From Cairo, we journeyed to Israel, but not without a mishap. The Middle East is vast and travel by land is often fraught with danger. Thus, we were forced to fly, but even that proved problematic. The airline changed our flight so that we only had a mere 45 minutes to make our connection. Desperate to avoid being stranded, we arrived at the Cairo airport early, hoping to change our flight to an earlier one. But our pleas fell on deaf ears, and we were left to while away the hours in the airport.

As if on cue, our flight delayed. When we finally landed in Amman for our layover, we had only 15 minutes to catch our next flight. We raced through the airport and reached the gate with only 10 minutes to spare, but it was all for naught. The gate agents informed us that we had been removed from the flight list and would spend the night in Amman. It was 11 PM, and after three hours of waiting with about 20 other folks, we were finally given a hotel voucher. In the morning, we were told to be ready for the airport shuttle at 4:30 AM, but it did not depart until 5:30 AM. Such are the vagaries of travel in the Middle East.

Upon landing in Tel Aviv, we took a quick and easy 30-minute train to Jerusalem where the rest of the group picked us up for a day of sightseeing in one of the most holy cities.

We walked the Stations of the Cross, saw the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which contains the crucification site and empty tomb of Jesus, the city of David, and several more sights. Afterwards we made our way to the Dead Sea. We weren’t too excited, we'll admit, about floating in its waters, but as soon as we stepped in, we were blown away. The water was like nothing we'd ever experienced before - effortlessly buoyant, allowing us to float on our backs with no effort at all. Getting back onto our feet was a fun struggle.

Reading:

• Kyle: Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 by Stephen E. Ambrose
• Kelsey: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Listening To:

• Faller's DJing