19 May 2012

We went to the North today. We had to leave by 7:30, but we got to go through the Jordanian countryside. It was so beautiful. We also saw quite a few goats and even some camels. I probably shouldn’t be quite as excited about this as I am. There were several little towns along the way as well that were really cool to see as well. I think the road system (as in the scenery that you drive through and the extent of it) is a mix between the UP and country roads in the lower peninsula.

The first stop was Umm Qais. This is a little town in Northern Jordan (or really not so little. It had two amphitheaters, which strongly points to the size of city. Very similar to how we gauge the size of a town by how many high schools it has). It was originally the Roman city of Gadara. It’s situated next to Syria and Israel, and on especially clear days, you can even see Lebanon. There’s a tunnel that extends to Syria, connecting the two areas (It’s one of the longest tunnels known from ancient times). When one area didn’t have enough water, it would be carried through the tunnel to the town in need. It’s a nice little system, but I guess that if neither of they had water they both were still out of luck.

Speaking of the amphitheaters, though, in regard to Amman, it only has one. This is a really interesting little fact, now considering that it is the largest city in Amman now with a bajillion houses and people (I don’t know exact numbers). I’m not sure of the progression, but back in 1917, there were easily less than 50 or so buildings. It was tiny. A lot of Jordan was like that, though. The concept of the country lines that we know now didn’t really come about until colonization and with that, cities weren’t really developed into concrete entities either.   They did exist, and there were people, but it wasn’t like what we know now.

The Syrian land is called the Golan Heights. It’s a segment of disputed territory: It’s Syrian land, but it’s currently occupied by Israel. If any of you have seen my pictures that I posted already, I’ve already said this, but the Golan Heights are surrounded by treated territory that kills all of the vegetation around the area. This disallows people from going in or out of the territory without permission/notice of Israel.

Biblically, though, this is a pretty cool place. It’s right next to the Sea of Galilee. It also has road that goes all the way to Jerusalem. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting part of being there, but walking down the road is probably one of my favorite parts. For me, walking in historical places is one of the best experiences. I can just imagine when the city hadn’t fallen (There was a giant earthquake in 747 that “destroyed” most of these historical sites) and the city was alive. I can imagine the sounds. At one point it was so normal. It makes me wonder what things will be like in another thousand years.

After that we went to Ajlun which is a crusaders castle. A lot of people were pretty stationary, but after the main tour, a few of us got to explore throughout the entire thing which involved a lot of jumping over crumbled rocks and jumping through windows. It was really cool. I might need to find more crumbling castles. It can be my new pastime. There probably are a lot of them in West Michigan, right?

Then we went to Jerash, which is an old Roman city that is still rather intact. It’s really large, too. There are two temples (one for Zeus and one for Artemis), plus yet another amphitheater. There was a place for horse racing, and vendors, giant gates. The streets amused me a bit, too: there were cross walks. Every so often, there were strips of perpendicular lines (to the sides of the road) that would indicate space for people to walk through the passing carts and etc. Also something about the roads (which was also in Umm Qais), there are little ruts in the stones for the carts to pass through as well.

After the trip some of us went out to watch the soccer game at the little café down the hill. I had my first American-esque food so far (Turkey sandwich with French fries. Exciting, I know).

But that is all. I’ll write to you all soon. I hope that it’s not bad that I keep writing so much.