Israel

 The first full day in Israel was amazing.  There was a TV in the hotel lobby, and I saw the Watergate hearings from Washington.  It was really the first access I had from back home in almost a week.  The hotel gave our group a fruit basket filled with bananas, grapefruit, oranges, and more.  We decided to save it for later that day.  We set out on our tour bus with our guide named Nazar.  He was Armenian, and thus we could go places with him that we couldn't go to if we had a Jewish guide.  So, we started with going to Joppa and then to Haifa, where we had lunch.  We toured all over the northern half of Israel.  We went to Nazareth and saw the boyhood home of Jesus.  As we were leaving Nazareth, we came upon a group of children who crowded around our bus looking for money.  Mr. Vivian had told us not to give money to the kids, so we thought of our fruit basket.  We decided as a group to give the fruit to the children.  A riot and fight began between the children.  They fought over the fruit.  One boy was so proud to hold up the peel from the grapefruit.  He didn't get any of the fruit, but he got the peel.  There was dust all in the air from the riot over the fruit, and our bus pulled away leaving behind a lot of happy children.
 Along the way, we were also told not to take any pictures of Israeli army camps, but of course I took pictures of them anyway.  Thankfully, I didn't get caught.  The political air in Israel was tense.  We saw soldiers in the streets.  The Israelis thought nothing of it, but it was obvious there was tension.  Even at the Rome airport the day before, there was a guy with a machine gun watching over the luggage area.  But, the security around Israel was far greater. 
  We ended our day near the Sea of Galilee at a kibbutz called Nof Ginnosaur.  It was a beautiful retreat.  One of the things they had to sell there was brandy candy.  It had a hard shell with liquid brandy inside.  The girls and I hate them, but we didn't let the older adults have any, because once again we would have gotten in trouble.  The candy was good, and some of us got a little buzz from it.  The kibbutz was quiet and we slept soundly.