Friday, March 18th

Today we piled onto the bus and headed into the West Bank to visit, well get a view of St. George's Monastery. It was another forty-five plus minute walk to the monastery, which is built into the cliffside of a valley between two cliffs. We viewed it from atop the opposite cliff. It was a really neat looking complex, I'll have pictures up when I get home.
After this monastery we headed to Jericho and took a gondola up to the Mount of Temptation. There's another monastery up here and in their chapel there is a rock traditionally associated with the Temptation of Jesus.
When we got back down from this monastery we grabbed lunch and then began the drive to Galilee. We stopped off at a site on the Jordan River to renew our Baptismal Covenant. The river was much smaller than I expected, and the water was sort of mucky and not that inviting looking.
We left the Jordan and drove another half hour to where we're staying for the weekend. this place is beautiful. It's the guest house of a monastery (a lot of these today) but is essentially a nice beach side hotel. A bunch of us sat around admiring the view over the Sea of Galilee having a few beers and talked for a while before dinner. It's been great getting to know this group as we travel and learn about this land together.