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