YOJO: You Only Jeru Once!

Another trip out into the city!! Seriously if I could just spend every day in the city I would!! First thing we did was exchange money!! We go to Aladdin’s to exchange money every time and every time I find a new note on the wall that I haven’t read before! I can’t wait to leave a note there for futures JCers!!

We decided to go into the city through Herod’s gate to see if there were any kids who wanted to play soccer! Turns out, there was!! It was soo much fun! They are really good! They were just little kids and they were waaayyy better then I was! It is always so much fun to play with them!

After we decided to go into the Jewish Quarter because we hadn’t been there yet! So we were walking through the Muslim quarter to get there and this guy stopped us and asked us where we thought he should go. he said that he was only going to be in the city for one day and what we would recommend he see. We told him what we thought and then got talking to him about why he was here for only a day and he told us he was here for a pilgrimage. You would assume that it he would have been Christian, or Jewish but it turns out he was Baha’i.  I had never heard about the religion before but here is a little info about what it is.

“The Bahá'í Faith is the youngest of the world's independent religions. Its founder, Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), is regarded by Bahá'ís as the most recent in the line of Messengers of God that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.

The central theme of Bahá'u'lláh's message is that humanity is one single race and that the day has come for its unification in one global society. God, Bahá'u'lláh said, has set in motion historical forces that are breaking down traditional barriers of race, class, creed, and nation and that will, in time, give birth to a universal civilization. The principal challenge facing the peoples of the earth is to accept the fact of their oneness and to assist the processes of unification.”

It is quite interesting I thought but he was really nice and he spoke English so that was kinda nice ahaha. Anyway so we continued on through the Muslim quarter to get to the Jewish quarter and I made everyone stop so that I could take a picture. One of the little, I guess you could call them restaurants, had a sign that said “pomegranate juice is chuck Norris approved!” hahahaha I could not stop laughing I thought it was great so I had to stop and take a pic.

When we thought we had gotten to the Jewish quarter it turns out we had walked right into the western wall. We decided that we should go in since most of us hadn’t been back since that Friday and we couldn’t take any pictures then. I also really wanted to write my prayer on a piece of paper and stick it in the wall. The Jewish believe that prayers go directly to go from the wall to heaven because it is the closest thing to the temple there is. I know that I don’t believe this to be completely true but I thought that I should do it at least once while I am here! I decided that I need to experience as much as I can and continue learning and taking part in other cultures while I am here! So far it has been amazing and eye opening.

There is my note!! :) It is the biggest one there in the middle of the picture.

The men's side. Women aren't allowed in but we can look in

After the western wall it finally on to the Jewish quarter. By the time that we finally got there we had to split because part of our group was going to do the carillon bells. So we split up and it ended up being just me, Sarah Write, Spencer A, and Hannah. It was really cool. We started off on this street that was part of the original city. It was really neat to see. After that we decided to head over the four synagogues. Once we got there, we found out that you had to pay to go in and we weren’t quite sure whether or not it was actually worth it, so we didn’t go much farther than just inside the door.

 It was really neat though because the Jewish quarter is so much calmer, quieter and 10 million times cleaner. It is interesting to me how much different it looked. It was like coming back into modern times but we were still in the old city! It was crazy!

While we were exploring we saw this jewelry store and it was really neat because a lot of the jewelry had pieces of rock that were from the original city (or temple wall I can’t remember). Either was we decided to stop and look. The pieces where gorgeous but extremely expensive! There were a couple amazing pieces that were made that were not for sale. They were extremely intricate and beautiful! A picture definitely wouldn’t do any of the pieces justice that is for sure!

After that we were walking down the street and we saw a synagogue. We decided we wanted to stop in and see it. Well when we walked in we kinda got in trouble and told that we had to leave. I am pretty sure that we walked in on the men’s side and there were three girls in the group! Haha it was kind of funny to be honest!

Then we decided to just walk around and explore. We were trying to look for the archaeological gardens but we are either blind or we honestly just couldn’t find it. We ended up just walking through the neighborhoods and exploring and it was really neat! The streets where beautiful! Then we decided it was time to go to the Tower of David Citadel.

The Tower Of David is a Museum is a restored citadel that is King David Castle. This would have been where he would have seen Bathsheba. It was really neat! We walked in and walked up to the highest point of the museum. When we got to the top you could see all around the city! It was amazing!! You could see the old city, West J, and pretty much everything! It was absolutely beautiful!! We stood up there for almost an hour just talking and looking out over the city. By the time we were done up there, Sarah and I were super hungry so we decided to head out. We kinda walked through the rest of the stuff but we didn’t really look although I wish that we had. Anyway it was really pretty and neat!

