Staying up all night- visiting my favorite spots and travels-o-fun

In my quest to stay up all night this is what i did- aside, of course, from talking to people and pondering.

First was a final trip of to the Holy Sepulcher. This place is really just beautiful- although the sign might not prepare you for it. So i guess there are inadequate signs outside Jordan.
Try as i might, i could not get a picture of this thing without someone in front of it. Picture of sepulcher with person + photoshop = picture of sepulcher without person.Being that i was in the church a bit late and they were closing it down, there were some doors open which every other time i visited were shut. I assume an unlocked door/gate to be one i am meant to enter.
after taking a picture of the open gate, i turned and saw this which is the bottom of traditional Golgotha.
They soon invited me to leave, not because i was trespassing but because i would be as soon as the church closed. The picture below shows the inauspicious front of a terribly ornate and important church. Notice the door half closed.
So back i went to my hotel for a final sit on the terrace. This is my view: from left the Tower of David, David's Citadel, the King David Hotel with the YMCA tower coming up behind it and finally the city walls. I have quite enjoyed being able to sit on the roof of the place i live. I haven't been able to do that since my time at the YL house.


About 20 hours after waking up i caught the shuttle over to the airport. True enough- they will ask you a lot of questions (including "did you get to know any Arabs?"). A few hours to get through security, four hours to Frankfurt, 5 hr layover, 10 hrs to Denver, an hour through customs and i'm home. It was quite a trip, there is more to say, i could probably fill books that would fill the world (or at least a small room), but you have to ask me to get more because i am done with this blog.

I want to thank you for reading my ramblings, i hope you enjoyed them. If you want to post any comments you should, i have enjoyed reading them. I look forward to catching up on what has happened in your world.

Home safe. blessings.

Amman - Museum - Medeba - Mt Nebo - crossing the Jordan - no sleepi

So i woke up this morning in Amman: my last day away from home, sort of. This is the last full day away, yet somehow waking up i was still over 48hrs away from home. Go figure- who came up with time zones anyway?
Above is Amman, Jordan, built up around the ancient theater that seats 5000.
These columns formed the Temple to Hercules - so of course they were huge. Old and gigantic, story of my trip. Just a note, the girl in the orange skirt is full size.
Continuing on Jordan's underselling their stuff- this unsuspecting museum holds some of the oldest statues of humans (6500 yrs old), ancient skulls and some of the Dead Sea Scroll. Security is less than tight, many of the artifacts are not even encased, and though pictures are not permitted they proved to be a less than daunting task. I will not post any, because i abide the laws and did not take any. I cannot speak for all patrons of the museum.

Off to Madaba- or Medeba- pretty much you can put whatever vowels you want in any word so long as you get the consonants in the right order. You can also pronounce anything however you choose, assuming you can look like you know what you are doing.
Medeba is an important city throughout history. During the Byzantine era (Roman), someone decided it would be a neat idea to use a giant mosiac map as a floor covering, showing all of the Roman empire. I dont know why people have stoped such decor. I certainly want a map (60x20 ft) covering my space. The extant portions of the map prove both accurate and informative to scholars today. Pictured below is Jerusalem. Different colored buildings indicated different uses, as do symbols and scripts-just like maps today!This is where we had lunch. Pretty.
The final stop on our Jordan tour- and really Israel tour as well- was Mt Nebo. This awesome sign again provided by my host country. This one is well aged: you cannot fake rust.
This is the view Moses had after wandering in the desert for 40 yrs. Interestingly we tend to think Moses was able to see all of the Promised Land... but an effect of the heat is fog. I always want to know what is layed out in front of me and for some reason i think such a perspective is due me- this expereince might lead me to think otherwise.

I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God!He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.
-Deuteronomy 32:3-4

From here we crossed from Jordan into the West Bank and on to Israel, so technically from a country into hot nothingness before finding ourselves back in a place recognized by the UN. We arrived back in Jerusalem just in time for dinner back at the Gloria.
Some of my companions will stay a few day extra in Jerusalem, some are on to France, Germany, England... i am happy to be headed home. A lot can be accomplished in three and a half weeks of traveling. More can be accomplished in 5 or 6 weeks... but i miss you guys... so i'm coming home.

And now i am trying to stay awake until 1:45am when i will catch the sharut (shuttle) to the airport and begin my long-day-and-a-half-of-perpetual-sunlight-travel.

Yea!

Long walk through Petra - constant photo opportunities - Edom - and to Amman - swim - sauna - steam - swim - sauna - hot tub - swim - fountain coke

We started the day walking down from our hotel, through the city and into the Siq which leads to Petra (meaning rock, made famous by the Indiana Jones movie).

