Jordan – robinchartier

The Lost Jerash photos

I was finally able to pull all of my pictures out of “the cloud” and now I can share the other thing we did at Jerash. Not only were we able to explore the Roman ruins for ourselves, but we also had the opportunity to see a show that was about the Roman army, gladiators, and chariots.

Waiting for the show to start. I wasn’t sure how hokey or boring it would be, but we were all pleasantly surprised at how interesting and well done it was.

The narrator explained how the Roman army units functioned, battle strategies, and other interesting details while the guys on the ground demonstrated. They were so realistic that when they started marching and fighting Camille got scared and started crying.

They trained 7 days a week so they were able to move in unison while in this formation.

Some old sandals

After the demonstration by the Roman “army,” they brought out the gladiators and explained that they would fight, but not always to the death. When one of the men lost it was up to the crowd to decide: thumbs up to let him live, thumbs sideways for him to die. Apparently, they didn’t like killing them too often because they were expensive to maintain and train.

The last part of the show was a chariot “race” with two chariots and two teams of horses racing several laps around the arena.

After the show concluded, they boys got to go down and see the horses up close

and go for a very short (but fast!) chariot ride.

The rest of our time was spent exploring the ruins. These are some of my favorite photos from the newly found set.

An Egyptian in Jordan . . .

They had bagpipers in the coliseum to show off the acoustics

There was a circular depression in the center of the floor to mark where the speakers should stand. From that spot we could whisper and hear it projected back at us.

Caleb scootching down the stairs on his butt so he doesn’t fall . . .

Was this a house? A store? Imagining the possibilities . . .

Jerash

The one other place we visited in Jordan was Jerash, a beautifully preserved Roman ruin that is about 45 minutes from Amman. I’m not usually a big fan of historical ruins or big piles of rocks that people flock to see, but Jerash was magical. It was my favorite place in Jordan, even coming in ahead of Petra.

Part of the magic could have come from the storm clouds that were rolling in and out all day, scattering rain here and there. It made for some beautiful skies against the mostly deserted ruins.
(This photo is of Amman as we were heading out of town.)

Coming up on Jerash. I included this picture because of the air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. Later in the week Caleb and Carter had such foot funk from wearing their barefoot shoes nonstop that I took the air freshener down and made them rub it all over their feet on the way to Petra. It helped a little bit.

I don’t have a ton to say about Jerash because Calvin was the one with the guidebook and was busy telling us that these supposedly Roman ruins were using the Greek god names for their temples so he wasn’t sure if the guidebook was right . . . meanwhile I didn’t care who built it or what it was called — I was just happy to be there, climbing around the ancient city. And it was an entire city — Jerash is huge. We spent several hours walking around and didn’t see it all.

my attempt at a group photo while walking

Some of the more detailed “bricks” they have found — flowers on top, pomegranates on the bottom.

another giant coliseum

with many steep steps

view from the top of the coliseum — it’s a long way down.

We broke down and bought the boys “fa-lutes” (as Carter calls them). Fantastic cheap comedy. They were made out of pieces of bamboo that were taped together with colored electrical tape.

Fa-luting along

Caleb thought they needed a statue of Liberty

Trying to solve the Greek v Roman puzzle

because of the scattered showers, the boys were finding bunches of huge millipedes — this one was longer than the length of my hand.

In front of the temple of Diana, watching the storm clouds roll in and feeling the first drops fall. It was so much fun being there in the rain.

Headed back to Amman and happy to be in a warm, dry car.

Instead of Christmas tree lots, people were visiting the sheep lots to pick out their Eid sheep for slaughter. We passed 3 or 4 different ones along the side of the road on our way back to the city.

I have more photos of Jerash, but they are in the air somewhere as I’m transferring things between my netbook and my MacBook. There’s one more fun thing we did at Jerash, but since I haven’t found those pictures yet, that will have to be another post.

Amman mash-up

My eye is better today, but baby is sick. So I’m home with her while the family is out exploring a wadi today. She’s running a fever and is crabby so it was a no-brainer to keep her home. I’m waiting for the Motrin to kick in and hoping she falls asleep soon.

Our time in Amman was really fun. We rented a car at the airport and when the guy saw how many kids we had he upgraded us to a Pajero/Montereo like we have at home so we had plenty of room as we drove around the country.

