Happy Birthday Mr. Jones!

These are all backwards but who cares! We are in Haifa - this is our room at the Colony Hotel Haifa "a boutique hotel" - which means in the city center and old - in the German Colony and built in 1905 but free WIFI:)
View from our walk down 880 steps at Baha'i Gardens (open only to groups) looking down on Haifa, the harbor and just across the bay is Lebanon - hard to see on this picture. We are now surrounded by the Meditteranean Sea, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt.

On our drive from Tel Aviv to Caesarea we had lunch here - Caesarea is where King Herod built a palace, an amphitheater and a hippodrome for chariot races! There are still concerts in the amphitheater. We saw a piece of rock that was once part of the seating at the theater and the name engraved in the stone is Pontius Pilatus (Pontius Pilate).

So - this is on the ground of "Herod's Place" - quite a nice piece of land and it also happens to be Ross' birthday and what greater place to celebrate.

My journal (thank you Amy) is filling and I can barely contain all that I am learning but right now is is nearing 10pm, have had lots of good food today and we have to be on the bus by 8am tomorrow and will be having lunch in Nazareth...actually right now I am watching small ants crawl on the desk - not sure why they arrived but they are definitely here. Nitey nite. I have loads of pictures but little time:):)

Couple stories - yesterday in Jaffa I mentioned that I thought I was hearing the Muslim call to prayer faintly - Ross says "sounds like a Scud missile alert"; today we are having lunch in Caesarea and there is a very loud noise as if a plane is ready to land on the restaurant - VERY LOUD - our guide says "that happens all the time - it is an Israeli fighter jet" - yet this feels like the safest place on earth.