Day 9 Jerash

Sunday, February 27th.

I got up early this morning and went to a Greek Orthodox mass at St. George's Church with Sam, Krys, Tess and Graham. We went because Jess said it was a good thing to see and hear (great singing) and the church is built on the site of an ancient Byzentine church that had a mosaic floor that showed all the important sites of the Promised Land on it.

We stayed for about an hour and then headed back to the hotel for breakfast (with pancakes!). Then the five of us were picked up by a minibus that we'd hired to take us to Jerash, which has the ruins of an ancient Roman city here in Jordan. We walked around the ruins for 2 ½ hours. It was great, there are many buildings that are more or less intact, including two amphitheatres.

On the way there we saw a Harley Davidson showroom, but I've hardly seen any scooters here , let alone motorcycles. I sure miss mine, but it's February!

After that we were driven back to Madaba and our hotel. Then the five of us went back to the church to take photos (they won't let you during mass) and then back to the restaurant from last night to have another sandwich and lemon juice.

On returning to the hotel, I did some computer stuff and loaded up my photos the the trip from Cemil. Then we had our briefing meeting and we all went out to dinner. Jess took us to a really nice, more upscale restaurant. I had hummus with pine nuts, a hot stir fried type salad and the main dish was eggplant, yogurt, ground meat and a tomato sauce. It was quite good, but heavy.

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing and updating stuff.

The first photo is taken from the restaurant on the fifth floor of our hotel. It's a picture of Madaba, but could be any city in Jordan. This is how they look.

The third photo is of four Jordanians, who were playing Scottish music on bagpipes in an ancient Roman amphitheatre. Don't ask me why, but I was told it's some type of tradition. I think maybe it dates back to the First World War and some Scots being stationed here, but really not sure.

In the photo of the group at Jerash is (l to r): Stemati (Sam from Greece), Indiana Jones, Krys (from London Ontario) and Graham (from England whose wife took the photo).