Jordan Day One

Sorry I have been MIA for so long. 

You would think I would have learned by now that being a slacker on my blog means that I get super behind. Oh well.

We got back from Jordan a few days ago and it was AWESOME. Seriously, my expectations were completely blown away. I am embarrassed to say that I had never really heard anything about Jordan before going there. This is a shame though, because it has some really amazing sites and the nicest people. I would highly recommend taking a trip there if you ever get the chance.

Our first stop in Jordan was Mount Nebo. This is where Moses looked out and saw the Promised Land. Other faiths believe this is where he was buried as well.

view of the Promised Land

Our next stop was Madaba. What makes this church special is its 6th century mosaic floor, which is a map of the entire Holy Land. I have seen more mosaics here in Israel than I can count, but this one was actually pretty amazing and interesting-it has more than 2 million pieces and shows all the main historical sites of Jerusalem.

Shabak was our last stop of our official field trip stop of the day. Shabak is a castle built by the crusaders.  It was a lot like Nimrod Fortress is Galilee, and we had a great time exploring and pretending like we were ancient royalty.

After we arrived at our hotel in Jordan a group of us took off to get Turkish Baths. Our professors highly recommended this to us as a cultural experience, and boy was I glad we followed their advice.

It was

 heavenly

The best fifteen dollars I have ever spent. A turkish bath consists of the following

1) Sitting in a steam room for at least a half hour. It was definitely a steam room-you could not see more than 3 feet in front of you. 

2) After you have sweated out every impurity you possibly could have accumulate over the last twenty years, a sweet little lady comes and rescues you. You lay down on a fantastic marble slab and she then proceeds to use a special loofa and remove every single bit of dead skin from your body-it is amazing how much comes off. I am pretty sure my skin was 2 shades lighter after this step, but so worth it. My skin literally felt like butter :)

3) Step 3 was by far my favorite. After being lathered up with a plethora of different soaps and lotions, the sweet little lady gives you a half hour massage. Like I said earlier, heaven. I have never been so relaxed, or clean, in my entire life.

I knew right then and there that Jordan were going to get along just fine :)