Amman is located on many different hills. It reminded me of Ankara, Turkey with all the buildings stacked on the hillsides and the farmland surrounding the city.

We stayed at the Marriott in Amman — security was really tight there. Every time we entered the hotel we had our car inspected, passed through a metal detector, and had to have our bags screened.

Every morning they had the best breakfast buffet. I ate tons of strawberries, oatmeal with almonds and brown sugar, and a decaf cappuccino each day.

Not only was the food good, but the waitstaff loved all over Camille every morning.

The first day there it rained so we took the kids to the children’s museum. It was beautiful, modern, and lots of fun.

Calvin and Camille playing a video game — steer the bee to make your bee on the screen move. She was taking it very seriously.

If we lived here, it’s the kind of place we would visit all the time because there are things for all the kids to do and it was really clean and looked brand new.

Grocery shopping for lentils, beans, and rice. I love the little cart.

Calvin and his co-pilot. It was a full sized small plane. The funniest part was listening to Calvin and Carter “pilot” the plane using their “Harry Potter” accents.

Another afternoon while the baby napped, the boys went out to explore and stopped at a cafe for drinks.

Someone smoking shisha at a nearby table out of a hollowed out grapefruit. Josh said they could smell the citrus in the smoke.

The morning of Eid we went cruising around town to see if we could see any sheep slaughtering. In the Muslim faith, for Eid al-Adha (festival of Sacrifice) people will buy a sheep and slaughter it to remember how God spared Ishmael’s life on the mountain. If you are Christian or Jewish, you know the story as God sparing Isaac from becoming the sacrifice. Anyway, it’s a big deal and all related to killing sheep, which becomes particularly funny when all the decorations in the mall are of Shaun the Sheep (a favorite cartoon sheep here) the way Americans decorate for Christmas with Santa. All these happy sheep characters slapped up everywhere, just waiting to go under the knife.

This is the closest I got to a photo of sheep slaughter. I know, I totally failed. What you can’t see in this picture is the guy in the orange and green shirt is holding the knife in his hand and killing the large sheep right at his feet. More embarrassing is we drove by them twice and this is still the best shot that I got. Next time I’ll focus less on my super-stealth spy technique and more on actually getting the shot. On the bright side, I did figure out afterward how to set my camera to take multiple shots at a time, so next time I have a really good chance of capturing it. You know, with all the sheep slaughtering I encounter in regular life . . .

It was crazy seeing people right in the middle of the city with sheep tied up in their driveway and then the subsequent skinning and pools of blood on the street, but it’s not done to celebrate the death of the animal, rather God’s provision. Only those that can afford a sheep buy them (I think Mohammed said they cost 300 JD, about $500 each), but part of the significance of the holiday is they keep part of the meat for their family and give part away to neighbors or friends who can’t afford their own.

After my failed photography with the sheep, we stopped at the Roman Coliseum that is located right in downtown Amman. It wasn’t very crowded because it was “Christmas morning,” but there were groups of kids who lived nearby who were there playing and climbing up and down the many, many steps. They liked talking to Josh.

It’s huge, beautiful, and very steep.

Looking out on the city from the top.

This little guy’s name was Omar and he was skipping around the coliseum like a mountain goat, never a fear of falling. He didn’t speak English, but he motioned for Carter to “follow him” and they went off climbing together to the top.

Caleb was totally freaked out by how steep it was and decided it was much safer to climb up the steps on his hands and knees.

Looking across toward the citadel.

Omar tried to convince Caleb that it was safe to climb to the top, but Caleb wasn’t having any of that. He was hugging each step like he was going to fall off the side of a mountain.

Outside the coliseum we stopped at a stand and all the boys had mint tea. It probably makes me a horrible mom to admit that I didn’t have tea because I wasn’t sure where the water was coming from that he used to make the tea and I was sure it was fine, but knew drinking it would mess with my head so I let them all enjoy it without me. And yes, I did see the bottled water in the background of this photo, but I have a thing about consuming things from random stands and carts. Supposedly the tea was really good and everyone ended up being fine. I consider that a win-win.

the Mother of all dinners

I’m busy today getting ready for Josh’s mom and dad to arrive tomorrow, but I have to tell this story about our trip to Jordan before it disappears into the recesses of my brain, never to be seen again. Our last night in town we were invited to dinner at Mohammed’s sister’s house to meet the entire family. On our way there I gave the boys specific instructions to eat whatever they were served without complaining and Josh threw in a “children should be seen and not heard” advisory and we were all set.

