Israel Finished - Jordan Started

Ok, I left off when we were still in Jerusalem. That seems so far away, but I don't know if I can remember everything that I happened between then and now, but I will try. Tuesday we happened to end up on a walking Tour of Old City that show us some churches, the City of David, which is very impressive for the time period it was made and then we got to hike through the water way that flowed under the City of David. It is a 40 minute walk through knee deep water in a 5ft by 1ft and a half tunnel. Us and the 6 other people on our tour decided that it was cooler to walk the tunnel without our flashlights on. There were other people ahead and behind us with lights on, so we could see, but it was a completely different experience in the semi-dark. Everywhere I go I am constantly impressed with the architecture of all the buildings. How the hell did people with less technology manage to build vast tunnel systems underground or create 20ft tall pillars that stretch for miles along a main road. I really wish someone would make a time machine so I could go back and watch the construction of a city.
With the Tour over and us $25 dollars poorer, we decided never to do another paid tour (since everywhere we went was free except for the waterway) and we went to spend a lot of money on ice coffee at the Coffee Bean. I love it, we are halfway around the world and going to a Coffee Bean (it's like Starbucks, but way better) At least there are no Starbucks in Israel as of yet, but they plan to take over the world and so there will be some soon.
Wednesday we visited the Tower of David, which has nothing really to do with Kind David considering the Tower was built a 100 years after David died. It got its name from an explorer that found it and just assumed that David built it. I guess the assumption could have been valued considering the City of David was just down the hill from the Tower. But no, it is a crusader built tower. Very pretty. There's a great view of Jerusalem from the top. The Tower is only one part of the Tower of David. It is part of the outer wall of a royal courtyard that at different periods of time protected royalty, a Ben-Hur type race way, a church and a small town. There were suppose to be ruins, but everywhere was closed. Pity. We ended up at the Coffee Bean again that night.
Thursday we visited the Southern Wall excavations. In 1947 or so a German archeologist discovered ruins from the 2nd temple period in Old City. Inside the Old City there is a Temple mount that used to be the place of 2 Jewish Temples. It is said that the first temple was destroyed because there are Idol worship among the Jews. There is only one God, so it's bad to worship other, false gods. The second temple was magnificent with a giant arch staircase leading to the Temple mount (large courtyard surrounding the Temple). It was destroyed because there was too much fighting between the people. It is said that the 3rd Temple will be the last and final temple. That the messiah will raise and the world will know the one true God and all other religions will cease to be. Therefore the 3rd Temple will not fall. This is all superstition, so believe what you would like. I just think it is amazing what the early Jews accomplished. Supposively in modern day they wanted to restore the grand arch staircase, but all these professionals said it was impossible to replicate. It tells you something if they could build it back in the olden days and we can't rebuild it in present time with all our fancy equipment.
Friday we went to the Wohl Museum. It's inside Old City and it is basically a museum that they built on top of a very large ruin mansion. Now in America, if there are ruins very rarely are there people, other than archeologist, allowed to wander about them. In Israel and Jordan, children play on them like jungle gyms. Odd. SO the mansion was nice, but kind of small. It told of how a family lived back then. Apparently in the olden times the people were paranoid of being unclean because they had multiple ritual baths and normal baths in their houses. The Mansion was about 20 rooms and about 8 of them contained baths. I found the baths to be neat since there were actually bath tubs. They were made out of stone and kind of cramped, but I just never associated ancient cultures with being smart enough to design bathtub. I guess it is my ignorance or something, but now I will give ancient societies more credit.
Friday night we went to Rabbi Eli's (pronounced Ellie) house for dinner. We had met the Rabbi through Brittany and he invited us to Shabbot, us and about 10 other people. We met him at the Kotel (the Western Wall- Wailing Wall) and he had his 3 year old daughter sleeping in his arms. He was talking to a young man, about 21, who was a soldier. Rabbi Eli turns to the soldier and says "You're a soldier right?" The soldier says yes and so Rabbi Eli puts his daughter in the soldier's arms and walks away. The soldier looked at us and asked if he was holding the girl right. It was so funny. I think the soldier was in a little bit of shock. I don't think that many people in America would willingly hand over their sleeping children to strangers and then walk away. (BTW Rabbi Eli handed his kid over because she was getting too heavy for him to hold. He did however keep a good eye on her, so don't think he's a bad parent. Everyone in Old City seems to trust one another. They are all very friendly and helpful) Once the soldier got comfortable with the girl, he used her to pick us the Brazilians that were staying at the Heritage house. Puppies and Babies make girls turn all soft. So Rabbi Eli gave us food and a lot of drink and we went home quite merry. Saturday Chaya, the house mom from Heritage house wanted us for lunch. She came to adore Robby and I and asked us if we would go to Neve and become madrocotes (the people that live at the hostel and deal with all the girls that come in) of Heritage House. We said we'd think about it. It was a sweet thought and I'm honored she would want me to be encharge of so much responsibility. In another lifetime it could have been fun, but right now I'm not ready to settle down anywhere and I certainly value freedom too much to convert to full Orthodox Jew. Saturday night we went to watch the France vs Brazil game in town with a guy we met at Chaya's and Damara, a girl who was staying at Heritage House. It was a good game, although we wanted Brazil to win since they had the prettier uniforms. I like to watch soccer, but I don' really have a team I root for.
