Jet Lag... and That Dang Dollar!

March 8, 2008 - 21:43

I always forget one of the big rules of international travel... try to go to bed at the proper time for where you are. I was tired. I went to bed early. I woke up at 3 this morning! But in talking to others, it sounds like I wasn't the only one.

We went to four places today: Caesarea, Mt. Carmel, Megiddo, and Nazareth.

There isn't a whole lot left to see in the site of Caesarea anymore, though its history is fascinating. Herod the Great, so named not because he was a wonderful leader but because he built an awful lot, built it up from a relatively nondescript outpost to a large city complete with a large outdoor theater and circus. Herod built the palace out into the bay, using essentially cement to build on. It eventually sank, but survived several hundred years. You can still see the pool in the palace, out there in the water.

The coolest thing about Caesarea, though, is that it is where the first recorded Gentile convert lived: Cornelius. See Acts 10:1.

Our next stop was Mt. Carmel, where Elijah put 400 prophets of Baal to the test, and then whacked all 450 of 'em when their god didn't show up (earning Queen Jezebel's everlasting affections). If you want to read the account, click here. There's not an altar to see anymore (maybe because God consumed it AND the rocks and dust with fire in His answer to Elijah's prayer), but it was really something to see the actual location of such a famous Bible story... and a particularly old one at that.

Next stop... Megiddo. Huge mountain. Immense valley. Very cultivated, very beautiful. Hard to believe it is the location of the final battle of the ages. You'd think something like Armageddon would happen in a more hardscrabble, desolate location, but the valley of Megiddo is anything but!

Megiddo isn't just a location with apocalyptic importance, however; it is a location of immense archeological importance as well. In the 1920's, the University of Chicago instituted a dig so effective that to this day, the results of other digs in Israel are compared to the artifacts and structures of Megiddo. Megiddo appears to have been a place of Canaanite worship as far back as 3000-4000 B.C.

One of the most remarkable features of Megiddo is a tunnel underneath the bedrock. Built to get water in event of a siege, it was actually dug from both ends and met in the middle... an immense accomplishment at the time.

Our last stop of the day was Nazareth... for lunch and to go see the Church of the Anunciation.

I got a kick out of Nazareth... it is the first place that really looked like what I anticipated a town in the Middle East would look like... tight, busy streets, street vendors sitting out smoking in front of their shops, outdoor vendors hawking all kinds of wares (primarily targeting pilgrims), and kids in Hollister and Levis walking by old men in turbans and women in full Muslim garb (a large tour group from Ghana, all in the same colorful green outfits, were an odd counterpoint).

As for the second half of the blog entry title... I knew the dollar was weak overseas. You hear about it all the time, but if you're like me you don't think much about it. Until you go overseas. Lunch today was $14 for a lunch I would normally never pay $14 for. And that's leaving off $3 for a bottle of soda!

It was a good day in all... I'm probably still just too tired to be able to process it all just yet. But we're staying in Tiberias tonight, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And we can see the water from our balcony. How cool is that?