On the Other Side of the Globe

Jordan, what a place. Just 4 flights, 38 hours, 3 continents, 4 countries, and a different phone number away.

The flight here was bad, but not the worst. Two in the Abila Excavation group said it took them 5 days to get to Jerusalem last week when they came early. But on our trip, we had a problem with every one of our connections. At Northwest Arkansas, we were 1 hour late because of a rain delay, this made us miss our connection to London from Chicago, so we got a later flight from Chicago. At Chicago, we ended up leaving on a different flight, because we missed the one we were supposed to take. Then, our baggage only went to London Heathrow, so we had to pick up our luggage, and check back in there, when we found that American Airlines canceled our tickets on Royal Jordanian to Amman, Jordan. After 4 hours, we finally had contacted our travel agent (where in Arkansas it was 7am Saturday) and got new tickets--this time going through Bahrain then to Amman.
>>everyone in Amman

In Bahrain, we kept getting stares from all the Arabs who thought we looked weird, not wearing all the traditional middle eastern dress.
>>(excited about a ticket to Bahrain)

We nearly missed our connection there, but the airline waited for us. We ran to the gate, then ran to the ticket booth to get our boarding passes, then a man ran with us to the gate to make sure we got on the plane, then we finally boarded the flight to Amman, Jordan. I was amazed by all the deserts as we flew over Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

So, that's the flight story. Now, the Amman story from today.

We smoked hookah (hubblie bubbly last night, Grape was very good. Today, we toured around some ruins downtown: Hercules' Temple (AD 2nd cent.)

>>Hercules' Temple

>>Hercules' Temple

a Roman Amphitheater (AD 1st Cent.)

a mosque and a church from Byzantium era (AD 8th Century). Then we went in the Jordan Archaeology Museum where we saw all kinds of pottery, glasswear, statues (we saw the first statue known to be made by man--from the Stone Age 8000-6000 BC, kind of awesome).

>>Greek Icon in Tile from a Byzantine Church


After all this we went to a resturant downtown for some great Mansif, then went to a cafe for tea (I got Turkish Coffee)

and headed back to the hotel, where I did some homework (yay....)

Awesome fun here, and I'm finally getting used to the whole new money thing and the whole not knowing how to speak to anyone (I don't even know how to say hello in Arabic)

--Dead Sea Scrolls