Home at last!

Saturday at 12:30 PM we finally arrived at San Francisco International Airport. A delayed flight from Tel Aviv caused us to miss our connecting flight in Toronto. In turn, that forced us to spend the night in Toronto. We should have been home on Friday, but, hey...we're finally home! When we were forced to stay the night in Toronto, we had to go through their Customs. When the Canadian Customs officer requested our passports, asking; "What is the purpose of your visit, ehh?"  I was tempted to respond; "frustration, disgust and and disappointment!"  But I held my tongue. After all it wasn't his fault, ehh?  What can I say about Air Canada?  Well, I was always taught, if you can't say say something nice, don't say anything at all! ............................(silence) : )  But big picture.......Had a great time and was quite an adventure!

Psych!

We are not home yet....still waiting in Canada.  Our flight out of Israel was delayed for over an hour which made us miss our connecting flight in Canada.  It was quite an emotional let down after dreaming of sleeping in our own bed and hugging our family and friends.  After the initial thoughts of the "F" word and brief beginnings of tears, we pulled ourselves together and chose to praise God as He always has our best interest at heart.  Got news today that one of our friends is undergoing a tough time with chemo and then I saw all the prayers requests on my email.  It was good to have a different perspective.

This was our last room number in Israel.  Pretty much says it all:

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

 

Day 12 - Our last full day in Israel

Well, today is our last full day in Israel and it was a pretty full one. We started our day by driving about 50 kilometers up the coast to the archaeological park of Caesarea. This city is featured prominently in the New Testament for being the home of the Roman Centurion-Cornelius, with whom Peter visited and shared the Gospel. But it is also the place Paul was taken to appear at trial before Governor Felix, King Agrippa and his wife Bernice. Paul made his defense and his appeal to Rome here. (Acts 23-26)


The park presents a movie of the history of the city when you first arrive. Great production quality and very informative. We were able to get pictures of Caesarea from the various periods of the city. Beginning with the Palace, Amphitheater, Port and Chariot stadium built by Herod. Then the Byzantine period, the Muslim period and the Crusader Period. Each period suffered earthquakes that caused wide destruction and degradation to the city. Not to mention the wars fought over the city!

After our outing, we returned to the Hotel and went to the beach. It seemed a shame that our hotel was only 2 blocks from the beach and we not at least lay out on it for a few hours. Afterward, we came back at sunset to take some last pictures of our vacation and the Mediterranean Sea. The beautiful sunset represented a literal and allegorical end to our stay. Tomorrow, up early to fuel the rental car and turn it in at the airport. Then California here we come!

Chariot race track  (Pre-NASCAR short track)

Day 11...walking...walking...walking

Our dawgs are barkin'

We are beat....basically we walked today.  Greg ran out of underwear.  We walked looking for a laundry mat to wash our clothes. We did a 10 mile circle only to find it almost at the corner from our hotel.  They told us to turn right at the corner so we did.....it was to the left.  We did find a place that would wash our clothes for us along the way so we left them and then ventured to buy men's underwear.  At least 12, and I am not exaggerating, women's underwear places on every street...men's however are not popular.  We ended up back at the mall (second time today) and having gone in almost every men's store finally found one place that had few ($20 bucks).  As soon as we bought them, we of course, passed the underwear store that sells both men's and women's.....that's all they sell is underwear...the entire store, underwear only...weird. 

We tried to hurry back to catch the sunset....missed it :(

We went to our restaurant across from our hotel and had dinner.  I ordered Sea Food Pasta and thought I would be getting shrimp and scallops....it was squid.  Yep.

Squid?!