The (sometimes surprising) Sights and Sounds of Jordan...

Hey everyone. We are back from Jordan and had such a great time with Eric and Traci. In all it was about a four hour process getting there -- between different buses, taxi's and the border crossing -- but everything went pretty smoothly. We headed to Jerash our first day to see the best preserved Roman City in all of the Middle East. It was also part of the Decapolis at one time and has several temples, two Roman theatres, and a massive Hippodrome.

Below: Jer and Eric at one of the Temples...

This picture of Jer gives you an idea of how big all of the pilllars actually are...

A fountain in front of the temple to Artemis

Below: Jer on the cardo (main street)

One of the more puzzling sights... an Arab man playing the bagpipes in the very empty ruins of a Roman theatre.

The "scene" or stage of the theatre...

A highlight of our trip was Eric's big jump in the Northern theatre. He had set up his camera to take a group photo and was going to jump from the seats to the stage in order to make it into the photo in time. Traci was quite worried he wasn't going to make it all the way, and so decided to take a video. He did make it over the gap, but then wiped out on the wet stage. Traci got it on video, but that is on their website. We were laughing so hard... here is the picture of us taken by the timer after Eric wipes out...

Anyway, we headed off to Amman shortly after this. Amman is the capital of Jordan and is incredibly densely populated. The population has exploded from 1.5 million to 2.5 million since many people have settled here to escape the mess in Iraq. Below is a picture of just part of a hillside in Amman...

That's a big flagVisiting more ruins: The gate to a palace in the citadel...

Jer having some fun in the remains of the Temple of Hercules...

We also visited the archeological museum on site which to Jer's surprise and delight, had hidden in a back corner, the Book of Noah, and the Genesis Apocryphon (from the Dead Sea scrolls). We then headed towards the Roman theatre which is located down the hill, right in the middle of the city. This is the largest Roman theatre we have seen yet. You can see Traci (in blue), and I (in white) on the right side at the bottom of the theatre.

After the theatre closed we decided to check out a Jordanian Mall (Mecca Mall). We were so surprised -- it was nothing like an Israeli mall -- there were predominately english named, "western" looking stores (although only about 3 we had heard of; ie. Esprit and Benetton) and to our surprise a starbucks, and a cinnabon???

Traci enjoying a treat back at the hotel...

Tired after a long day and a few games of Dutch Blitz!!

On Saturday we headed to the King Abdullah Mosque which is the largest in Amman.

Above: Traci, Eric, and I just outside the mosque.

Then we visited a cute little church across the street...

Another surprising sight was the Applebee's down the road. We decided to abandon our quest for authentic Arabic food (which we eat at home all the time anyway) and headed there for a familiar lunch. It felt like I was on Pembina Hwy -- everything was exactly the same, except of course the waitresses wore head coverings...


Our second to last stop was in Madaba to see a very famous mosaic. It was discovered in St. George's Church and is the oldest known map of the "Holy Land". When we arrived, there was a funeral just getting underway, but the service was held up so we were allowed in for a quick look. They had just covered the mosaic up with a carpet and during the service, would allow people to walk across it -- we couldn't believe it! Jer found part of Egypt under this piece of carpet...

And our last stop was Mount Nebo, where God showed Moses the "promised land" just before the Israelites conquered Jericho (sans Moses). From the mountain top you can see Jericho, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Qumran, and the Jordan River...

And then back to the border -- after 3 hours of questions, showing our passports numerous times, etc... we made it through the border to catch the last bus of the night back to Jerusalem. Good times.