We spent the last three days in Jerusalem. We saw the Via Dolorosa, walked the Palm Sunday walk, saw the Holy Sepulcre Church, the burial place of Jesus, many more Churches and shrines. We went into the marketplace and it is crazy and crowded there! Dad tried to kill me again, we spent an hour and a half walking the ramparts on the walls of Jerusalem. We visited the Church of the Pater Noster, where the Our Father is printed on the walls, in over 100 languages. We joined hands in the Church and our group recited the Our Father in English, Spanish and Arabic. It was beautiful. We visited St Ann's Church, named after the Mother of Mary, and the acoustics there are amazing. Many groups took time to sing a hymn and that was beautiful. We also visited the Mt of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane and much, much more!
We have had many interesting meals. In Bethlehem, we went to a brand new restaurant for lunch and were invited to a wine tasting and we dressed up in Bedouin clothing. We had falafel yesterday for a light lunch in a park right outside the Damascus Gate (it was delicious!) Last night, we had a farewell dinner at the Christmas Hotel. It was a typical Mediterarean meal. The salads were served with pita bread and included falafel, hummus, and many vegetable mixes. The entree was lamb and chicken shish kabob, french fries, baked tomatoes and baked onions. We had cake and the meal was served with water and wine. Lovely!
Today, we came into Jordan, and quite honestly, that was pretty stressful. Our guide and our driver had a lot of difficulty transferring us to the other side (Jordan.) We are now in Amman, if you check our itinerary, you will see that we are supposed to be in Petra, but a dust storm has prevented us from going there today. We are hopeful that we can go tomorrow; if not, we will go on Tuesday before we cross back into the Gallilee area of Israel.
Things are interesting, the spell check says that every word is wrong (I think it is using an Arabic dictionary here!) and the keyboard has some pretty funny symbols on it. We have a policeman with us (Tourist Police) and he will stay with us and our guide during our stay here in Jordan. He is pretty ok, though, as he stops traffic every time we cross the street and is a very pleasant guy. We think that he likes being around Melissa and Stephanie!
Our arrival in Jordan precipitated a much needed rainfall and we almost drowned. Ok, we didn't drown but the rain was really heavy and we are trying to dry our sneakers out before tomorrow morning. The farmers will be happy. This is our first day of bad weather, though, so we have no reason to complain.
We were impressed with a workshop that we visited today. It is a project of the Queen and they train handicapped workers to do the mosaics that are so typical of this area. The Queen also has projects to help women become employed. This country seems better organized than Israel and somewhat more peaceful, although they are not immune to the current upheaval caused by the events in Eqypt.
Dad is his usual pleasant self and does not understand why the group keeps trying to leave him behind (he made me write that!) Our group of travelers, Melissa, Stephanie, Joe, Andrea, Hector, Elvira, Alexa and the three of us are having a great time. We couldn't have found better people to travel with! We have seen so much and we are only halfway through the trip. Love to all!
P.S. Beth, Dad says to tell Aunt Jeanne to check the blog and send the link to Aunt Sis. He is expecting them both to post a comment. Other readers, please comment! Thanks.