Hannah and Spencer

On the Shabban’s again! I feel like I can’t go out without going to Shabban’s haha! So we went by Shabban’s and I ordered some things and we just kinda looked around. Then we were getting ready to head out of the old city when we saw some of our fellow JCers. We stopped and talked to them for a little and it was right outside this little falafel place so we stopped to get something to eat. It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!! I loved it sooo much!! The guy was super duper nice!

While we were there eating, there was a group of about three ladies sitting there and we got talking to them. One of them was attending Hebrew University (which is right up here on the hill next to the Jerusalem Center). She asked where were where staying and we told her the Mormon University (because that is what everyone knows the JC as haha). When we said that, she got all excited. She said that a couple years ago she had a guy in one of her classes that went there for church and she thought it was really cool. I kind of wish that we could have talked to her about it more but we agreed not to so we just said how cool it was and changed the subject back to why she was here. She was studying Israeli politics (which are suuupppppeeeerrrr confusing) and she was from the US. It was kinda neat to see that even in a place like this you can run into people who know about the church.

After Falafel we decided to stop at Jimmy and Omar’s shops (the olive wood shops). Spencer and Hannah needed to stop by and I always like looking so I didn’t complain one bit! Off we went to Omar’s first then Jimmy’s then home for the night! All in all it was definitely a good trip into the city and super fun!

He Suffered for me here

A small group of about 10 of us decided to go to the Garden of Gethsemane today. It was an amazing choice on my part to go! first, in order to get there you have to walk through Orson Hyde Garden while is beautiful! It was kinda funny because you have to walk through a lot of trash and as soon as you get to the Orson Hyde Garden it is soooo beautiful! When we got to Gethsemane it was a lot smaller than I expected but it was amazing! It was all behind fences and you couldn’t go in but it was amazing to go! I sat there and just looked in at those trees realizing that Christ bleed form every pore somewhere in that area! It was absolutely amazing! Another one of those experiences that I don’t even have words to describe! It was an amazing experience! On the way back the sun was shining through really beautifully and it was just one of those days that I will always remember! 

Jerash!

Today was another really good day! This morning we went down to breakfast and they were making omelets!!! They were really good! And they even let us mix our cheese and meat! It was awesome! (Needless to say this whole kosher thing…not a huge fan!) Anyway the breakfast was good but I still miss bacon and a good ol’ American Breakfast! All right lets be honest I miss American food in General!  But it was good!

Off we went to explore more Tels!! Woohoo!! So for those of you who don’t know a Tel is an anthropological site of sortes. They all start to run together but they are really interesting! When we got going we went to the Amman Citadel. This site would be the Old Testament (OT) site of Rabbath or Ammon. The Greeks also referred to the city as Philadelphia so it had a lot of different names haha! It was pretty cool though! There was a Mosque that was still standing and parts of the Roman Temple of Hercules! It was really neat! There was this little museum there that we went through too and that was pretty cool! 

The Temple of Hercules

The Monastery 

While we were there we had a devotional and talked about David. Rabbath-Ammon was where David was supposed to be when he was Bathsheba. It was a really neat site! After that it was off to the Jabbok River.

The Jabbok River is a river that comes off of the Jordan River. The reason we stopped was because that is where Jacob wrestled with an angel (Genesis 32:22-30). It wasn’t anything super exciting just a river but it was really cool to think that somewhere along that river was where Jacob once was. It is amazing to me to think that was thousands of years ago and yet it is still there! CRAZY!!! We had a devotional there that was really good and we got to see a song! After that it was finally time for lunch!

We went to lunch at this place on our way and it was BBQ. It was definitely different but it was super delicious! When you walk into the place there is this station with this guy who is making bread! It was soooo cool!!! He took these pieces of dough and flattened them out almost like pizza dough!! And then he just threw them into the brick oven on top of rocks! It was the coolest thing and probably some of the best bread I have ever had!! It was awesome! When our food came out we all really enjoyed it! There was chicken, Lamb, and some other kind of sausage thing which we weren’t really sure what it was!.Aubreigh, who sat at my table, took a bite of something at the beginning and said oh this must be a scalap and she ate the whole thing. Well, come to find out…It was a giant chunk of fat! It was hilarious!!!

After Lunch it was time for Jerash. It is definitely waaayyy underrated! I didn’t know what it was before this trip but it was really really cool to go there! Jerash is one of the best preserved roman sites in the World! It was really really cool. Brother Judd, my OT teacher, said this could possibly be the city of Jershon from the OT. It was really neat! When you walk in there is this Giant arch. 

