The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

The next morning we headed out and pulled up to the Jabbok River at the most beautiful time of the morning. The Jabbok River is where Jacob wrestled with the Angel and it was GORGEOUS! It was so reminiscent of Northern California that I got a bit homesick being there. On either side of the river were grassy, green slopes spotted with trees and undergrowth and the new spring flowers. It was shady and quiet and peaceful, the river quietly bubbling along. We had a nice devotional-type thing there and talked about Jacob and his wrestle with the angel. It was very nice…a great way to start off the day. After that we headed to Jerash.
Guys, Jerash was SO COOL. It’s one of the world’s best preserved Roman cities. Did you get that? It’s one of the best-preserved Roman cities IN THE WORLD! Archaeologists have found evidence of habitation at Jerash from the stone through the Iron Ages. I totally felt like I was in Hercules. We definitely walked around singing Hercules songs here and there. Man, those Romans were stinking smart. And way more advanced than I ever even knew. One of my favorite parts was the huge Roman theater. I love that the Romans went around conquering the world and built enormous theaters everywhere they took over. Now there’s a civilization that appreciates the arts. When we went into the theater there was a group of men in kilts with bagpipes. They started up and we got in a big circle and danced the debkah there in the Roman theater. It was awesome. After we toured around Jerash for a while we went to this presentation in the ancient arena called “The Roman Army and Chariot Experience.” And I would definitely say that “experience” was the perfect word to describe it. It was probably 40 full-grown men in full Roman army garb showing us the ancient tactics of the Roman army. It was pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of Medieval Times, but kind of like in someone’s backyard. However, they were blasting music from Braveheart the whole time. That put a grin on my face. Finally, at the end when they had had their fake battles and such, these guys in chariots came charging into the arena. We started cheering like mad, clapping and shouting, looking forward to seeing some intense chariot racing. We were so excited because we were under the impression that they were going to do some good ole Roman chariot racing. No, no, no, no, no. The chariot “experience” consisted of the guys in the chariots riding down to the end of the arena individually and then coming back. They did that maybe 3 times. We all just kinda sat there with our mouths half open trying to register that this was what we paid $18 to come and see. It was actually more entertaining for me to watch the faces around me, at first lit with eager anticipation, slowly fall into a dumb stupor. Haha! It was funny.
Oh man guys, after Jerash we went to lunch. Holy smokes. The restaurant was called the Green Valley Restaurant and it was by far the best meal I have eaten since being in the Middle East. First they brought out these baskets full of hot-out-of-the-oven (we actually could watch them making them right there on the spot) discs of naan-type bread. They were huge with probably a foot and a half diameter. With these large discs of divinity they brought out all types of sauces and dips that would make your mouth water any day. So we ripped up those naan discs and went to town. It was so tasty. Then they brought out our main course—it was three kabobs of meat sandwiched between a pita with various bowls of veggie mixes to put inside. Oh man, after buffet meals for a week, this was heaven on a plate. For dessert they brought out juicy delicious tangerines. Now that’s they way to do dessert. It was wonderful and made up for the Roman chariot experience in every dimension.
After lunch we drove back up to Amman for a meeting at the branch house in Amman. It was really neat. The branch president spoke to us and it was a very sweet devotional that I really enjoyed.
Finally we headed back to the hotel for an early dinner and a free night out on the town. A group of us decided to head for the Royal Automobile Museum which was absolutely wonderful. Five of us crammed ourselves into a tiny cab and then spent the next 20 minutes driving around Amman trying to communicate with our Arabic-speaking driver. He stopped three different times and asked people on the street to translate for us, and finally we found two young guys that knew some English and were able to tell us how to say “museum” in Arabic. It was really funny. Anyway, the museum was awesome! There were some dang gorgeous cars there. It was fun to see the history of Jordan through the headlights of different cars. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.
After the museum, we headed to Mecca Mall again. Some of the crew got pizza, but I spotted a Cinnabon and couldn’t resist. So I walked up to the counter and there was a pretty young and cute Jordanian working there. Okay, I can promise you I wasn’t flirting with this dude at all. Just wanted to get that out before I get on with the rest of the story. So here’s what went down:
Me: Hi. Do you have any cinnamon rolls right out of the oven?
Guy: We have chocolate rolls. You want to try?
Me: No thanks actually. Do you have any cinnamon rolls with nuts that just came out of the oven? (I pointed to a roll in a case right next to the cash register.)
Guy: No.
Me: What about that one? (Pointing again to the roll in the glass case.)
Guy: That’s for sampling.
Me: Oh really? Well, can I sample it?
After which he took the roll out, put it on a plate and handed it to me.
Me: What?
Guy: Take.
Me: …
Guy: Take. Go.
Me: I can pay for it.
Guy: No. Take.
Me: Okay…thanks!
And that is the story of how I got my free, warm, gooey, delicious cinnabon that was about the size of my head. Either he didn’t realize what “sample” meant, or he must have thought I was pretty cute. I’m inclined to think it was the former, seeing as I didn’t shower that day and looked pretty much like a man.
