Madaba Inn Hotel

... ngt den Wurm". Da ich also eh schon wach war und meine Kam**a und alles dabei hatte, bin ich also selbst los gezogen und habe ein paar Fotos gemacht. Zu**st ging es wied** Richtung Downtown. Dort üb** den Goldmarkt. Die **sten Läden waren schon auf und mitten aus einem Laden ruft jemand - ich soll ein Foto machen! Hat ** meine Kam**a gesehen, od** war ich nur so auffällig, weil es noch so früh am Morgen war - ich weiß es nicht. Ab** g**ne habe ich ein Foto gemacht. D** Ladenbesitz ...

Wow. Let me first reflect on last night. Devan and I met up with Adib, Firas, and Mohammad at a hotel near where we live for bowling. I think 14 was the heaviest ball they had which was weird. So all these guys at the bowling alley are using like 10s and 12s, etc and basically underhand pitching these balls down the lanes. It was slightly scary because one guy released it behind him by accident and I thought someone was going to die. It was fun overall though, even ...

... up from the coach after.<br><br>After Shobak Castle we had a pretty long drive to the city of Kerak where the second major castle in Jordan is located. Although the tour itinerary says that we can have a tour of Kerak castle, we did not go in. I believe our guide wanted to give us more time at the Dead Sea, but he did not say this explicitly. We headed off to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth at about -1,400 meters below sea level. This ...

... as part of wedding ceremonies<br> ~Visiting the Greek Orthodox church in Madaba which housed one of the oldest maps of Palestine &#8211; a floor mosaic no smaller than 20' wide and 15' tall<br> ~Taking in Jordan's archaeological and cultural history at the antiquities museum at Amman's Citadel (which overlooks the city as well as an impressive amphitheater dating to Roman times)<br> ~Taking the 45 minute drive (via the car of ...

... were about ten mosaics in the whole room and they were amazingly well preserved from being made such a long time ago.<br><br>The next stop we went to was Madaba's visitor center. We didn't know where all the churches were so this was the best place to find them all. The visitor center was in an old Roman house and we managed to find all the information we needed to find the rest of the churches there. <br>The second place we stopped at was the ...

... no luck wouldn't accept our card, 2nd machine woohoo it was working but then oh no it wouldn't give us any cash. Tried the third and final ATM in Petra, I just had to hang my head after getting no dosh from the last machine. To make matters worse a ute drove by pumping all the feral smoke into the air for the mosquitoes. Back down to the hotel for breakky then. About halfway down I encountered that damn ute again. Sweating and smelling like smoky stuff I ...

... the name of the fabulous fascade of the tomb of a Nabethean king. It is the most famous landmark in Petra, as the fascade is cut right out of the rock and looks just so cool. It's also about 40 meters high, so it's big. It was also featured in Indiana Jones, The Last Crusade, so you know it's cool. <br><br>Unfortunately at about 1:00pm when we got there it was absolutely swamped with tourists. In fact, it's almost always swamped with tourists, there are even tourists ...

... off to the nicest hotel we'de been in all tour long, a sort of apartment style room with large private balcony, kitchenette, king size bed, probably costs more per night than all of the hotels in Jordan we had stayed in, combined!<br><br>In the afternoon, we saw the ancient roman town of Jerash. The area is very large, with 2 amphitheaters, ancient roads with rows of pillars on both sides. It was an interesting final ...

... lathered in olive oil. They bring you some sort of bean dip as well. The bring you veggies. They bring you falafal. They bring you pita. They bring you tea if you want it. That's it. You eat lots and lots and lots of all of that. Then you pay, they just decide the price...it was 2.5 JD, or under 4 dollars for a boatload of delicious food. Awesome. Tomorrow we head to Petra....Henry never made it, but I'm sure we'll see him soon. Should be fun. --Jimmy

... Hotel, we headed straight there, to view the famous 'map mosaic'; a huge faded mosaic that covered half of the floor and depicted a fairly detailed illustrated map of the Holy Land.<br><br>The church also housed a number of huge hanging mosaics, all brightly coloured and depicting biblical scenes in intricate detail. Apparently each tiny piece was a different type of naturally coloured stone, so not only were they really good mosaics, the ...