As you start to walk towards the middle of the city you walk past a Hippodrome. A Hippodrome is a Horse Track! It s one of the best preserved Hippodromes in existence! 

As you continue in you walk past a lot of homes and things until you get to the Market. The Market was soooooo HUGE! It honestly reminded me of the Market in Hercules where all the pillars fall down!! 

Yup that totally reminded me of that! It was awesome! After that we walked up the hill to what is so cleverly named The South Theater haha. When we got to the theater there were three guys in kilts playing the bagpipes! It was pretty awesome not gonna lie! The acoustics where AWESOME!! After that we went down and walked down the main road! 

Down main road we went to a fountain

 and walked past the outside of Artemis’ Temple. Then, they set us free! It was pretty cool! I wish we would have had more time to spend there, cause there was a lot that I didn’t get to see. I went inside Artemis’ Temple, To the North Theater, and walked around just through the streets a little bit more!

Temple of Artemis 

North Theater

Mitchell being contemplative 

stairs to the temple of Artemis with Sarah L and Mitchell at the top

Temple of Artemis

Lindsay Kelly and Lisa Judd

It honestly is amazing to me to think that they were actually there! People lived there at some point! I am walking in a city that once was huge and booming! It is really really weird! It is also crazy to think that they built these things without machines! I honestly think that their buildings and such where much more impressive than anything we have!

After Jerash it was time to head to a museum. Normally a lot of people wouldn’t be to excited about this part but it was super awesome!! It was the Royal Automobile museum. The previous king of Jordan, King Hussein, collected cars and motorcycles of all sorts! It was super cool! He had a different car for like ever event in his life! Now I am not one to know a lot about cars but I love looking at old cars! They are beautiful to me and I just love it! It was really cool! Originally Dr. Jackson told us there was going to be a bugatti and I was super excited because I have never seen one in person! Unfortunately, it wasn’t there! not gonna lie, kinda disappointing but I will live!

When we got done in the Museum we were supposed to walk down the street to the King Hussein Mosque but it was dumping rain so that didn’t happen. We just ended up driving past it and it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! I wish we had gotten the chance to at least walk at the outside of it. But it was still really pretty! Then it was on to home (well the Hotel anyway).

Once we got back to the Hotel we still have about an hour and a half to kill until dinner! Rachel was able to get her internet to work so I read a book while she skyped with her family! It was nice to just relax after having done so much for the last few days! When it finally came to dinner it was really good! After dinner, Sarah L, Mikkel, and I went out into the city. It was a little rainy but it was nice to be out! We went to the grocery store to get some chocolate for the long bus ride we had the next day and guess what I found…Aero’s and Canadian smarties!! It was soo cool to find Canadian chocolate there because I love it so much!! Anyway so then we walked farther down the road and got ice cream. I had Nutella ice cream that was absolutely freaking amazing!! Haha anyway then we went back and Rachel and I spent another night up late talking about all kinds of stuff! It was awesome!! 

PETRA!!!!!

Today was PETRA!!!!! Oh my goodness I can’t even explain in words how amazing it was! When we left the hotel I didn't realize how close we really were! I thought that we would have to get on the bus and ride to it but in all actuality all we had to do was walk down the street and we were at the park! It was freezing cold cause it had rained all night but we were hoping that it would warm up later! When we finally got to the park it takes a while to get in! We walked through these beautiful gorges and saw some of the tombs and stuff! It was quite a long walk but it was beautiful! At one point there were a ton of puddles as so we were watching our feet to make sure not to step in them. When I looked up I literally stopped in my tracks because all I could see was part of the treasury through the wall of the gorge! It took my breath away! I couldn't even believe what I was seeing! It was sooo much bigger then I could have ever imagined and it was absolutely beautiful!! After that they let us go and we had about 3-4 hours to just explore on our own!

This was a tomb of some sort on our way into the park

The treasury! 

Does this remind you of any movies??

A group of us decided that we wanted to walk up to the monastery because we thought it would be cool! On our way we got distracted by some ruins (How often can you say that?!?!?!) so we stopped and took some pics and then we were on our way. 

Eden, Ben, Me, and Montana!

Sarah L, Jacque, Ben, and Eden

As it turns out, the high to the Monastery is over 800 steps up the side of this mountain! Dude is was terrible especially since I am super out of shape. But, in the end, It was totally and completely worth every second! I was basically dying by the time we made it to the top and I was trying so hard not to give up on myself when I turned around the corner. As soon as I turned around and saw the monastery I forgot everything and was literally in awe! It HUGE!!! And super amazing! I can’t even describe in words how amazing it is in person! I mean when you see pictures you think oh wow that is pretty big and pretty cool. As soon as you see it in person that is when it is really put into perspective! I never would have imagined in a million years that I could have been there experiencing that! I look back at my pictures and I still can’t believe that it actually happened!

