Holy Land Highlights

• Wine tasting in the Golanites; gazing across the border at the motherland from atop Mt. Bental.

• Being assailed in the back by a stray pellet gun bullet as kids wreaked havoc in front of the Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth.

• Praying the Psalms and stomping my feet to Jewish songs at a Shabbat (sabbath) service in Jerusalem.

• Savoring Jerusalem's mouth-watering street eats: the world's best bagels, quinoa salad with veggies, fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, frozen yogurt made to order.

• Exhausting my rather meager Arabic vocabulary in a futile attempt to persuade a guard to permit me to roam around the Dome of the Rock on the Eid al-Adha.
  

• Being addressed in Hebrew and Arabic while out...blending in somewhere again was pleasant.

• Making my probable cameo appearance on YouTube as several Muslim men captured salacious footage of Western women floating in the Dead Sea.

• Singing Christmas carols in the Shepherd's Field, Bethlehem.

• Praying at the Wailing Wall...and my subsequent bewilderment in witnessing Orthodox Jews walk backwards away from the wall.
  

• Climbing mighty Masada under a silvery, robust moon just in time for a glimpse of the brilliant sunrise over the Jordanian mountains.
  

• Discussing Israeli politics with a bunch of Palestinians over nargila on a terrace over-looking the Dead Sea.
  

• Emerging with nary a stamp in my passport after 7.5 hours at border crossings and 1 mild fit thrown.