Swing low, Sweet chariot

Day 5 - March 18th
Jordan reminded me SO much of Egypt...The way of life, the women and how they dress, the fact that we can't drink the water, and its a third world country. It took probably 3-4 hours to get completely thru security and across the border. Amazingly, it didn't bother me too much...probably because I was excited. The first thing I learned when we got there: toilet paper is not provided (thanks moleskine). It was sad leaving Avner and Gadeir in Israel but our new guide Jameil and bus driver Abraham were pretty cool. We first drove to Mount Nebo where Moses died. From the mount, the Dead Sea, Jericho, Jerusalem, and the Jordan River can all be seen (on a clear day that is...unfortunately, we couldn't see much of anything b/c of all the dust). We then drove to a "supermarket" (probably smaller than any gas station in America). This was the first place since I left the USA that I didn't feel like I was getting ripped off for what I bought (2 snacks for only 1 euro). We drove to Madaba and ate our lunches in the parking lot - some even threw a frisbee around because it was so nice outside. We walked to Saint George's church to see the Holy Land Mosaic map. It was SUPER impressive...it was somewhat destroyed by an earthquake and yet, it still has 1 million stones in it! We drove to Amman, the capital of Jordan and took a bus tour thru the New city (houses that cost around 3 million dollars) and the old city. Here we stayed in a really nice hotel... they gave us like 5 extra rooms for free. We had our usual girl devo on this night instead of on Wednesday because the rooms were huge and we could fit all of us in one easily. In the meantime, Jake found a store with DIET DR PEPPER. So he so kindly brought me, Alana, and Lacey some and we celebrated! That night we (the girls) experienced a little of what the women go thru all the time here. At the gym and sauna, night time is "man time" so we couldnt go in there for awhile...of course, lots of girls in our group like to workout etc. so after pleading and bugging, they let us go.

Day 6 - March 19
It was an early morning...but seriously, on this trip, every morning was an early morning. We had to drive 4 hours before reaching Petra....unfortunately, this was one of those trips that I couldn't fall asleep on the bus (by the way, i'm definitely going to need a visit to Joe...my neck and back, i'm sure, are so messed up from sleeping in a bus chair). Our walk thru Petra took a total of 6 hours. We saw the Treasury (the one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), VIP tombs, amazing colors in the rocks, AND I even saw a Dallas Cowboy blanket on a donkey that strolled by (don't worry, I got a picture). We were all so pooped from this afternoon that when we checked into our hotel, me Bethany, Mandy, and Sarabeth just chilled on our beds watching TV. All of the sudden we heard what sounded like a gun firing, then an extremely loud BOOM. We all ran over to the window and started going crazy, thinking it was a bomb...it wasn't long til we were making goodbye speeches to our friends and family back home on Bethany's camera....However, at dinner, we were told they were just fireworks...haha oops.