Well boy do I ever have stories to tell! I've been on break from school for 5 days for the Jewish high holiday of Rosh Ha'Shana, the Jewish new year. I finished my final exam for ulpan (which, by the way, I'm happy to report a grade of 97% on, adding up to a final grade of 94% for the session!) on Monday morning, and Monday afternoon my friend Yonatan and I started saying, "OK I know we talked about going to Petra [in Jordan], but we have less than 48 hours till Rosh Ha'Shana starts. How are we going to make this work?" Because all public transportation and stores and everything shuts down for Rosh Ha'Shana, it's 2 days long, and this year it was crammed right up against the weekend so everything was actually going to be closed for 4 days due to Shabbat. That means if we had any delays in Jordan or on our way back to Jerusalem from the southern Israeli city of Eilat, we'd be completely stuck. Plus Yonatan's an observant Jew and had to get back for Rosh Ha'Shana anyway.

So it's Monday afternoon, we have 48 hours till we have to be back in Jerusalem, and we start talking about what buses we could take and how the logistics would work if we wanted to go to Jordan. Well, somehow, by 9:30 that night we were on our way to the Jerusalem central bus station to catch a night bus to Tel Aviv, whence we would catch a midnight bus down south to Eilat, where there is one of the only 3 border crossings from Israel to Jordan. We got my neighbor Jeremy to come along; he had about an hour's notice, and he hopped on board!

The midnight bus from Tel Aviv got us to Eilat at 4:40 in the morning, and after only a few hours of fitful and disorienting sleep on the bus, we were all quite tired. The border crossing didn't even open until 7:00 a.m., so we looked at a few square inch map in Jeremy's "Lonely Planet" guide, guessed at the cardinal directions based on the drive from Jerusalem, and started walking in the direction we hoped we'd find the beach. Sure enough we did find a beach after only about 10 minutes of walking, and there was some beach furniture there, so we all just made ourselves at home and settled down for some sleep. By the time we got up to catch a taxi to the border crossing, the sun was just about to come up. I watched it rise over the Jordanian mountains 3 different times in the taxi.

The border crossing was desolate and seemed somewhat rudimentary, especially compared to all the customs and passport control I've gone through in places like Germany. This place was almost entirely outdoors, delays were long because there would sometimes just be nobody at the different windows you had to stop at (very especially on the Jordanian side), and there were exit fees in each direction. A big asphalt stretch of no-man's-land stretched between them that we had to walk across. The sign that said, "Welcome to Jordan!" was missing the letter D, and Jeremy commented, "I always wanted to come to Joran!"

The border crossing was overall pretty uneventful. We had one in our party from the U.S., one from Australia, and one from South Africa. Yonatan dubbed us "the Commonwealth Party" (all coming from original colonies of the British commonwealth), which amused me. Surprisingly (considering we had a Jewish guy and then a guy with 2 passports and no Israeli visa), I actually had the most trouble at the border; I have an Arab name, and apparently that seemed fishy. They conferred with each other a lot about it, and asked me to speak some Hebrew for them, and asked me my parents' names, etc. But obviously, I eventually got through.

If you ever go to Jordan, one thing you should expect is to see hundreds of donkeys. I don't know what it is, but for some reason they're everywhere. Donkeys are to Jordan as cats are to Israel (though Jordan has cats too, just not as many). Plus some of them are domesticated. Anyway, I mention it because when we finally walked through the far side of the border crossing and into Jordan, there was a donkey standing about 5 feet from the gate, just standing there, unaccompanied and doing nothing. I was puzzled, but got used to it over the next day and a half.

