Plans frequently change, whether you’re ready or not. Our original plan was to take the whole family to Israel, Jordan and Egypt this month. A spiritual journey of where Jesus walked and taught. Well, a bunch of idiots decided to shoot at each other and play war in that part of the world, so we decided that travel there now wasn’t too smart. We were offered a different, much smaller tour – Where the Apostle Paul went on his second missionary journey. The whole family couldn’t make this trip, but Kevin and Becky, with their kids Dayna and Peter would join us. So plans nicely changed!

Our flight plan was to leave Omaha mid afternoon for Chicago, then connect with a flight to Frankfurt, and finally on to Thessaloniki, in Greece. The plane we were supposed take to Chicago was 40 minutes late arriving in Omaha. No big problem – we had plenty of time to make that next connection… but… they announced that Chicago has certain time windows assigned to flights, and the next available window was two hours away. Now it was a big problem! We’d miss the Frankfurt flight.

Here’s our original plane that arrived 40 minutes late. I was enjoying watching how quickly they do all the myriad of tasks needed to set up for the next flight. All their efficiency was irrelevant… Chicago wouldn’t let them fly for over two more hours. (Actually, I think it was closer to 4 hours when the flight finally flew!)

We tried to get re-routed any of several other possible routes that would get us to our tour on time, but nothing was available. So we spent the first night of our exciting trip in Omaha. A nice dinner, a decent room, and then a second attempt the next day.

Next day worked out well – our first flight took off as scheduled. The new routing was via Zurich instead of Frankfurt. After a 53 hour flight, It was fun to be in Switzerland again! (OK, maybe it wasn’t really 53 hours, but it felt like it!) The airport was what you’d expect – clean and polished, lots of high-end shops and eating establishments. What wasn’t expected was a little robot apparently responsible for keeping it all clean and polished! Unlike some similar robots I’ve seen, this one wasn’t too afraid of people. It’s like he (it?) knew messes are near people, so it didn’t shy away from us. It wouldn’t hit anyone, but it would wait until you got out of its way so it could clean under your messy feet. It used water and brushes, and then a little squeegee behind it. (Why am I spending so much time on a silly robot?)

We eventually boarded a Swiss plane bound for Thessaloniki.

Instead of arriving for dinner Monday night, we got to our hotel Tuesday afternoon. Our tour group had gone to Philippi and probably someplace else for the day, but we got to play in the pool and relax. One pool is on the top floor, with a 360 degree view of Thessaloniki. Fascinating view!

We met up with the tour group for dinner at 7.

The next day started with a trip to Berea. (They say Veria) The Apostle Paul’s Tribute is a monument celebrating that Paul preached here. The Bereans were open minded and receptive, and searched the scriptures to see if Paul was preaching truth.

Here’s an old snapshot of Paul preaching to the Bereans:

I sincerely hope Paul looked happier than this morose sculpture!

We passed a colorful fruit market as we walked across town.

I’ve no idea what this building is, but it looked nice.

Our destination was the old Jewish Synagogue. While this building is not quite 200 years old, tradition says it was built on the foundations of the synagogue that Paul preached in. The site is right by the Tripotamos river, where the original was supposed to have been, so it is very likely the correct site. We had a nice little worship meeting there, then explored the area for a while.

There is a very steep walkway down to the Tripotamos river, and we had to try it out. Well worth the steps!

Our bus is very comfortable, and almost full. Our goal for the following day is:

… well, come back next week to find out! I hope to have more bandwidth for that week, and catch up this little blog.