Al Joude Hotel Irbid

Here are some pictures from Youssef's (Ziad's youngest brother) party for writing the book. The women and men were separated so we only have the women's version!

It was agreed upon in advance between the parents of the bride and groom on the terms of the marriage. Part of the agreement was the the groom had to bring 20 men to officially ask for her hand. We drove from Amman to Irbid in a big caravan. The men's party took place in a tent ...

... eight hours at the border until they can get their visa.Now I was thinking three hours, because that's how long it usually takes. Well, it wasn't exactly three hours, in fact it was almost exactly seven hours before the visa finally came.

We're sitting around, and I'm reading Les Mesirables. Hope was first reading the Pickwick Papers and kept complaining of how boring it was. I get bored of my book, and sleep for twenty minutes. And I do that until the ...

Today was a very exciting day, it started out as any other day, getting dressed, eating breakfast, yeah you know. At two o'clock we left for Irbid, we enjoyed the beautiful views the ride was giving us. When we found ourselves at Irbid we went to the place where my uncle's fiance to be was. When we went inside they had refreshments waiting for us, different kinds of juices, were handed out to us. My job was to take care of Noor, so I didn't ...

... fils and Matt had to pay the whole 8JD rate-lunch was paid for. :-)We wandered around and marveled at the ruins as they are a little different than what was seen in Cairo and in Petra.  I was in awe of the green and flowers in bloom.  It was just a little to awesome to see all that green! Once back in Amman, we had dinner at the Blue Fig.  The best thing I ate?  The fresh lemon mint drinks! After dinner, it was back home and relax.  My feet were sore!

... I didn't bother bit of a rip off so I simply just strolled around. I was not overly impressed with Jerash I had heard really good things about it but I was not that impressed, probably because I had just come from Petra and Wadi Rum so had seen some great things recently but nevertheless glad I came! I headed back to the bus station where there was no one there. On Friday it is a public holiday in Muslim country's and not much happens, so there was no buses around and ...

Just a few days into my trip and I spent a weekend in Jordan, one of the few Arab countries that allows Jews/Israelis to enter across the border. I went with 3 others to the King Hussein Bridge, or the Jordan River Border Crossing. Visa, stamps, a bus across the bridge, the works. At one point, I skipped a line by mistake, but since the border was about to close, the Jordanian soldiers basically rushed me through the short process and laughed at my stupidity as ...

... first stop was Jerash where a very impressive Roman city sits. It's estimated that even after 85 years of excavation there is still 90% to be uncovered. This is hard to believe because the area we did see was quite impressive. We wonder what it will look like when they reconstruct and excavate even more. Apparently, the city housed some 15,000 people at one time. This was the south eastern corner of the Roman Empire and the ...

Transport in Jordan is usually by 20-seat minibuses that leave when full. We got a taxi to the bus station, which it turned out had been relocated. So we got another taxi to the other bus station (much farther away), and sat in the empty Jerash slot hoping that something would happen. As is usual at such times, taxi drivers took turns trying to convince us that: yes, this was the spot for buses to Jerash, but no, there wasn ...

What a day we had today! I think I need to clarify who the "we" is when I talk-it is Steve & Anita Wheeler, Terri Jenkins and myself and sometimes Eric Best. Today it was the first group that met for coffee at Starbucks as is the Friday ritual-Bian came to and we had a good time over cups of coffee and pastries. After that was done, Steve, Anita and I went to buy a hostess gift for our outing today. Jaena Holcombe teaches ...

After the wonders of Petra we knew the rest of jordan would pale by comparison and we were right. We did enjoy Amman, Dead sea, Jarash and Umm Quais but theres not as much to see as in Petra which has been nominated as one of the 7 wonders of the modern world ! We spent 4 days in and around the capital city Amman from where we visited the Baptism site of Jesus at Bethany, The Dead sea and spent some time viewing ...