"Today I watched the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee, saw a Greek temple and an Egyptian crusades-era castle as I hiked through beautiful poplar trees to a waterfall, drove a jeep off-roading in the Golan in the shadow of Syria, waded in the Banyas river, stared Hezbollah in the face as I watched the sun set over Lebanon, and drank delicious wine on the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv. Not to brag or anything, but I seriously doubt your day was anywhere near as amazing as mine was."
So, now that you all know basically what I did with the day, I'll just elaborate a little bit on each thing and then bombard you with pictures.
Sunrise over the Kinneret / Sea of Galilee.
Simcha and I at the Sea of Galilee! (Simcha's a vocal major, I'm headed towards vocal collaborative piano!)
I woke up in Tiberias early enough to watch the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee one last time before we left for our Banias hike. The Banias region is in the Golan Heights, which was taken from Syria during the 6-day war in 1967. Our hike was along a stream that is a major water source for the Jordan river to a beautiful waterfall, passing remnants of Syrian occupation, Greek ruins, and a medieval castle. This was a nice, easy, beautiful hike - nowhere near as scary as Mt. Arbel!
The "Paneas" Spring, named after the Greek god Pan.
Greek temple dedicated to Pan, from around 87 C.E.
Brittany and I in front of the Pan temple
A view of the beautiful hike - the white trees in the back are poplars that only grow along water sources.
Ancient Roman bridge - you can see the man-made bricks, slowly getting taken back over by nature.
Rushing water
"Mayanot" - the name of my Birthright trip organizer - means "Springs" in Hebrew.
Syrian generals' hangout / bath during the 1967 war.
Brittany, myself, and Tony at the waterfall!
Shayna and Reut, our teeny tiny security officer.
Becky and I in front of Nimrod Castle - build during the Crusades.
After that beautiful hike, we went even further into the Golan to go jeeping! Yes, I actually drove one. It was pretty awesome. The most surreal part of it was driving in the shadow of Syria - from the top of the mountains, you can look down on Damascus. Technically, they never signed a peace treaty with Israel and so are still at war.
Hadar and Bar, two of our soldiers in the front; Ron, Esther, and I in the back.
That's me driving!
Me driving a jeep!
Alex in the front, Syria in the back (the brown mountains make up the border)
Syria, old and new (the road around the hill used to be the Syrian border before the war; now it's the mountains in the background)
I wanted a picture of my face and Syria, and this was the result.
The singing men's jeep.
A stop by the river - beautiful!
Neil, chilling in a tree over the water.
Playing in the water - look how happy we all are!
After jeeping and picking up lunch, we drove up to Misgav Am, a small kibbutz with a military base at the Lebanon border. We listened to a speaker who lives there and gives talks regularly about the "unique situation" up there at the border... he's a New Yorker who came to Israel, was a paratrooper in the 1967 war, and decided to live in this kibbutz and felt it was his life's purpose to live on this land and protect it ("nobody gets me off my mountain!"). He was a bit intense, to say the least.
Me smiling with a bunch of Hezbollah missiles pointed right at me from that hill. Apparently Hezbollah controls the entire southern half of Lebanon and keep their weapons trained on Israel, just waiting for the word. Intense.
Becky and I in front of Lebanon.
Sunset over Lebanon.
As the day ended, we drove to Netanya where our hotel was to freshen up a bit before heading out to our "night out" in Tel Aviv. We went to the port, which on Mondays is pretty dead. There was one club open, but Becky and I didn't feel like "clubbing" so we walked along the water until we found the strip of restaurants and cafes that was a bit more lively and had some nice drinks looking out over the Mediterranean.
Glass of sweet wine from the Golan, in a little cafe overlooking the water.
Our wonderful guides hard at work planning for us even on our night out.
Becky and I all fancied up for out classy night out!
It was an incredibly full, rewarding, incredible, surreal, amazing day.
[As always, I do not put every single picture I take into this blog. To see the entire album of photos I took while on Birthright, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtashalocke /sets/72157628872433827/ When I get to my extended, post-Birthright part of the trip, there will be a new album for those photos as well.]
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