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!!