I'm Off! (In more ways than can be explained.)

Me on my camel ready to go up Mount Sinai!

As most of you know, I'm going to the Middle East (Holy Land) with Mom, Dad and the Blanco United Methodist Church group.  We leave Wednesday morning from San Antonio.  We will be flying from San Antonio to Washington Dulles then to Frankfurt and from there to Sharm El Shiek, Egypt.  Sharm is the largest city clost to Mount Sinai, which is the first stop of our trip.  We get to spend one night trying to recoup from jet lag in Sharm, then we will move to Saint Catherine's Monastary at Mount Sinai.  The goal is to see the sunrise from atop Mount Sinai.  In order to do this, we have to get up at 2AM!  If you can't or don't want to walk the 3 miles uphill to the top, you can ride a camel almost to the top.  I may opt out to stay at Saint Catherine's and attend morning mass at 5 or 6AM. 

Now if you guys know me, and most of you do, you KNOW I am NOT a morning person, so neither of these options sound good to me.  I'm just going to leave my options open and see how it goes.  It's also very cold this time of year on top of Mount Sinai, so if I go, I'll have to wear lots of clothes because we've been told not to bring heavy coats.  Luckily, Daniel had a "space blanket" (you know, one of those silver foil things) that folds up very small.  I'm taking that with me and if I ride that camel, I'll be taking the "space blanket" with me!

We will have the one night at Saint Catherine's then travel to Petra, Jordan where we get to stay for 2 nights.  After Petra we move to Amman, Jordan where we will tour the mosaic factory in Madaba, visit Mount Nebo and visit Jerash.  (This, folks, is all in one day.  Feet don't fail me now!)

By now, it's Tuesday and we will get a chance to swim in the Dead Sea.  Not sure about this one either, but I'll definitely stick my toes in!  Then we are off to Bethlehem where we will be staying at the Holy Family Hotel. (Now they have room at the inn, huh?)  We will actually get to spend 4 nights here while we tour the area and see all the important sites and sights.

The last stop will be Nazareth. We spend our last 2 nights at the Mary's Well Hotel there (yes, there is a well and it is where the angel visited Mary and told her she would give birth to Jesus).  While in this area we will see the Gallilean areas of Caesarea, Nazareth and Sepphoris.

On Monday, January 23rd, we will fly home from TelAviv.

So until January 25th or so, everyone be good and take care.  I'll be back to the blog soon afterwards posting lots of what I hope are cool, interesting pictures.