Amman, Jerash, and home

The last stop on our trip was Amman (uh-mon). Amman was very crowded. There were shops lining the streets in every direction (at least in downtown Amman, which was where our hotel was), and people everywhere! We stayed in the Palace Hotel, which was a pretty nice hotel. Our room had satellite T.V, air conditioner, and a balcony that overlooked one of the main streets in Amman. From that balcony we watched a guy that was trying to get a taxi, but he couldn't get one. One time he got one to stop but then these two women just walked up and grabbed the taxi from him, even though he had been the one to pull it over. He was a very patient guy, waiting and waiting for a taxi that would take him. 'Cause every time he got one to pull over, he would speak something into the front window and the taxi would just take off immediately. He was nicely dressed, too, and we couldn't see anything wrong with him at all. Eventually he got fed up and walked away. Poor guy.

The first thing we did after getting our room was go to the Citadel. The Hill of the Citadel in the middle of Amman was occupied as early as the Neolithic period, and fortified during the Bronze Age (1800 BC). We visited the Palace including the Dome, and the museum. It was really interesting, but we didn't stay there long since we wanted to look around Amman a bit, not to mention getting dinner somewhere. Luckily we had our handy Lonely Planet Guidebook to the Middle East with us.

We found out that if you're looking for a shoe store there will be 5 blocks of shoe stores, and if you're looking for wallpaper store there will be 3 blocks of wallpaper stores, but if you're looking for a resturant in Amman you won't find any! Isn't that freaky?

But we did find a great fruit drink stand where for a little less than 1JD, you could get a fresh-squeezed fruit drink. They were really good, and the man at the stand was really nice. People in Jordan are so sweet, Dad said that he "had never been in a country where people were as friendly as in Jordan." Dad has traveled so much, that's really something, ain't it?

Our second day in Jordan we went to Jerash (Jer-ah-sh). Jerash is known for the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Gerasa, which is where we went. Recent excavations show that Jerash was inhabited during the Bronze and Iron Ages. If you want to know more about the places we went to in Jerash and get a map of Jerash go to this link:

http://www.atlastours.net/jordan/jerash_map.html

We went to multiple places in Jerosh, such as The Temple of
Artemis, Hadrian's Arch, the museum, and lots more. I'm sorta getting tired of visiting old ruins, you know? It's like "ugh, not again" after a while. Although it is still pretty cool at the start.

The next day we finally started the long bus ride home. It was so nice to have the whole house to ourselves again, and I could just relax and do whatever I wanted again...the trip was fun, but I'm ready to be home again. :)