Haifa, Israel

We are now in Haifa, Israel for the next three days. Today I escorted my
first tour excursion. We went to The Sea of Galilee (which as it turns out is
really a lake) then to an ancient city recently uncovered called Zipporri. Part
of the ruins uncovered was a Synagogue and when we walked through it there was a family who traveled from America to have their son’s Bar Mitzvah there. I wonder if they knew there would be tour groups walking in and out of their ceremony. He seemed pretty happy to be the center of attention though.  We also visited the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized and you could actually go into the water and pay to get baptized there. Then you could buy the DVD of it all. Somehow I don’t think that’s how Jesus and John did it. After we ascended the Golan Heights and saw a view of are whole day from above. The views were pretty unreal  and just being in Israel with it’s history makes me feel part of something epic.

Yesterday we had a crew drill where they told us there was a bomb on board
somewhere so as part of the entertainment team I had to go into the Nautica
Lounge, where all the shows are, and search for a suspicious package. Margaret said they like to hide it in the Lounge because they think the performers don’t know what they are doing so we had to be very thorough. Turns out she was right and she found it tucked into one of the curtains hanging from the big windows. I should’ve know it was there because that’s exactly where Dad used to hide the Easter eggs. After the drill was over the crew had to meet for a quick discussion about pirates. Over the next few weeks we will be in a heavy piracy area and basically the captain told us if somehow pirates made it anywhere near us (which they shouldn’t because we will have military on board who will be watching 360 degrees) to tell all the guests to move to the center of the vessel and get low to the floor. He said this happened once before and he told them to stay low to the floor and away from windows so everyone went to their staterooms
and stood out on their balconies taking pictures. I guess they are not a very
big threat because we are such a large vessel but it was still a little scary to
have to talk about it.