Homework for the Holy Land: Day 1--Is Any of This English? (answer: no)

It's been a long day of travel and an early wake up call in the morning, but I wanted to jot down a few preliminary observations.

 I always wanted to go somewhere where I couldn't make hide nor hair out of the language.  Hello, Israel!  It's disconcerting not to be able to make sense out of any of the signage; looking at the accompanying graphics or photos, at least so far, isn't of much help because there is nothing familiar to me about the written language.  On the plane, the menu was printed in both English and Hebrew, so I spent a little time trying to decipher the Hebrew by comparing it to the English.  For example, I chose an English word used multiple times and then went to the Hebrew to see if I couldn't figure out what that English word might be in Hebrew.  Failed.  I'm guessing there's context and syntax at work here, as there is in English which is reputed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn.  It'll be interesting to see if I can pick anything up while we're here.

 Tonight we're in Tiberius, 2 hours north of Tel Aviv, on the Sea of Galilee.  The hotel is clean and beds comfortable.  My Friend Jeanie™ and I agreed that we could just eat the bread dipped in humus or tahini and be satisfied at every meal.  Breakfast tomorrow morning is kosher; while that wasn't necessarily on my list of things I always wanted to do, I'm looking forward to eating kosher.

 We met our tour guide for the trip this evening.  His background is in archeology and history with an emphasis on the early Christian period so personally, I'm looking forward to his perspective.  There are 2 Episcopal priests and 1 deacon on this trip so if a religious reference is needed, I'm certain one or all of them can supply same.

 Those who know me well know how much I like getting up early so I'm going to turn in.  Hopefully I'll have photos to enhance the blog tomorrow.

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