(yesterday's email to my lovely parents:) I've made it to Jordan! I'm sitting at an internet cafe in Madaba, about an hour outside of Amman, the capital. We took a taxi across the border (only $10 from Damascus to Amman!) and didnt have any trouble, once we paid money both to leave Syria and then to enter Jordan. Also, they thoroughly checked the cars before we entered Jordan. And when I say thoroughly, I mean we actually drove over a guard (slowly) who patted the underside of the car. I have never seen/heard of that before. Madaba is a quaint little town. Astrid and I walked around for quite some time. We visited St. George's Church, which has the oldest map of Palestine in the world (as a mosaic on the floor of the church.) Apparently in 1979 there was a miracle at the church as well - in one of the paintings Mary's eyes started glowing, and a third hand appeared, which means Mary was saying her hand is over the church, providing for it and protecting it. Tomorrow we're going to hire a driver to take us to the Dead Sea, Mount Nebo, and Bethany (spending the night in Madaba again).
Today: Today has been a great day seeing the country. As I wrote above, Astrid and I hired a private taxi to take us around for the day. We first drove to Mt. Nebo, the place where God showed the promised land to Moses (I believe also the place Moses died?). It had amazing views of Jordan (and Israel in the distance). We could see rocky mountains with different shades of pink and tan as well as green fields and rows of olive trees.
After Mt. Nebo, we drove to Bethany Beyond the Jordan, the place where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. The Jordan River is quite muddy and minimal now - Israel has built a dam further upstream (which has also affected the amount of water in the Dead Sea). We walked along the river for about an hour, first stopping at the site where Jesus was baptized, then walking to the ruins of three old churches (built practically on top of one another), and finally arriving to the river itself. Astrid and I were able to put our hands in the muddy water. It was amazing to see Israel right across the water. It literally would have taken only a minute to walk across from where we were. From a nearby church (in Jordan, built in the last 10 years) we could see Jericho in the distance and could faintly make out the mountain with Jerusalem. It was hard to believe that we were so close to Israel.
Our taxi driver then took us to the Dead Sea. We arrived at Amman Beach (the most expensive part of the day) a public beach for tourists. We were able to change into bathing suits before heading down to the sea. Thankfully, there were other tourists here (though it wasn't crowded, which was nice), so we didn't feel too uncomfortable in our bathing suits. There were other women in hijabs and jeans walking in the water. Swimming in the Dead Sea was so an amazing experience. The water was gorgeous and blue, and felt oily, if that makes any sense. It is extremely salty, especially if it gets in your mouth, and when you walk out of the sea, you are coated in a chalky layer of salt. Astrid and I had a lot of fun sitting on the water. It's really amazing. You just bounce along, and can't even force yourself to sink (we tried). We were able to rinse off in the shower and pool before meeting up with our driver again.
We walked around Madaba some more once we returned this afternoon. Tomorrow it's off to Petra.
ps. I am currently listening to a song by Elissa at the internet cafe. This song is alllll over Jordan and Syria. Everyone has it for their ring tone, it plays at all the restaurants and cafes and taxis and buses and anywhere else. Look her up on youtube. I don't know the name of the song, but in typical Arabic music style, she says "habibi" A LOT. (update: Astrid is sending the youtube video to my facebook wall, so check it out.) Yay Jordan - we can get on fb and youtube, and I can also view my blog - all of this is blocked in Syria. I can post new blogs, but I cannot view the main page with all of my blogs. Weird, I know.
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