Sunday we headed to Jordan. The internet said that we could check a direct bus from Tel Aviv to Amman, but when we got to Tel Aviv, everyone thought that we were crazy - no such bus exist. People also started to give us weird looks and tell us that we really didn't want to go to Jordan - that Jordan is a bad place. The previous couple of days we were getting the same advice and it was starting to sink into my head that Jordan might not be one of the safest places for us to go. But Robby said I was just being paranoid. I'm glad I listened to Robby and not the voice in my head. So our "direct bus" to Amman turned out to be three buses and a taxi to the Israel boarder. We backtracked some and realized we could have saved some money and hassle if we had just taken a bus from Jerusalem and not gone to Tel Aviv first. This whole nomadic idea is great, but we really do need to research a little and have a slight plan. The boarder crossing was slightly flawless, but we ended up spending all our money on boarder fees, buses and taxis. Somehow we ended up in a taxi headed for Umm Qays, via Pella. One of the Tourist Cops told us about the ruins in both those areas and that you couldn't get there easily from bus. Pella was small, but beautiful. Most of what was left was a columned square and a few collapsed houses. Umm Qays was very impressive. We drove along a country road and up a mountain into the boonies. The whole time I had Robby whispering in my ear, "What did you get us in to?" The Tourist cop said that we should visit Umm Qays and that he knew someone there that would give us a good price on a room for the night. I followed my gut and said, "Sure, let's go to Umm Qays." One we reached the top of the hill we can to a mass old city. It was very beautiful. The driver said we were in Umm Qays and could he have his money. As I said, we spent all our money and the taxi driver was supposed to take us t a bank. Apparently this did not come across clearly in our talks and so we had a slight problem. He wanted 35 dinar (roughly $50 USD) for the ride. We knew we were being ripped off, but the Tourist cop said it was a good price and the taxis are allowed to set their own price at the boarder since they are the main mode of transportation.
The taxi driver ditched us in his van and went to find the guy that we were told to stay with. Some random guy gave us coffee while we waited. Eventually the driver came back and we gave him the $43 American dollars we had and some Shekels and then a Jordanian paid him the remaining 3 dinar we owed. So the taxi drove away and we were literally stranded on top of a mountain in a small town with no money and two heavy bags. Luckily someone knew what was going on and the guy who gave us coffee told us to follow him. He let us store are backpacks in his shop and then he walked us into the modern town to met Essam (the guy with the place to stay). Abraham, Essam's friend, me us and showed us to the room, which turned out to be an apartment. For $35 USD we stayed in a giant apartment all to ourselves) Abraham gave us a personal guided tour of the Umm Qays ruins at sunset and then we had a really good dinner overlooking the Golan Heights valley and Tiberas. It was beautiful. Essam, who worked at the restaurant, let us pay with credit card for the room and the dinner. They also let us do a 10 dinar cash back s we would be able to get to Irbid, a town with a bank, in the morning.
Robby ended up getting heat stroke and passing out before 9pm. I hung out with Abraham and Essam on the roof of the apartment drinking tea and Arak - Jordanian liquor that taste like black licorice - yuck. I said good night at 2am because we were getting up early to see the ruins in the daylight. Abraham said to meet him at 11am for breakfast. We awoke the next day and had a blast walking around the ruins. The people who built the city built a 2km columned road that lead from the main gate up to the temple palace. It was quite impressive. The guy that had stored our bags he previous day guided us along the road, pointing out various points of interest like the tombs, a Jordanian army training ground, and a cucumber field where he picked a few for us to eat. Not bad, very sweet. Umm Qays a small town with very friendly people. Here is where the Israeli start to be prejudice towards people they don't even know. I hate all the fighting and bad mouthing of one type of people towards another type of people. I bet half of the people that told us Jordan was bad have never actually been here. So far everyone is more than friendly and helpful.
Essam even gave us the number of his friend in Amman so that we would have someone to show us around when we got there. We had breakfast, talked for a bit and said our goodbyes. We hopped on a small, overcrowded bus, taking 2 seats each with our backpacks, and made it to Amman (the capital of Jordan) three hours later. We had to wait an hour for Abdull - Essam's friend, to get off work but it was worth it. Although Jordan is a cheap place, apparently the hotels are not. So 18 JD a night was our best offer, but the neighbor was nice and safe. No annoying peddlers trying to sell us stuff every two feet. Abdull took us out to dinner with his cousin, Hussian. I think at first they were both weary of us because we were foreigners and their friend randomly told them to help us out, but after a few hours they enjoyed our company. We had awesome Sharwma which is more like a rolled sandwich than the pita sharwmas in Israel and then we went on a driving tour of Amman at night. We told them that we were going to Jerash the next day and Hussian volunteered to drive us.
Jerash is one of the 10 Roman cities built at a certain time period. We had since Jerusalem, Umm Qays, and Pella. Hussian met us at the hotel and drove us to the city that was like Umm Quays, but more spread out. There were two temples, one dedicated to Zeus and the other to Artemis. Long columnsaide roads lead to each with shops on either side of the road. A columnsaide was built on the hill that present day Jordanians use for concerts.
It cost $15 USD to get into Jerash and only $.75 for Hussian because he was Jordanian. They really up the price for non Jordanians. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Hussian, see the ruins, a Palestinian refugee camp, and numerous coffee shops. Hussian likes to eat and he didn't understand why Robby and I couldn't finish our dinner an hour after a smoothie, a coffee and cake. It was funny trying to explain that we were full as he, who weights nothing, finished the last bite of his food. So we American's have small stomachs. Big deal.
Today we went to Amman's ruins. They are smaller then Umm Quays and Jerash, but still beautiful. Jordan is trying to restore them back to their natural appearance by encasing everything in plaster. It will work to preserve the ruins, but it's ugly and takes away from the natural beauty of the place. Both if the succeed at restoring everything it would be like living in the past. They would put up all the pillared courtyards and the massive temples and it would be amazing. As long as they don't plan to plaster all the ruins in Jordan, the restoration project shouldn't be too bad.
Ok, I'm sick of writing at the moment. You are most likely sick of reading and so I will leave you to whatever you were doing and say good bye. I want food.

Bye