More Jordan

After Mt. Nebo we stopped at a place called Madaba. Here are some street scenes - obviously taken through the bus window:

Clothing stores

 Fruit stand

 Blanket store

 Meat market

 A guy in a hurry :)

Madaba is the place where a large Mosaic map was discovered that dates 542-570 A.D. It covers, from east to west: the Eastern Desert to the Mediterranean Sea and from north to south: Lebanon to the Nile Delta.

 Nile River

 This is the cardo in Jerusalem

After the visit to the map we went to a restaurant for lunch. The BEST part was this bread that they made on site! YUM!!

Next stop - well for faculty and students - I stayed on the bus: Machaerus. This is where John the Baptist lost his head.

See the students? See the top of the mountain/hill? Now you know why I stayed on the bus!!!

 Pictures on top, courtesy of Kent

The rest of the trip was a LOOOONG drive to Petra. We had a couple of rest stops along the way, but it was still LOOOONG! :) The Jordan buses are not nearly as roomy as the Jerusalem buses and my knees were killing me by the time we got to the hotel. :(

We stayed in a place called La Maison. The dinner was great but it was Freezing in the place. When I tried to take a shower there was a little dribble - at least it was warm - not all of our students were so lucky. Now, it is Winter in Jordan too - we even passed piles of snow along the sides of the highway coming into Petra - you would think they would be prepared for cold.  Ah well - welcome to the Middle East. :) At least there were blankets on the bed!!!

Old City

Kent and I spent a half-day in the Old City today. We decided to take the bus instead of driving. We walked out of the lower entrance at the Center and down a short ways to a bus stop. Bus 75. This is where we got off - close to Herod's Gate.

This is looking back towards Herod's Gate. This is a really nice area of the Muslim quarter - and we haven't ever been able to use this gate until now. It was fun to go a new way.

These 2 houses are sharing the fact that someone in the family has made the Haj to Mecca. They are across the street from each other.

 

This bread is really yummy, but only if you dip it in a powdery spice called Zatar! :)

Kent's favorite buildings in the Old City are from the Mamaluke period - Turkish. They really are lovely.

The colors are soft pinks and grays.

 There is usually a Fleur de lis in the entry way somewhere. We really liked the hanging lamp too!

 Me looking up at the arch/dome over the door.

 Here's what I'm looking at:

 Look at the guy carrying his pita board on his head!

 Street scenes:

There are little chapels and monasteries and convents throughout the Old City. This is the Sisters of Zion convent. The arch below the gold dome is a roman arch/gate from a previous wall.

Somewhere we stopped for lunch - falafels, of course!

 We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - I'm really coming to love that place! We actually got to go inside the sepulchre itself!! Usually the line is SO long we don't want to wait. We hit it right at the right time. This is the dome over the sepulchre:

These surround the entrance into the sepulchre:

Main entrance

This is the first room inside the sepulchre:

The stone inside the case is believed to be a piece of the rolling stone that sealed Christ's tomb

 This is a close up the the entrance to the tomb itself:

 The marble slab is covering the tomb

The next 2 pictures are what surrounds the tomb:

 I think I've told you before that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre isn't owned buy just 1 church. There are chapels of various sizes throughout the entire building. The pictures below are from the biggest one - a Greek Orthodox cathedral:

These crosses were carved by Armenian pilgrims. They are all along the walls going down the stair to the Armenian chapel in the basement

This is the Armenian chapel

This is in the lowest basement, below the Armenian chapel. It is a Catholic chapel honoring the place where Queen Helena found pieces of the cross

 This is looking back up the stairs

 This is the square and entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

 We did some shopping before we came home.

Fruit

 

A WELCOME mat - yes it says Welcome

Valentine's decorations - on the mirror in the entryway

At our front door

Tomorrow - more Jordan :)

Jordan - at least in part

Yes, I am still here! I've had a busy week. I taught Relief Society today and you know me - overkill the prep [and it wasn't very good either!] but it's over. We've also been partying this week as one of our service couples gets ready to return to the States. I'll post another blog on that later. So, Jordan. We left the Center at Monday the 23rd.

Yes, we had to go to the Dead Sea again.

 

It is a short drive to the border - and you can't take pictures at the border. So I can only tell you what took place. The first border crossing doesn't open until 8:00 am so we sat for 20 minutes or so along with LOTS of big trucks. They all got to go first so we waited some more. The guards at the gate had a big mirror that they walked around the vehicles with, to check for bombs underneath.
The second crossing was where they checked the stamped pass that we got at the first crossing.
Then we arrived at the building where we all disembarked.
Kent and I went first and paid the tax for the group so we could leave Israel and got tags for each person to put in their passport. Then everyone went through and had their passports checked - actually at 2 different places. Then we walked out another door, back into the parking lot, where our Jordan buses were waiting for us and they transferred all of our luggage from the Jerusalem buses to the Jordan buses.
THEN we had to drive through "no-man's land" and go to another building in Jordan. Here we were met by our guides and they took care of all of our passports while we waited, and waited, and waited, on the buses. :) Kent, of course, was with the guides helping with whatever.

At last we got through the borders and were on our way. Our first stop was Mount Nebo - where Moses got to look down into the promised land he would never enter. There are the remains of a church there - this floor being part of it.

This is what Moses would have seen

 This is NOT what Moses would have seen! :)



This is also where the students learn that we really mean it when we tell them to bring their own toilet paper. Using the restroom once without any means it won't happen again! :)
  Sorry - more tomorrow!