We find the building and go up to the apartment on the second floor. Except it’s not the right apartment. The very nice people inside let Josh use their phone (because his phone wouldn’t dial out the entire time we were in Jordan) and he called his friend and eventually we figured out that the correct apartment was exactly one floor up. We had forgotten that often (or always?) over here, the ground floor counts as 0, not as the first floor.

Anyway, we made it to the right place, met the family and then the eating began. I had heard rumors and legends about Arab hospitality and how the food is endless and they expect you to keep eating and eating, but it’s entirely different when you are the one facing the mountains of food.

We started with Turkish coffee and chocolates. BTW, Camille ate chocolate all night long. If she picked one up, in a flash she had someone unwrapping it and handing it to her. I tried to remind myself one night of sugar overload wouldn’t kill her, but I wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t kill me the next day on the plane when she was bound to be a screaming mess.

Next we moved on to the main feast — roasted chicken served over saffron rice with raisins and almonds, seasoned with nutmeg. It was fantastic. However, the portions they served everyone were insanely lavish. They piled heaping mounds of rice (6 inches high covering the entire plate) and a 1/4 of a chicken on each boy’s plate — it was more food than I would have served Josh at a normal dinner at our house. So we ate. And ate. And ate. And as I just began to feel like I was making progress, another mound of rice appeared on my plate, filling in the dent I had made in my mountain. And then another 1/4 of a chicken. Plus the salad, and the olives, and the juices, and the yogurt. And I knew we had to keep eating because that is the custom. Eating a lot shows that you like it and appreciate it.

After consuming more food in one sitting than I ever have before in my life, we finally gave up and assured them that we loved the dinner and yes, the boys loved it too even though they still had enough food left on their plates to feed us all again tomorrow . . . yes, they really did like it. See how much they ate? No, really, they don’t need any more chicken. It was wonderful. All of it. Really.

Then we moved back into the living room and it was time to unsuccessfully keep Camille away from the chocolates. But then came dessert — a special pastry made just for Eid with dates inside and powered sugar on the outside. Gamely we each ate one. Mine nestled in on top of the rice, right at the base of my throat. But that wasn’t dessert. Next came huge plates with 2 squares the size of my palm of a pistachio/custard/bar cookie thing that was served with sugar syrup poured over the top. It was delicious, even if it had to fight for space in my stomach. As we were complimenting the dessert, they brought out a second, Tiramisu type dessert, followed by trays of coke and sprite. (Yes, the fear of a diabetic coma did cross my mind.)

The boys were such good sports because I know if I was struggling to fit it all in, they must have really been stuffed because there were no kid-sized portions in sight. I started to think that it was about time to pack it up and head back to the hotel because it was after 10pm by then and we had been eating since 7 and my chocoholic baby was flying high on her sugar rush. And then came the roasted nuts. Not in little candy dishes, but three huge platters of roasted cashews and pistachios. And along with that was tea? I can hardly remember now because all the edibles are running together.

By that time I was getting a little antsy because I had mentioned to Josh on our way over that we shouldn’t stay too late because we had to travel the next day and nothing is worse than traveling with overtired kids. I’m sure some things are worse, but that’s my personal worst. So I had been waiting for him to pull the trigger and announce that it had been lovely, but we really must be going . . . and I kept waiting. We had dinner, pre-dessert, 1st dessert, 2nd dessert, drinks galore, nuts and tea so we must be done, right? So I said, “We really should get going so we can put Camille to bed” and I was met with, “But we must do fruit! Can you stay for fruit?” Of course. Besides, fruit should be easy enough to cram in on top of everything else.

They brought out a plate for each person and on each plate was a whole banana, a whole apple and a 1/2 of an orange. There was no way humanly possible for me to consume this food. Thankfully Camille ate the banana and while I was feeding her they brought out a pomegranate the size of Camille’s head that had been dissected and spooned into 5 bowls, one for each of the honored guests, so I set to work on the little pomegranate seeds. Easy right? I think my pomegranate seeds were mating and multiplying in the bowl for as many as I ate, there were still a million more. And inside each of the seeds is the hard white part that actually required chewing and chewing and more chewing and in my head I was trying to figure out how much more I could take in before I threw up and wondering if I could chew some up, sneak into the bathroom and spit the white part into a napkin and give myself a little breathing room. All this while I was keeping a watchful eye on each of the boys trying to monitor if they had eaten enough to keep everyone happy. Hilarious.