A man with a badge walked up to us immediately when we got to the parking lot outside the border crossing and introduced himself as a guide from the government. He arranged for us to take a government taxi, which we really had no choice about because the border crossing is in the middle of the desert with no nearby civilization, and the government taxis are the only ones going out from there. It was 55 Jordanian dinars (there are 1.4 U.S. dollars to a dinar right now, so that's about $77) from the crossing to Wadi Mosa, the town outside of Petra. Considering it's a 2 hour drive and there were 3 of us to split the price, that wasn't too bad. Jeremy was the only one in our party that spoke a word of Arabic, as he lived in Syria for 6 months a while back, so when the government guide called our driver to try to arrange lodging and a return taxi ride for us, he got stuck with the job of trying to work it all out. The guide spoke English fairly well, but the driver didn't speak any, so it was kind of a confusing process, especially since the guide simple would not leave us alone when we insisted that we wanted to arrange our own lodging and return taxi. I think the government makes a lot of money off of this; when we got to Wadi Mosa, the driver demanded 75 dinars instead of 55, saying it was a deposit because we'd arranged to have him pick us up in the morning to get us back to the border too, for a round trip price of 100 dinars. But while Yonatan was arguing with the driver about it (we had no guarantee that the driver would even show up in the morning, and there was no way we were going to pay over the originally agreed price), another man walked up, heard what the government taxi was offering, and gave us a business card for his own taxi company, saying he'd get us back to the border in the morning for only 30 dinars. We immediately told the government cab driver that we wouldn't be needing him to pick us up in the morning, and to everyone's surprise he took the 50 dinars we'd already given him and left in a huff, 5 dinars short of the originally arranged price for the drive from the border! No complaints here.

We'd found a hostel in the Lonely Planet guide that said sometimes they let people sleep on their roof, so we found our way there and asked about it. They let us sleep on the roof for only 5 dinars; $7 exactly. Not bad for a night's stay! Plus it was nice weather outside, because it's quite hot in Jordan but was nice and cool outside at night. There were a few mattresses and some blankets that had been left sitting outside for who knows how long, so when we asked that evening if we could get some sheets and were allotted only 1 each, I wasn't sure if I wanted to separate myself from the mattress or from the blanket. I kind of opted for both, rolling myself up in the sheet.

We got to the entrance and had some sticker shock: 50 dinars to get in, 90 if you weren't staying in Wadi Mosa overnight. It didn't help that since we were staying on the roof, we had no keys or anything else to prove that we had overnight lodging, so they were very grudging to let us get the 50 dinar deal; it eventually came to us giving them our passports to photocopy and send to the border checkpoint. The man explained, "You go to the border tomorrow, no problem. Big problem if you go to the border today." Fortunately, we were being honest when we said we were staying overnight, and they didn't give us any trouble for the photocopies of our passports the next morning on our way back across.

We'd gotten the Petra fairly early, about 10 a.m., and it closed at 6:30 p.m. so we had plenty of time. But wow, Petra is very big! I don't know why I was surprised, because after all it's a whole ancient city. Several miles across, I would guess 5 miles or so, though it's mountainous so it's a fairly tiring way, especially at the far end where there are 1,000 steps up to reach the monastery at the top of the mountain. I took about a bajillion pictures, which you can look at. I've wanted to make it to Petra for years, so it was very exciting. Apparently it was abandoned due to frequent earthquakes in the area, so between that and the fact that it was all carved in sandstone, which is very soft and crumbly, a lot of the buildings, sculptures, and facades are very worn away or just barely even recognizable as having been there at all. But the monastery and the treasury (the treasury's the one every one knows of, from Indiana Jones and such) are in remarkably good condition! We just wandered and admired for hours. We climbed up a side trail at one point and found another great façade, not sure what it was but I was glad we made the extra climb to reach it. This was around midday and we were all tired, so we sat in the shade there for over an hour eating and talking. We'd packed our own food, partly to save expense and hassle but mostly because Yonatan had no guarantee that we'd be able to find kosher food in Jordan. I was glad we'd chosen to bring along 2 bars of chocolate.

There are Bedouin people everywhere in Petra, and you can tell that they certainly don't pay 50 dinars a day to get in! They apparently live in caves and tents all over Petra, and they sell trinkets and donkey or camel rides. I was seriously tempted to ride a donkey up the mountain at the far end, because we'd already walked a long way and gotten very little sleep and it was a very long and steep hike for the end of the day, up rough and uneven stone cliffs. But the guys kept me from falling for it, because everything you could buy in Petra is ridiculously overpriced, and we finally, finally made it to the top. The monastery was worth the view, as impressive as the treasury, which is one of the first things you get to see.

