“Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’” Mark 8:27
We arrived to TelAviv around 2 pm local time. There is a difference of seven hours between Israel and Miami. We went through passport control, and picked up our luggage rather rapidly. We were surprised because we were expecting that security would be much tighter. The alarm even went off when we went through and nothing happened. They didn’t even come over to check us out.
We found our driver while we were waiting to go through passport control. She had a sign with our names: Romero's and Ingelmo's. Then, we found out that she did not have a car for us. Somehow, they had messed up our reservation, so we had to wait about an hour until they found a car with a new driver. Due to this delay, we got to our hotel, the Renaissance TelAviv, around 5 pm.
We arrived to TelAviv around 2 pm local time. There is a difference of seven hours between Israel and Miami. We went through passport control, and picked up our luggage rather rapidly. We were surprised because we were expecting that security would be much tighter. The alarm even went off when we went through and nothing happened. They didn’t even come over to check us out.
We found our driver while we were waiting to go through passport control. She had a sign with our names: Romero's and Ingelmo's. Then, we found out that she did not have a car for us. Somehow, they had messed up our reservation, so we had to wait about an hour until they found a car with a new driver. Due to this delay, we got to our hotel, the Renaissance TelAviv, around 5 pm.
TelAviv looked pretty crowded, a lot of traffic on the roads, huge high rises... it looked like a modern business type city. The hotel is right on the Mediterranean Sea.
It was very windy, so the sea was very rough. We checked in, went to our room, freshened up, and then went down to the lobby. We stepped outside to take a few pictures of the sunset.
The Jews are now celebrating their Passover. We found out that a lot of them go to hotels to celebrate it, so our hotel was pretty full, and here, everything is Kosher. We drank Kosher wine for the first time.
We met some other people from our group that had already arrived. We also met one of our two tour guides. Her name is Anna. She was born in Siberia, Russia, but she came to Israel when she was a baby. She’s Russian Jewish. She’s young, beautiful and passionate. She gave us some of the history of her birth country and of her heart country. She doesn’t feel any connection to Russia. But she is passionate about Israel. The other guide is her fiancée.
By seven we went to dinner because we were hungry. Dinner was included and it was buffet style. Some of the choices were lamb ossubuco, potatoes, broccoli soup, and chocolate cake.
We then stayed in the lobby talking to some of the members from our group. The rest of the group arrived past 10 pm. After traveling for almost 24 hours they were exhausted. We accompanied them to dinner, even though we did not eat again. It was too late for the mass that Father Willie had planned so he just said a few words about Holy Thursday.
He left us with a question from the reading where Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” He asked us to imagine Jesus asking us the same question today. What will be our answer today? What will be our answer in ten days when we finish our pilgrimage? We are on a pilgrimage. We are not here for tourism. Our whole life is a pilgrimage. Our destination is heaven.
We met some other people from our group that had already arrived. We also met one of our two tour guides. Her name is Anna. She was born in Siberia, Russia, but she came to Israel when she was a baby. She’s Russian Jewish. She’s young, beautiful and passionate. She gave us some of the history of her birth country and of her heart country. She doesn’t feel any connection to Russia. But she is passionate about Israel. The other guide is her fiancée.
By seven we went to dinner because we were hungry. Dinner was included and it was buffet style. Some of the choices were lamb ossubuco, potatoes, broccoli soup, and chocolate cake.
We then stayed in the lobby talking to some of the members from our group. The rest of the group arrived past 10 pm. After traveling for almost 24 hours they were exhausted. We accompanied them to dinner, even though we did not eat again. It was too late for the mass that Father Willie had planned so he just said a few words about Holy Thursday.
He left us with a question from the reading where Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” He asked us to imagine Jesus asking us the same question today. What will be our answer today? What will be our answer in ten days when we finish our pilgrimage? We are on a pilgrimage. We are not here for tourism. Our whole life is a pilgrimage. Our destination is heaven.
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