The last thing served was Nescafe. Mohammed’s mom asked how I wanted my coffee and I tried to beg off and she declared, “We must do it!” So we all laughed and I took mine with milk and it was delicious, just like everything else. By then it was almost 11:30 and it really was time to get our poor baby home.

As we left Josh and I were trying to figure out how they eat like that and we realized — they don’t. We were the guests so they fed us more of and the best of everything they had. It was a wonderful evening where they treated us even better than family.

petra2

Yesterday’s Petra post was interrupted by the sudden realization that it’s almost Thanksgiving, which means it’s time to create my annual photo calendar that we send to the grandparents each Christmas. So I spent all day yesterday poring over pictures from this past year and trying to pick and choose the ones that best represent the last 12 months.

I was completely surprised by all the memories and sadness that surfaced when I opened the files containing our pictures from Egypt. I guess I’m still grieving that somewhere in the back of my mind. And then to see how much Camille has changed from the chubby cheeked infant who slept her way around the pyramids to the lanky toddler who hung off my back as we hiked Petra is somewhat unreal. I also think I look a lot less tired this time last year, but after looking back at all the places we’ve been over the last 12 months, it’s easy to see why.

Anyway, back to Petra. The previous post contained photos from our hike in to the Treasury. That temple-looking thing carved into the wall of rock is what everyone pictures when you say “Petra.” Now made even more recognizable by its appearances in the Indiana Jones (Holy Grail) and Transformers 2 movies. To get to the Treasury you have to walk through a long narrow gorge called the Siq (seek). When I say long, I mean almost a mile. Back when I was in Monterey in Arabic class, one of the students gave a presentation on Petra and when she said that it was a mile in and only accessible on foot or by donkey, I remember thinking, “I could never do that.” Not because of the strenuousness, but the claustrophobicness of being surrounded by rock on all sides. It ended up not being bad at all. Partly because we went in the late afternoon after the tour groups and crowds had died down and partly because Zoloft works.

Once we reached the Treasury (you can’t go inside so we just looked from afar and kept going) there are lots and lots of things carved into the rock. House looking things, cave looking things, temple looking things . . . great right? Well, it turns out that our boys have been spoiled by our trip to Turkey where there were caves and rock structures that they could climb on and in and around so this orderly way of looking at things without climbing on them sort of cramped their style. They were under the mistaken impression that when we said “hiking” that they’d be able to forge their own trails and scale mountains. Not here at Petra.

“My mom and dad took me to Petra and all I got to do was walk on the boring path!”

There were camels, donkeys, and horses available for hire for those who didn’t want to walk in or out. For $30, I’d have to be *really* tired, especially since some of the running and slipping animals looked a little scary.

There was a temple to see that looked very similar to the Treasury, just located halfway up the side of a mountain, accessible by several sets of stone steps.

The main event for us, once we were inside, was the hike up to the monastery. Everyone says it’s worth the walk, even though the guidebooks warn that it’s 800+ steps straight up. You can hire a donkey to take you up, but I was watching some of those donkeys slipping around on the rough hewn rock steps and I decided I would much rather take my chances on my own two feet.

Stopping for a quick rest — many more stairs to climb!

It turned out that I was the donkey that day as I carried Camille all the way up the mountain on my back. I should have known by the looks of sympathy and surprise that people cast my way as they encountered us on their way back down that I was in for a long trek. After half an hour I started trying to catch a friendly eye, hoping that someone would put me out of my misery by reporting, “You’re almost there!” No such luck. Over the span of 10 minutes I had 3 different people say, “Only 10 more minutes!” only to have the 4th one say, “15 more minutes to the top!” Good grief.

Actually, finally, almost to the top! It’s beautiful and peaceful and like everyone said, worth the trip. I think it was about 45 minutes up, but I didn’t keep track. Carter reported that there were only 643 steps, but he only counted the actual steps, not the stretches of inclined slope.