Up above the monastery, at the very top, there is this little arm of the mountain that sticks up even higher. I was not happy to climb more, but the guys insisted that we had to see the view from the very top, so we climbed it. The view really was wonderful; Petra stretched out all below in one direction, and the Jordanian mountains and Israel in the distance on the other side. There was a Bedouin tent at the top of this little arm of rock, and 2 Bedouin men sat there on rugs telling a couple Americans who were sitting with them how to say various things in Arabic. One of the Bedouin men was playing a lute, and they both had turbans on. They greeted us and waved us into their tent to sit on the rugs, saying, "No cost for just sitting!" I didn't want to be rude and I though it would be interesting, so we sat with them a while. The tent looked just like what you'd expect of a Bedouin tent, and indeed we'd seen such tents that morning on the drive from the borer to Wadi Mosa, because there are still Bedouin that live in the desert and mountains with their herds in the otherwise uninhabited areas of Jordan. I tried to get a picture from the cab, but they all came out blurry. Anyway, it was fun and interesting to talk to these men and hear them play the lute and sing in Arabic; I recorded one of their songs on my camera. Afterward they urged us to stay to watch the sunset from there because it was assuredly going to be beautiful, which was true, but the sun would set at 6:30 which was when Petra closed. They said not to worry about that, because they had a special way out that they always used and they would show us their village and give us tea and coffee. I've actually heard that this kind of hospitality is common to this culture, but we didn't want to be dependent on them in case they decided to charge something for it, plus going down that steep mountain in the dark was a certifiably dangerous idea. So after tarrying a while, we thanked them but declined, and headed down the mountain.

Unfortunately, we'd probably stayed too long. By the time we started walking down, Petra was due to close in only half an hour, and we had about 5 miles of mountainous trails to cross in that time. We went as fast as we dared down the steep mountain from the monastery, but only just reached the bottom of it (only the last mile or so is a genuine mountain trail, the rest of it mostly cuts between the mountains and isn't too steep) when the sun set. Knowing there was no way we'd be able to cross the remaining 4 or so miles quickly, we just threw it to the winds and decided to take a different way back than we'd came and see more of Petra. I'm glad we did! It was a little eerie at night, though, especially because it was just about 100% deserted. We saw 2 other tourists (inexplicably going the opposite way, up the mountain) right as we'd left the monastery, and we saw 2 Bedouin boys on donkeys at one point, but otherwise we were completely alone in this huge abandoned city. The going was harder in the dark, but by the time we got back to the treasury, with only a mile or so left to go till we reached the exit/entrance, it was just barely still light enough to see it. We stood there for 10 minutes in silent admiration, nobody moving toward the ravine through which we had to walk to the exit, until it was just plain too dark to see anything. That was so worth it; during the day it had been swarming with tourists and people selling things, but at night it was just beautiful and impressive.

The remaining walk through the ravine was tiring and long, but it was neat to look up and see the stars through the crack in the rock overhead. With about half a mile to go, we saw another Bedouin man on a horse, and he rode after us and then along with us trying very hard to get us to agree to ride horses the remaining distance. After lowering the price repeatedly, he finally stuck with, "Free of charge!" over and over again (though both Yonatan and Jeremy, who have traveled in the Middle East before, said not to fall for that, because at the end they would inevitably expect something), until Yonatan stopped and yelled, "No! No, no, no, no, no, NO!" repeatedly. Finally we walked the remaining distance in peace, albeit wearily, and the guards and the entrance/exit didn't even say anything when we finally walked through about 2 hours after closing time. We stopped and drank water and rested on a bench, talking about our adventure, and then found a place where we ate some thoroughly delicious shish kebab. We met an elderly British couple there who were traveling through Jordan and apparently knew the owners of the restaurant, so when the waiter offered us hot tea on the house, the couple reassured us that it actually was free this time and would be rude to refuse. I was very glad we did; it was easily the most delicious tea I'd ever had in my life!

