Amman, Jerash, Al Joun

We arrived in Amman on Thursday night. It was chilly, a refreshing 58 or so when we landed. We are so appreciative of this cool weather!

 We got up on Friday morning and went on a 4 hour self guided walking tour through the historic sites of Amman. We started at the Citadel. Anne got a camera before we left. We will do a posting of her pictures soon.

 We wound our way down to the Roman Theater then walked through the downtown souks and ended at an amazing Falafel joint. That night we went to Rainbow Street and walked through artisan shops and ate traditional Jordanian at Sufra.

Anne climbing the stairs with her new friends from Cleveland Ohio.

On Saturday we drove about 45 minutes north to Jaresh. This is the site of some of the best Roman ruins outside of Rome. 

 Anne and I said that if we only take pictures standing and smiling then people won't know we are having fun. Tim said, do you thing anybody wonders if we are having fun or not? Oh, I guess not.

Jaresh houses the ruins of temples from Roman Gods Hercules and Artemis to Christian sanctuaries. The mosques across the street are visible from just about any spot. We really have a smorgasbord, but we are used to it. When we were growing up there were 26 churches in Greenville, with only 6000 people. So, you know, we are very tolerant of all different kinds of crazy spiritual practice.

About 30 minutes through the mountains we came to Al Joun, the birthplace of the Prophet Elijah. There is a a castle way up on top of the mountain. This was Anne's first castle. She saw a lot of castles in Morocco and we live by palaces in Kuwait but she had never been into a castle before. This one had all the things a little girl imagines. Now, we are not anti-disney and I could almost sing theme song to Sophia the 1st for you if you needed. So I didn't know what to expect from Anne except for the fact that she is a (in my biased opinion) super well rounded and not princess crazy. So when she wanted to scope out the dungeon to find the dragon and wanted to play guards and knights and climb to the top of the castle. I was pretty proud. There was no talk of Disney. She has seen enough real history to understand that what she sees on Disney is not real. She has hiked enough mountains and waited in long enough lines. We are doing our part to help even out all that princess business. But, I am the one that said prior to leaving Kuwait, What!? YOU mean we are going to be missing the Marine Ball while we are in Jordan? We need to find out if we can go in Jordan then.... I am the one with a princess complex. 

 Climbing out of the dungeon

 Anne with a pretend sword protecting the castle.

Before we left for Jordan we did a tour of the Grand Mosque in Kuwait. They require all girls and women to wear traditional coverings. Anne kept hers on for about half of the tour. It eventually became a cape. Anne likes to play shy. But things happen and she forgets she was being shy. We were in the middle of the tour and she said, "I think I know those people" and went across the mosque to say hi to a friend from ballet class.

Tonight we had dinner with the other IRT FAO families here in Jordan. It was so nice to see familiar faces and eat amazing Lebanese food. Tomorrow Anne and I will be visiting the parents of  Arabic teacher from when we lived in California.

Mary.