Journey to Israel - Day 1 (Travel Day)

We have officially set feet on the ground in Israel!   Our day has been filled with lugging suitcases, showing passports, riding planes, and eating airplane food :)

Israel sits 8 hours ahead of our local time in Iowa, so as I am typing it is approaching 9pm here!

Quick recap of our day, and then some pictures to prove it happened:

1. Keith, Anita & Cory left from Omaha, flying to Minneapolis at 1:00

2. Our next flight left at 5:30pm, and we headed to Rome, Italy!

3. Our last flights took off at 11:30am in Rome, and we arrived in Tel Aviv at 4:00pm.

Pat, Bryce and Mason, met us in Minneapolis, and boarded their flight to Paris at 5:30, and then connecting from Paris to Tel Aviv, arriving around 4:45pm, where we reconnected by customs to meet up with our tour group.

Our tour group is made up of 26 total people, almost all paired as an adult mentor with a young adult mentee.   It is a perfect sized group filled with great people, and look forward to getting to know them all a little bit better as the journey unfolds.

Once we gathered together, we boarded a bus to take us from Tel Aviv to Beer Sheba for our first stop of the journey.   We will be in Beer Sheba for two nights.    Tomorrow is a day we head out into 'the desert', so prayers for strength and a desire for water would be much appreciated :)

Our drive to Beer Sheba was pretty quiet, as many (including myself) have been up and moving for the past 30 hours!   It was great to begin to see the land we had been studying - the coastal plains, the lowlands where the mountains begin, and to watch as the terrain turned from pretty lush and green and filled with many fields, to barren, brown and rocky.

So - without further ado - our day in pictures:

Most of our crew from NW Iowa just chilling in Minneapolis.

The plane :)

Swiss Alps on our way into Rome

First glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea!

Yep - we flew that

Our flight into Tel Aviv - the first of many olive tasting experiences.

We have arrived!

Most of the group as we board the bus.

The 'mush lush' coastal plain was to our right

The lowland hill country (Shetallah) off to our left.

The ground becoming much more brown!

Our hotel in Beer Sheba