Seven Jordanian Buses: Part 3

Our first stop on Day 3 of Jordan was the Amman Citadel- the ruins of the city center of ancient Amman. It’s right in the middle of the modern city.

To get there we hopped on Bus #6. The bus company sent us a new bus. Maybe they had doubts about #5. I kind of hope that someone at that troubled little company stayed up all night making sure that this bus would work.

One of the cool things about the Amman Citadel was that it was up on a hill and it gave us a great view of the city.

Say hello to Amman, the capital of Jordan!

There were lots of great photo-ops here. Here’s the Temple of Hercules!

In the background of this picture is a mosque.

A biblical connection we talked about here was that it was the location of a battle between the  Israelites and the Ammonites (get it..Amman...Ammonites). This was the battle where King Solomon intentionally had Uriah killed on the front lines so that he could marry his wife Bathsheba.

For another biblical connection, on the way to our next site we made a stop at the Jabbok River. This is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Jacob wrestled with God.

The next big site we stopped at was Jerash. It was a really cool, huge place with lots of Roman ruins. Unfortunately it was also really hot out- over 100. It might have been the hottest weather I’ve ever felt in my life...until the next day of this trip.  :) 

So I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have if it wasn’t miserable outside. And it was even too hot to take pictures. I only took these two even though there were lots of things to see.

But trust me that it was an awesome place. I would definitely come back here too.

On the way back to our hotel we went to the Royal Automobile Museum. It features the car collection of the Jordanian royal family. My favorite part was that they had a few Harley Davidsons. Wisconsin companies are good enough for kings! My other favorite part was the irony. Jordan is apparently unable to make buses that function, but their king is obsessed with cars and has hundreds of them.

After dinner I went to the city with a few people. We got ice cream and walked around and sat in a park. These two people (turns out they were Palestinians, and not Jordanians) asked me and my friend where we were from. They were really excited to hear that Americans were visiting Jordan because they didn’t think Americans would ever choose to do that. We had a funny conversation with them. The best part was when the girl told us some common Arabic pickup lines. If only I spoke Arabic so I could understand the cheesy things that I’m sure men have said to me here. The other funny thing was that the girl was scared to visit America because she thinks it’s too violent. This is a girl from a town in the West Bank, Hebron, that’s known for it’s tension and violence. I think she’d be safer in Germantown.