Israel, Day 1

We landed in Tel Aviv-Yafo at Ben Gurion airport during the 3pm hour Israel time. Everyone clapped when we landed. We didn't think it was that impressive of a landing (or flight - had some stomach-dropping turbulence), but I learned yesterday (April 2) while listening to an interview with Charlie Dyer on In the Market with Janet Parshall that the applause when you land in Tel Aviv happens frequently. 

All of our flight's luggage arrived safely with us and we took off in our bus to our hotel in Netanya, a town just a little bit north of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast.

 

We didn't do much our first day in Israel, but we did get a crash course on some basics as we drove. (And this red Judah Bus was ours for the entire trip. The other MBI bus was blue and called the Benjamin Bus.)

And apparently all IKEAs are set up the same way...easy to see from the highways but impossible to get to.

Our first hotel had a very low ceiling in the hallway. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but it was only a couple inches about Nate's head.

We got our first taste of Israeli food service at our Netanya hotel. All of our breakfasts and dinners were eaten buffet-style in our hotels. And it only got better from here! This picture is of the dessert table.


This is also the place where the kosher food laws started impacting us...but I didn't realize it until the next day. The pictured desserts are all dairy-free.

 

It was evening when we arrived at our hotel in Netanya, but when we woke up, we saw this view out our hotel room deck---the Mediterranean Sea!!

From here in Netanya, we headed north along the Mediterranean to Caesarea (aka Caesarea Maritime or Caesarea by the Sea).

tm