***NOTE: Hi all :)) Many of you are used to my travel blogs already from the SE Asia journey. This time around I've got two others traveling along...Steph and Chrissy (my girls from the Peru trip). At the end of each entry, you may get to hear from them as well! Missing you all...hope you're well...here we go...

Hello from Jordan! We are officially here! Getting to Jordan was fairly uneventful....there was a cool guy checking us in at Dulles (offered him a cookie - he declined), The Princess Bride was among the movie selections on our in flight entertainment (although I only watched the first half, because #1 I have, possibly, seen it before and #2 fire swamps are scary). We all slept a bit on the plane and made it to Dubai. Now...here are three interesting things about the Dubai airport...
1. They have a terminal that is literally miles away from the other terminals - and, of course, that is where we needed be. We are talking a 20 minute bus ride here.
2. After arriving at said terminal, they put us on another bus to travel the 20 feet between the departure gate and the plane. Couldn't we have just walked?
3. No one on the plane appeared to have any regard for assigned seating. Everyone sat willy nilly wherever they felt like and it took 45 minutes to get everyone sorted out. Seriously people? Someone please put me in charge.

But we landed in Amman without further incident and located the driver sent by our hotel. On the drive to the hotel, we noticed people hanging out and sitting around fires on the sides of the highway, and I asked our driver why people were starting fires on the side of the road. He chuckled and said they were having "umm you know, picnics and kebabs...you know". Well, okay, good enough for me.

This morning we went up to the ruins of Jerash 50km north of Amman. Jerash is one of the best preserved Roman cities in the eastern Mediterranean dating from around 1600 BC. It was beautiful (let's see if I can upload photos!) and because we weren't there with a tour group, it was peaceful and serene. We explored a bunch and rested in the cool shade when it got too hot. You could climb up and around all of the ruins and, of course, where does Steph end up? In a pot. Yep. I ask her to stand over there for a picture and she climbs into a not-the-most-stable-thing-in-the-world pot.

After several hours at Jerash we were tired, hot, and hungry. We were dropped back at the hotel and made a plan...eat, then nap. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, eating, and wandering Amman checking out shops and cafes. Tomorrow we pick up a rental car and attempt the 242 km trip to PETRA!

From Chrissy:

I just wanted to add the dire search for drinkable water this morning (and my failed attempts at making drinking water with Chlorine tabs). Let me just add in, for those who may be unaware, dehydrated Chrissy is almost as awful as hungry Chrissy.. I give both T and Steph mad props for making water and food a priority on my behalf today (you guys are awesome!)

Also I should mention my near meltdown over several failed attempts at finding useable internet service that was not in Arabic.. that situation has since clearly been rectified, but my iPad almost did not make it through without getting chucked over the balcony at the supposed 'internet cafe'.

All in all though, today was pretty awesome (especially when it included nap time and second dinner) and I'm totally looking forward to tomorrows next adventure.. driving in this country of no marked traffic lanes or regards for presumed traffic laws.