First, a quick word about the training we recently finished. I don’t want to dwell on it because it was pretty terrible and I am so glad it is finished. It basically consisted of lectures and meeting with elementary school teachers four times a week. The lectures would have been fine if they were shorter and didn’t all repeat content we had already learned.  These eight hour days were just incredibly draining and left me in a very tired and irritable mood every day. Anyway, that’s all I want to say about that because talking about it more will only put me in a bad mood (yeah it sucked that much).

Anyway, the main point of this blog entry is the weekend trip we took up north to the Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Kinneret). This program I am on is run by Israel Pathways, which is currently running three other programs throughout Israel. This weekend was the first time that all four groups got together for any sort of event and it was great. Our first stop was a “hike” (and by hike, I mean a five minute walk up a mountain) to observation point of Mount Arbel where we learned some history about the area and fun stuff like that. I also got some photos such as these:

Next up was a hike through the Mag’rese, a small river that came up to my waist. After our adventures through nature, we made our way to Tiberias for lunch and some free time. Tiberias is freaking awesome, although the boardwalk takes all of five minutes to walk the entirety of.

Time to take a break from storytelling to drop some knowledge on you all. The Galilee region is very important, not only for Jews but for Christians as well.  Jesus (Yeshua to you Jews) supposedly performed most of his miracles in or near Tiberias. In fact, he walked on water on the Sea of Galilee.

Anywho, we then made our way to the Ginosar Hotel, which sits on the grounds of a kibbutz of the same name. I am about 90% I went to this same kibbutz when I was in Israel six years ago. Either way, it is a magical place that I am sad I had to leave. Most of the rest of the weekend mainly consisted of just hanging out with our fellow Israel Pathways participants (including managing to discover a nearby bar in the middle of nowhere). And eating. The lunch/dinner buffet at Ginosar was magical in itself and I wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit if I put on a few pounds in the 24 hours we were there.  The weekend finished off with an awesome boat ride at night around the Kinneret.

Anyway, I need to go eat and go to the beach but expect another post about Rosh Hashanah soon.

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