Today is the last day of work and yesterday was last of class, crazy how things like this go by so fast.

But last weekend a couple of us decided to go up to the north to see the christian sites and a few other things that we are not covering on the Northern Israel tour next week. Instead of busses this time we rented a car- which is a great feeling being able to drive again. First day we went to Mt. Megido(site of armageddon) over to Mt. Tabor (Mt. of transfiguration) beautiful views of the surrounding with alot of turn to get up and very steep arab city below. Then out to Kibbutz Degania (first Kibbutz and also site of important battle during the war of independence, and finished the day out on the East side of the Kinneret(Sea of Galillee) where we slept on the beach in sleeping bags and also went for a late night swim under the stars in the waves.

The next day we went to alot of churches -Tibga/bread and fish church, capernum (sat on shore for a while also), orthodox capernum, Up to the Mt of beattitudes-amazing view of the sea of galilee. After lunch on the shore near Tiberius went to Nazareth and saw many more churches-Basilica of Annunciation (huge orthodox church, very impressive), Orthodox church of annunciation, church of adolescent jesus, sisters convent, synagog church, st josephs church and marys well. It might sound like alot, but the city is very small just like the rest of jerusalem. It was interesting to see the differnt culture of the north which is primarily christian and arabs and not seeing a single kippah for the trip made it feel like it was almost not a part of the israel i have experienced before. Since we still had time we went out to visit Mt. Gilboa-on the boarder of the west bank and apparently where saul and david died in battle-with a outlook tour of the west bank and finished up eating good food up near there.

On tues we visited the Diaspora museum in Tel Aviv then had free time afterwards where we ended up going to a mexican restaurant-ive been craving mexican-and it was alright i guess for israel, but didnt satisfy the craving, looking forward to green chili back in NM.

Yesterday on a kinda sporadic trip, 5 of us went with a guy from the next door kibbutz who wanted to take a group down to see Sderot. If you dont know Sderot is about a mile from gaza and has been hit the hardest during this fighting. It is very evident when walking through the city with filled in rocket holes on the street and a bomb shelter on every street corner and all the building are built like bomb shelters. The town itself felt so strange with hardly any activity for a city its size and just thinking how these people have to live with the fear of a rocket attack at anytime-there are still a few a month. Another disturbing thing is when going by any of the playgrounds, bomb shelters are built next to and part of the playground itself. Definitly worth spending the hour there and taking 6 hrs of busses there and back.