Jerash and Shwarma

Yesterday (meaning the 11th) was a good day. I had a laid back morning, where I sat out in the garden and read my scriptures and wrote in my journal and read. In the afternoon, two girls who were with me in Petra, Krystyna and Dana, came by. They had a flight to Germany last night, and had spent the previous night in a hostel... Which they said was basically one of the scariest things they've ever done. So they found haven at the church centre too. The Cooks are truly amazing, welcoming everyone in with open arms and a peanut butter sandwich.

That evening Pres. and Sis. Cook took us all to Jerash for the high school graduation of one of the girls in the branch. The Relief Society of the branch, Elaine, came too. Sidenote on Elaine: She is the coolest woman! She works for BYU, but she's also the director of the nursing PhD program here at the University of Jordan. She's lived in Jordan the last two years, though she's spent time here off and on before that. She's spunky and independent and had the wittiest sense of humor. I hope I like that when I'm in my 60's.

Anyway, we got a bit lost trying to find the entrance, so we got a nice whirlwind tour of the modern city of Jerash. Finally, after asking a policeman for directions (who ignored me when I asked in Arabic), we found where to park. Technically, only Pres. and Sis Cook and Elaine had invitations, and thus could get into the park for free, while the three of us probably should have paid the 8 JD park fee... But they didn't check and we ended up getting in for free.

The graduation was in the ancient Roman amphitheatre. How cool is that?! It was awesome to sit there on those ancient stone seats and wonder about how it may have looked back when it was in it's prime (And apperantly they do concerts there too). The school was the American Community School, though there were only three Americans out of the entire 35 students of the graduating class. The highlight was when they sang their class song, which was "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". How often can you say that you've heard that song sung by a bunch of graduating high school seniors in the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheatre?

When it was over, me and the two other girls rushed out to explore the ruins for a few minutes. We paused for a moment at the entrance to the amphitheatre, where there were Jordanian guards playing the bagpipes. How awesome is that? Supposedly, it's an old Bedouin tradition.

We went down to the ruins just behind the amphitheatre, then went down to the main plaza. I took some pictures, then headed down to the main road. There were a bunch of guards sitting there, but I figured if I couldn't go past them they would stop me.

They didn't stop me =] So I continued wandering down the main road, taking side trips to explore the various buildings. Strains of the bagpipers playing Amazing Grace and Yankee Doodle drifted down the hill.

It wasn't until I got to the main crossroads that I realized two of the guards were following me. They were about my age, and when they found out I could speak Arabic, a fast friendship was born =] The really talkative one, Mohammed, barely spoke any English, but he would go off in Arabic, explaining things about the roads and how there were water channels underneath, etc. I understood most of what he was talking about, even if I didn't understand most the words he said. The other guard spoke much better English, but he was kinda quiet. They walked with me down the rest of the main road, Krystyna and Dana trailing behind. Apperantly, the park was closed, but they basically let me wander around for about a half hour. Sometimes, it pays to be a cute white girl who can speak Arabic ;)

Eventually, we had to stop and turn around. They looked like they would have let us keep going, but their senior guard (I'm assuming) had kinda given them a hard time about letting us get even that far. But it was very kind of them =] The walk back consisted of them showing us how the columns move ever so slightly when you push on them (by levering a key at the base of one and watching it move up and down... Hard to describe, but the column moved!), and Mohammed trying to instruct me on how to properly pronounce "kh", or the letter that sounds like you're clearing the back of your throat. I thought I did it fine, but they were laughing so hard at me. But it was fun =]

The adults were waiting in the car, and we had a nice drive back to Amman (it's about an hour). We dropped Elaine off, stopped by Burger King for us three famished youngsters, and headed back to the centre.

Today, the Cooks showed me Abdoun, the posh, "Beverly Hills" area of Amman (the church centre is right on the edge of it). They took me to an amazing shwarma place, and we got delicious ice cream =] Then we drove around and looked at all the huge houses and Pres. Cook joked about how they were going to by this one or that one for the church and look! They already have a baptismal font! (meaning the fountain out in front). Then we went grocery shopping, and it was amazing to see real American food in a very American-esqe grocery store. Abdoun made me almost feel like I was back in America... Except it was still quite different (obviously). but compared to where I've been living, it was an extreme contrast.

Tomorrow we have church, and in the evening the Cooks are driving me to the airport for my flight to Spain!

Oh, and I added pictures to my Facebook.