Jordan!!!!

The trip begins! After a long, sleepless night in Ben Gurion Airport, it was time to fly to Jordan. As soon as I sat down I fell asleep and the next thing I knew, we were there! We decided to go to Madaba first since it was closer to the airport and was also near Mt. Nebo.

Madaba was pretty nice, it gave us chance to get acclimated to the trip. We walked around the city, saw a mosaic in a really old church. the one with the famous map of Jerusalem with the Cardo in the center.

We got lunch in a small restaurant and when the owner heard Andrea was from Chicago he got all excited because he used to live there. He gave us free sodas and free icees (what he called "chilly willies") and the proceeded to tell us his whole life story.

Then we were off to Mt. Nebo to see where Moses died. To took out my tripod and got some really amazing footage. I wanted to pray there, but I know that's not the safest thing for a Jew to do in public in Jordan, so I made sure only to bow when the guards weren't looking, kept the schukling to a minimum and moved my hands around like an evangelical. No problems, thank God.

We then took a cab to Amman and we both fell asleep for a while since it was about an hour-long drive. It's really nice and there are pictures of King Abdullah everywhere. We walked around the city for a little while and went to some markets, but Jordan is really expensive. Who knew the Dinar was stronger than the Dollar? Not I.

After the markets, we wandered over to the King Husein Mosque. It was prayer time and Andrea wasn't allowed in. I don't think the women's section was open. I went in and stood on the side intending to film a little bit, but one of the men there pulled me over next to him to pray. So I imitated him and said the Shema quietly. I wonder when the last time a Jew prayed in there? It was pretty amazing. Afterwords I bought a kuffi (a Muslim Kippah) to wear for next time. I look so great! Ha! Also, one of the book sellers had a copy of "Mein Kampf" in Arabic, wonderful. I decided against buying it.

Right next to the mosque was a huge Roman Amphitheater. I had never been to one that was so big before. There were two museums attached to it but they were really boring. But one worrying thing I noticed was that whenever a town in Israel was mentioned, it was labeled as being in Palestine. It sounds insignificant but it reflects a much larger problem that exists with the peace with Jordan and Egypt. It seems to be more on paper than in the hearts of the people which won't ever change if they don't even have to acknowledge Israel's existence in state-run museums. This is the reason why Netanyahu keeps on insisting the Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Not out of insecurity, but because if they don't make it an official policy to teach that Israel has a right to exist, the next generation will not understand why there is a treaty to begin with and everything will start all over again.

We then went to get some dinner at cheap place that was recommended to us by a woman outside the mosque. Since it was early we had the whole place to ourselves. We sat on a balcony, ate fatat humus with pita and zaatar pizza (Jason eat your heart out!). It was delicious and only cost around $2! Amazing.

Then we had to rush back to the airport because we forgot that Jordan was still on daylight savings time so we lost an hour. But not a problem, we got there with plenty of time.

Next stop: Cairo!