Yom Rishon: We Arrive in Tel Aviv

We arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv at about 4 am local time. After our ten hour flight everyone was very out of it. After getting our bags we were greeted by the Israeli peers with a song and balloons. It was incredibly inviting, instantly comfortable.

We went straight into the Israeli adventure, boarding the bus and heading for Caesarea, a village named after Caesar, complete with ruins dating back thousands of years. Here we saw the beautiful, blue-green Mediterranean Sea. To the right we could see old stone ruins juxtaposed with the modern water desalination plant to the left. This was the first of many examples of Israel’s unique combination of the old and new.

From there we went north to the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a lake, and better known here as the Kineret.

In order to understand where we are in the country, we made a living map of Israel out of Matt, check out the picture. What a good sport he is. In the afternoon we hiked up and down Mt Arbel where there are ruins of a cave fortress used by rebels during the rule of King Herod. In the evening we returned to Kibbutz Afik where everyone formally introduced themselves and shared his or her favorite animal. A surprising amount of the group identify with koalas which is very cute. It was a long, exciting and exhausting day.