After cinnabon we meandered around some and then discovered the go-karts on the top level. Yes, I did go go-karting in Amman and it was FUN. It had been a while, but I found that I had not lost my racing skills. I was pretty good still. J After racing we found some gelato and then hailed a cab. Our cab driver couldn’t speak a word of English. We showed him our hotel card and piled in. He was not happy that we were piling 5 people into his tiny cab and almost made us get another cab. Finally he begrudgingly started off, but this dude had no idea where he was going. Beyond that, his car was seriously about to fall into a heap in the middle of the road. It kept making all sorts of weird noises and every time we went over any kind of bump the back end would deafeningly scrape against the asphalt. He kept getting more and more lost and finally started pulling up and asking groups of people where to go. No one seemed completely sure and we kept driving back and forth with the driver getting more and more upset every minute. By the end he was shooting off a rapid, constant stream of Arabic words at us, that I for some reason get the impression probably weren’t very nice. But hey, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. We all sat there stiff in our seats (it was probably because we were so crammed we couldn’t move), eyeing eachother with gogly eyes, wondering how we’d die first: having the car blow up into a million pieces, or having the man take us to a dark alley, take all of our money and then shoot us. After this situation of stopping to ask people, then driving some more to the accompaniment of our driver’s cursing for about 15 minutes, we finally turned onto a street that we recognized. It was the street our hotel was on and boy did we thank our lucky stars. What normally would have been a 10 minute taxi ride had turned into a 45 minute adventure that we were very happy to be done with. He ended up screaming at us until we payed him more money than what we really should have paid, but we were just glad to be rid of him. And I’m sure that gladness was mutual.
After we went to the bathroom in the hotel we decided to walk down the street to this market where they sell pirated DVD’s for dirt cheap. Let me tell you, this was the hot spot for poor BYU students. Kids came home with every DVD you can name, and then some. It’s not illegal here to have pirated DVDs, so I got a few to watch here and then I’ll toss them before I come home. It’s cheaper to just buy it here and watch it once then it is to rent it in the U.S. Anyway, on our way down there guess whom we should see pulled over on the side of the road with his hood up? Yes, our friendly mr. taxi cab driver. We really didn’t want him to see us, so we hid our faces and booked it past him.
At Food City (that’s where the DVDs were) we got our DVDs and then I hunted down some raisin bran. Mmm. I’ve been surviving off of it here for breakfast every morning. It’s wonderful. When we got back to the hotel I was really tired, but there were a bunch of kids in the lobby playing guitar and chatting, so I stayed up late shootin’ the breeze and listening to the guitar.
The next morning we packed our bags and shipped out. On the way back to Israel we stopped at a really cool mosque, the Citadel of Amman and the Amman Museum. I was pretty burned out and so probably didn’t get as much out of these places as I could have, but they were still neat. At the museum I saw the oldest statue built by man and some of the dead sea scrolls, the copper scrolls to be specific. It was pretty sweet.
We piled back onto the buses and ate our box lunches as we headed out for Israel. In our lunches we had boiled eggs, which I can’t stand. The girl sitting next to me, Bekah was her name, didn’t want to eat hers either. We were joking around saying we should race them down the aisle and then I was like, “Hey, we really should!” So I took out a marker and we decorated our eggs, mine becoming LaFonda the Luscious and Bekah’s becoming the Asian Invasion. We started them at the back of the bus and waited until we were going down a really good hill. Then we set ‘em loose and the whole bus got so into it! People were cheering for their egg (LaFonda was the favorite) and ooing and ahhing with each leg of the race. We ended up having a ton of races, adding in contestants such as Henry Biggins III and Pollyanna. LaFonda was the ultimate racer, though. It was funny how much our bus got into it though. Tons of people had their cameras out and everyone was planning like how we’d film it from all these different angles, like one camera a the start line, one on the floor near the middle of the track, one up above where they would pass below it, and a few different ones at the finish line so they could watch the instant replay to make sure of the winner. Then they started putting obstacles in the pathway, making it harder for our brave little racers. It was really a hoot and definitely made it a fun and memorable bus ride. I highly recommend it for anyone taking a long bus ride in the near future.
We arrived home early enough to get some lots of really important stuff done, like watching all the new movies that came back from Jordan with us. There was a different movie playing in every room. It was pretty out-of-control. Most of us called it a night pretty early though because we had to leave at 5:30 the next morning to drive to Eilat to go snorkeling, meaning we had to get up at like 4:45!
Oh man, Eilat was wonderful. It’s in like the top 10 snorkeling places in the world and it was a blast. It was just what I needed to decompress after our fieldtrip. Like I said, we left at 5:30 that morning and drove for just under 4 hours. When we got to Eilat, they briefed us a bit about snorkeling and then we sunscreened up! It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a nice, beachy breeze, perfect for a day at the beach. We spent the day snorkeling, lying on the beach, reading, eating delicious ice cream, and just soaking up the sun. It was wonderful. There were some pretty sweet fish there. And there were jellyfish everywhere…thank goodness I didn’t get stung by one. Been there, done that, no fun. There were large schools of barracudas and tons of brightly colored fish, ranging from the size of a baby carrot, to the size of a small child. The coral was pretty and it just felt so good to be in the water. I got in and swam some “laps” because it had been so long since I had gotten to swim at all…it felt so good. I really love the water so much.
When our scheduled snorkeling time was over it was getting later in the day so we headed into the city and got some dinner. My group got some delicious schwarmas, complemented by a nice cold glass of mango nectar. Mmm. After that we got McDonald’s McFlurries and walked along the beach skipping the rocks and watching the sun set. That’s my favorite time of the day and it felt so good to be there. It was a highly enjoyable trip.Conclusion: I love life.