Amman

Our last day tour as a JUC group started at the citadel and museum in Amman. The ruins were interesting but not spectacular (after Jerash, it takes a lot to impress us!) and the museum was pretty dull. Many of the display items were missing - moved to a new museum that hasn't opened yet. Leaving the city, we passed the largest Starbucks in the world ... sorry for the bad picture. Next stop was Mt. Nebo, where Moses viewed the land that he was not allowed to enter. From the top, he would not have been able to physically see all the areas mentioned, so it was either divine intervention allowing him to see these places, or he was remembering how they looked from having seen them from across the Jordan when fighting further north against the kingdoms east of the river. We weren't able to see much from the lookout, it was too hazy, but I'm sure that on a clear day the view is amazing. Our final sight-seeing stop of the trip was in Madaba, to see the mosaic map of the middle-east. It contains the oldest known map of the city of Jerusalem. While the others finished looking around the church, I tried to find a post office where I could buy a stamp, but when we finally found the post office (the directions we where given weren't exactly clear), they only had stamps for Europe, not North America. Guess the postcard will get mailed from home! We then went and had lunch at a fairly fancy restaurant - the appetizers (dips, salads, and pita) just kept on coming, then a main course of roast chicken, and finally desserts!

Then it was back on the bus for the drive back to Jerusalem. It took us over an hour to cross back into Israel - one girl's middle name is a popular Arabic name, so the immigration officials questioned her for quite a while to verify her ancestry (it didn't help that she's Hispanic, so has Arab colouring). Another person in the group was randomly pulled out to be questioned at a different part of the process. I got a few extra questions because I was a Canadian travelling with a bunch of Americans ... I think they just wanted to make sure that I was really with the group and wasn't just trying to slip through with them.

Our new bus met us on the other side for the ride back to Jerusalem. My roommate and I then headed into the Old CIty to exchange some money and for her to pick up a ring that she had ordered, then we met with two other girls for the group for ice cream and waited with them at the school for their sherut to arrive to bring them to the airport. After they had left, we walked up to the New City for supper - shwarma! (My roommates first! She's been missing out!)