Jordan Day Bet

Today was probably in the top 10 days of my life! We started out the day at Amman/Ramah/Philadelphia where we went to an Archeological Museum and walked around a temple to Zeus. The site was fairly large with a palace and an ancient city. Amman is surrounded by springs which provided the area with a good supply of water. The Terrain is hilly with senonian chalk making up most of the geology. Because senonian is not ideal for agriculture, so they were mostly made of shepherds and were well connected with the rest of the Medeba Plateau in order to maintain rations. This was where the war was taking place during David’s reign when he say Bathsheba bathing on her roof. My friend Robert and I walked around and took goofy pictures of each other, kinda like the pictures you take at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Next we went to Jerash which is known as the city of a thousand pillars, the largest Roman remains outside of Rome. There we walked around and explored. There were some very impressive remains there including several beautifully well preserved mosaic floors, and a roundabout looking thing surrounded with columns. The main cardo of the city was most impressive with its great columns and remains of marketplaces. The theaters were also really neat! Two men there played the bagpipes and drums so some of our group got up and danced together. It was great fun! Then Cyndi, my professor, and I played telephone with the great acoustics of the stadiums seats. It was pretty fun! There were also impressive remains of Temples to Artemis and Zeus. Then the most amazing thing happened. After lunch Laura and I were walkig back to the bus past the hippodrome, the ancient place where they would race horses and low and behold there were horses there. I asked the man if I could pet the horse, then if I could ride, to which the guy replied no, but then my friend Matt told him that I was an expert, so the guy said, “oh okay.” I got to ride a horse in a 2000 year old hippodrome! It was incredible! The horse’s name was Amad. He was a tiny little bay pony with a lot of attitude. It was an incredible blessing to be able to really ride and what an amazing opportunity to do it where I did it! It absolutely blew my mind! After Jerash we went to the Jabbok River which was quite brown and disgusting. There we talked about when Jacob ran from Esau. And the process Jacob went through when God changed his name to Israel. I love how God restores our identities when we mess up and it is amazing that he chooses to do such things because that is truly when He is truly glorified! Finally we ended the day at Tyrus where Tobias, one of Alexander the Great’s generals had a palace. Our professor didn’t tell us where we were. We had to made educated guesses based on geography, the style of the building remains and the building materials. It was a great building with lions carved in the large blocks and had great big rooms. It was strategically located by the Jabbok River, as well. From all of that and looking at a map we were able to guess correctly where we were.