The canyon grows deeper and deeper: my companions lend some scaling for you.

Petra was the religious center for the Nabateans who we ran into before (see ramblings near the Dead Sea). They were the infamous desert traders: the only culture who knew how to cross the desert without shriveling up from a lack of water. This canyon was their religious progression annd these (below) were small alters for their ceremonies.

The money shot of Kazneh (the Treasury). And another with some camels. Donkey and camel rides are quite popular through Petra as the walk is tiresome and both animals are funny looking.

You can just barely see a girl in a yellow shirt - this one is big too.

Some have suffered much more from wind erosion. All these monuments date from about the 4th century bc to 1st century ad.

There was an optional hike (but who would pass it up) to a high alter. This is the view from up there, about 5ooft above Petra.

A Wheaton student in front of me, being hounded by a little old woman selling trinkets on our way down the back side of the hike - they are everywhere.

A heck of a necropolis. There is a family sitting in the bottom right corner eating lunch and a man standing in the right corrodor for scale. You can click on the picture to enlarge it. This one is almost 100ft high, and quite wide.

This is the view from inside one of the tombs. No matter what you saw in Indiana Jones, these rock facades have only small tombs inside them going back 15-30ft.
and how do one's feet look after a few hours in Petra?

From here we went to the Edomite capital city. Again, if this place was in the states we might treat it differently - this is the signage/security Jordan provided.
Here is an Islamic shepherd, feeding his animals on a 4000 yr old ruin while praying.
This city was much bigger than Jerusalem of the day, but this one fell.
And some companions of mine, standing on old rocks. Yea!
We stayed the night in Amman which is Jordan's largest city, about 2.5 million. When the international banking commnity left Beruit due to war, much moved here to Amman which is why it looks so western. I have no pictures, but i did go swimming in the Best Western's pool. Who would have thought there would be a Best Western in Jordan-or a metal detector you would have to pass through to get in? i know now.

And who new fountain coke would taste so good after three weeks of its absence?

6am Bus - Jordan Border - Pella - Gadara - Jerash - Jabbok River - 9pm finally at the hotel in Petra - dinner and a swim

This morning was an early one. We had to be on the bus at 6am, and since nobody would make breakfast before six they gave us sack breakfast - good thinking JUC. Our first trip was over to the Israel-Jordan border up. Crossing over between two less-than-friendly-nations is a bit tricky and sometimes can take four hours, luckily it only took us 2.5. Walking over to our new bus, as our Israeli bus couldn't make the transition, we found our new bus driver was named the same as our previous (Omar). We also made friends with our Jordanian Tourist Police Officer who is required to be with us at all times, our government appointed tour guide (also required, and not free) and his boss. Our tour guide was much more energetic (i.e. he actually got off the bus at every stop we made) when his boss was with us for the first day by comparison to the second and third days where he was more apt to stand by the bus and smoke with the driver.

Jordan!

Our first stop was Pella. We had to cross under some barbed wire and through a hole in the fence to get to the ruins- which i came to understand was fairly typical for Jordan.

Next on our trip came Gadara

Gadara, like the Galilee, was the site of major volcanic activity back in the day so much of the ruins are black basalt. Never thought i would see giant Roman columns made of basalt but they were beautiful. As was the all basalt theater.

After Gadara was Jarash- the most well preserved Roman city anywhere. Also known as the City of a thousand columns, and you can see why.

The column capital below and left is about 10ft across, the columns are some of the tallest that have been found. The bottom right is the cathedral left from when the city came to be a Christian one in the 4th century.

We next traveled south to the Jabbok river which flows from Jordan into the Jordan river. You could smell the river from about 30ft even though there was a significant wind. There are few waste disposal laws in Jordan, and if there are actually any they are not enforced- reasons why drinking this water will kill you. Upstream from this picture is where the industrial waste gets thrown into the water!
Jabbok, for those of you familiar, is where Jacob wrestled with the angel and took the name Israel. There was a shepherd here to, apparetly the animals have gotten use to the polution in the water. I wonder what happens to human who eat sheep who drank toxic water?!

And finally the Jordan sun setting over what looks like construction work, but is actually finished. Everything here is cinder block construction, and none of it looks complete with rebarb sticking out everywhere. Our stick frame house seem awful nice.

At about 9pm we reached our hotel in Petra (mind you 15 hours after we got on the bus) and we were just in time for dinner. Then we swam in the pool. Dont know why, but the hotels that we are staying at in Jordan are considerably nicer than where we stayed previously. I'll take it. And my single room- which i got because the number of guys was odd - fantastic!