SOOOOOOO MANY STAIRS!!!!

Look at how tiny those people are compared to the Monastery!! That is all one piece carved out of the rock!!

Inside!!!

After the monastery we went to this lookout point that was maybe about another two minute walk up this “hill.” It was called the Top of the World and it totally felt like you were on top of the world! It was BEAUTIFUL! 

After that we were all starving so Ben, Kate, and I decided to head back down and get lunch. We hiked all the way down and on our way we had to basically avoid the beduwin women cause they were trying soooo hard to get us to buy something.

Lunch was great…except for the chocolate stuff. There was this amazing chocolate pudding when we first got there and when it was out we were all waiting for them to bring more out. Well instead of the chocolate pudding they brought out this chocolate sponge stuff. Since the pudding was soooo good we all loaded up on this other stuff. As it turns out…not so great! Haha Ben’s face can definitely attest to that!

After lunch we went exploring. There was an old temple that we decided to go explore and guess what we found…secret stairs!! So there was no ceiling because it had collapsed but we found these stairs that lead up to this platform that was pretty cool! Of course because I am terrified of heights I didn't enjoy it as much as others but it was pretty awesome! After we had been up there for a while brother Judd showed up and told us to get down cause apparently that was probably breaking rule #3 (don’t do anything stupid)! It was pretty awesome I’m not going to lie!

From Below

From up top

After that we decided we wanted to go see the royal tombs. We didn't have a ton of time but we walked up there and looked at them for a little while! They were beautiful!I really wish that we could have spent more time in Petra because it was really amazing and beautiful! The tombs were beautifully carved out of the side on the mountains!

Me,  Kate, and McCall

After the tombs was my absolute most favoritists part of the day!!! So we were walking back to the treasury so that we could ride a camel and take pictures there. as we were walking there were a bunch of people offering to give us camel rides back. They costed a lot so we weren't really willing to! Well then this guy said we could for Three Dinar (which is about $4.50) and we thought ya that would be worth it! So we worked out with the camel driver to take us to the treasury and take pictures of three dinar. We were sooo excited!! Ben and I rode one and Katie and McCall rode the other! IT was awesome! It was kinda freaky when it stood up because I thought I was going to fall off! I think it wouldn't have been so freaky if I wasn't so scared of heights (or I guess more falling off)! But it was waaayyyy fun!! I would do it again in a heartbeat! The thing that bothered me the most was that when we got there he wanted to charge us another 2 dinar ($3) to take pictures. We tried to say that he said we could take pictures but it was a no go. We had gotten a couple of each other while we were on the camels but we didn't get any super good pictures! It was kinda sad but still totally worth it! And we got a couple pictures at least! That is better than none!

After this, with our ticket, we got a free horse ride out of the park! It was neat!! We had to walk through the gorge to get to where the horses would take us but it was really cool! We got to ride them a pretty good while too which was kind of nice! Amber and I got to ride together which was super fun! After a little bit of window shopping it was time to get back on the bus and get ready for another really long bus ride.

Right on our way out out bus all of a sudden! it was kinda cool because Brother Jackson wanted to stop at this spring. It is supposed to be the spring that came from the rock that Moses struck. It was really neat! There was this giant rock and just the spring. it wasn't anything big but it was kinda cool!

As it turns out a little into our ride we stopped at this crusaders era castle which was pretty cool! We even got our one and only picture of the group to date! It was kinda neat! Then we spent another 4ish hours on the bus! Yay for long bus rides! I guess It is a good thing that I have taken so many long car trips cause those rides didn't feel super long!

We finally got to Amman at about 7ish! It was a really nice hotel! It was The Belle Vue Hotel – Amman! It was really nice! It was actually kinda funny cause when we got there they gave our keys because that is how you use the elevator. When we were standing there waiting for the elevator me and Rachel where talking to Miikel and John asking them where they were and they said they were in the room next to us! I was kinda shocked! That definitely doesn't fit with the BYU housing standards haha. Well as it turns out our rooms where connected! They had a door in-between the two so we could talk to each through the doorway! It was kinda funny! Of course we made sure to stay in our own rooms but it was fun!

Dinner was super nice and super delicious! Then a bunch of people decided to go out to Rainbow street which is where everything near our hotel is but I decided that we would have the next night to go out so I stayed up in my room trying to get the internet to work (which never happened! Haha). It was an awesome day though!! One that I will never ever forget! Petra was worth every moment and I wish that we could have spent more time there!