Finally we walked back to the hostel and sat on the roof for hours all talking and eating more chocolate, plus cereal. We'd sprung for a box of cereal back in Israel to take with us (cereal is ridiculously expensive here; $6 is a bargain), and had gotten plastic spoons from a bakery on the walk back to the hostel (Yonatan just walked in and asked if he could have spoons, and they enthusiastically gave them to him after finding out he was from Africa, since one of them was from Egypt) and had bought a carton of milk at a convenience store. We finally all fell asleep, and we need not have worried about oversleeping out 5 a.m. alarm to catch the taxi, because we'd failed to account for the fact that if you're sleeping outside a block or 2 from the mosque, the call to prayer will most assuredly make sure you're awake. Good gracious, it was so loud! I mean, I hear the call to prayer many nights in my apartment in Jerusalem, but only if everything else is quiet and I open the windows to listen. But that's because we're far away enough from the source. They blast it loud enough to carry for miles, and we were right down the street. It was an interesting way to start the day, though!

Jeremy had decided that for all the trouble and expense, he wanted to stay in Jordan for a while longer, so we parted ways and Yonatan and I caught our relatively cheap taxi back to the border. The delay on the way back was ridiculous. We were 3 dinars short of having enough for the exit fee, which we didn't even know about, and had to wait for a full hour for someone to show up to run the money exchange that they had there, despite the fact that they repeatedly told us, "Just 5 or 10 more minutes!" But we finally got through, Yonatan got his visa renewed (his was going to run out over the Jewish holidays, which was a big part of why we even went to Jordan; he needed a temporary visa to tide him over till the student visa they're currently processing gets approved), and we caught a taxi to the Eilat bus station with plenty of time till our 10 a.m. bus back to Jerusalem left. The bus ride back was much easier to sleep on, because it was less crowded and such, and we drove by the southern part of the Salt Sea (as it's known in Hebrew; alias the Dead Sea, but I think that name isn't as good, because it makes you imagine something scummy and gross, but it's actually quite beautiful with clear turquoise waters). To my delighted surprise, the bus actually made a stop at Mount Scopus on its way back to the central bus station, so I hopped off and waved goodbye and said "Shana Tova!" (happy new year) to Yonatan. I live on Mount Scopus, and had expected to have to catch another bus back from the central bus station, but I was in luck!

I took a much-needed shower and repacked, and then almost immediately headed back out the door with my backpack again to walk to Living Bread, my church down at the Old City. It was almost an hour walk and I usually take the tram, but it was closed for the holiday. It was getting dark, so I was actually nervous about walking alone, but fortunately for me there was an orthodox Jewish family walking ahead of me toward the Old City most of the way (I presume they were likely headed to pray at the Wall, which I think is a commandment at Rosh Ha'Shana), so I felt relatively safe albeit a bit stalker-ish following about 50 feet behind them most of the way. I got to Living Bread about 10 minutes early, and the watch (as they call their worship gatherings) was wonderful as usual. I had packed a backpack because afterwards I planned to walk barefoot pray in the Old City with the pastor, who does this most nights, and then crash on a mattress in the sanctuary for the night, since I had no way of getting home. The walk was great, and we stopped to pray at the Kotel (the Wall) for a while, which was beautiful. Then I stayed up till 3:30 in the morning talking with Karen, the pastor, who fed me very generously. My plan was to walk home the next afternoon, but that plan got derailed when I asked the next day how I could get more involved other than just going to the watches in the evenings, and Elizabeth, one of the women on staff, said that actually they desperately needed somebody to clean and organize boxes and stacks of Bibles, pamphlets, and other things they had in the sanctuary and the shed out back. This turned into a 2 day project, so I ended up crashing there a second night and spending a total of 2 and half days and nights there, working and praying and worshiping and bonding and talking with the others and being fed way too much. It was such a joyous and blessed time! We had a Shabbat dinner at their ministry house, where most of the staff live (except Karen, who lives at the main church) on Friday evening, my last evening there before finally getting a ride home to Mount Scopus after 2 days and 3 evening watches there. I was very pleased with all the work we got done during that time, and it was wonderful.

I spent Saturday at home, and now it's Sunday afternoon. It's the first day of the autumn semester, but I don't have classes on Sundays, so I'm going to catch the tram (which I'm happy is running again) back down to Living Bread, because they said they needed some filing done, and then I'll just stay for this evening's watch. Tomorrow I have Hebrew class at 8:30 a.m. and then more classes till 8:15 p.m., so that should be a packed day! The break has been so lovely, even if it's just been 5 days. Ah well, I had to get back to work eventually! Photos and videos of Petra will be posted soon. Stay tuned!