Finally in Israel!

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We finally made it! Actually we still have a couple miles to travel in the morning, but the hard part is over. We landed in Madrid early Friday morning after getting a combined 8 hours of sleep between the two of us the previous two nights. We hopped on the first train we could find with some false confidence that our 20 words of Spanish could get us around town. With a one-day train pass we were able to cover many of the prominent landmarks in the city including the national cathedral, eventually winding up in the beautiful Plaza Mayor for lunch. We never quite knew where we were going, which actually turned out to be a blessing because we resorted to many backroads and alleys that showed off the beauty of Madrid's less known history. We found our way to the largest city park around 2 pm, found the greenest grass and the shadiest tree, and took a two hour nap. After awakening from our bum nap, we jumped back on the metro towards the eastern part of town to check out the national biblioteca (library). Unfortunately, the library was closed, but we were able to go tour the archeology museum, which showed off a lot of rich history. We were interested in looking at the pottery for 5-10 minutes, but then the most miraculous sight came across us...free wifi. We spent the next silent hour or so snapchatting and checking facebook before heading back out to the city. We headed back to the plaza for dinner and made our way back to the airport.



A very short plane ride later and we were in Tel Aviv, Israel. This was the part we had been worried about for several days. We had no transportation to the Sea of Galilee since it was the sabbath and we didn't have a place to stay. We spent an hour calling various hostels and exploring our limited and expensive travel options. Right as we were about to give up and spend the day at the airport we met Jeff, a pre-med student at Columbia University who was also panicking about how to get to northern Israel. We decided to split a taxi and head to Tiberius, a small city on the shore of the sea. This was a sketchy plan, but it worked! We found a cheap hostel with a little wifi and proceeded to take an 8 hour nap. Thanks to John, the crazy British guy who lives in a tent in Israel 9 months out of the year, we found out all the information we would need about the city and who would try to rip us off. Just before sunset we strolled down to the pier and took in the breathtaking view of the sea.



And that brings us to now! We're about ready to get our first full night of sleep in a while and wake up early to catch a ride to Huqoq where we will check into our Kibbutz and meet up with a professor from Australia who will guide us to the holy sites around the sea. We can't wait to see what God has in store for us in these places over the next few weeks and we're excited to share it all with you!

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