Hello all! After a rousing 26 hours of travel, we find ourselves cradled in the hills behind Jerusalem, in the beautiful town of Abu Ghosh. It is here where we will participate in the Abu Ghosh music festival, a bi-annual festival to which we were invited, and is the reason we have come! We will sing three concerts at a church on a hilltop overlooking the city tomorrow, Wednesday, and Saturday.
Not much to report on today. It was a rough 26 hour period of travel with THREE different flights, and a long layover in Philadelphia, one of the most unfortunate airports I've ever visited. But fortunately I got window seats every time (even one exit row!) and all the planes we flew on were very nice and very very comfortable. Aside from the screaming, kicking child behind me on the flight to Tel Aviv, everything went smoothly.
We arrived in Tel Aviv and cleared passport control, which I thought was going to be much rougher than it was, especailly after having to clear a special security checkpoint just for our gate, and having our gate and plane hidden behind frosted glass. When we arrived, we proceeded to Abu Ghosh to check in and relax at our hotel. The hotel is on top of a hill and has excellent views of the town below and the very Western edge of Jerusalem in the distance. We ate an amazing meal with a complete smorgasbord of Middle Eastern cuisine, including hummus (ohhhh yeah), a quinoa salad, fish, and the most amazing dish: a simple rice with garbanzo beans and other stuff... so delicious. I cannot wait for dinner tomorrow night...
The internet in this hotel is YIKES expensive, but I figured I'd spring for the 68 NIS it cost me to have internet for 24 hours. So I will update again tomorrow, with reports from our first concert. Urska, Emily, and myself have decided to take an excursion around the town tomorrow morning to see the sights before heading to the concerts, so there should be plenty of pictures to follow.
For now, the pictures refuse to upload quickly enough, and I have been waiting well over 2 hours for the upload to complete, so I won't be able to put pictures up tonight. I will try again tomorrow. In the mean time, GoogleImage search Abu Ghosh and see what we have a view of!
Until tomorrow, Shalom!
