Jordan

The idea for this trip all started in Miami. Simon had a bunch of days off he needed to use by the end of April. He wasn't allowed to take any days off for quite a few months due to the Miami trip and other work assignments. I don't like to travel far in my third trimester, so we decided on March. We started make lists of the places that we wanted to go and then looked at airline tickets. We realized that most places were going to cost a lot more than we were willing to pay. Then Simon had a brilliant idea... if we went to London then we could take the EasyJet to all sorts of places for cheap. He then came up with this itinerary: Munich to London, London to Jordan, Jordan to London, London to Portugal, Portugal to London, London to Morocco, Morocco to London, and then back to Munich again. This itinerary was almost the same price as Munich to Jordan believe it or not. It was three different destinations that we have been talking about visiting. We decided to take an entire month and travel. We got our kids super excited for eight different plane rides and all of the new things that they were going to see. We spent two months planning the trip and then we were off. This trip was kind of our farewell to living in Europe.

Our first real stop on the trip was Jordan. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about going to Jordan. Our main reason for traveling there was to see Petra. This post is all the other stuff in Jordan. Petra was so awesome, it gets it's own post.

Our first stop in Jordan was a city called Jerash. The city is about 45 minutes away from Amman. It is home to some amazing Roman ruins. The ruins are extensive and it was fun to spend the day wandering through them. Auburn can now tell you a few things about the Romans and their architecture.

overlooking the Agora and the Forum

In the amphitheater these guys played a little song for us and let the kids hit their drum. Of course only for a little tip afterwards.

My handsome little man at the top of the amphitheater.

Hadrian's Arch

We did a little sightseeing in Amman. This city is built on hills and has the same architecture throughout. It was fun to climb to the top of different hills to get different views of the city.

Of course there had to be a soccer game. There was a game in the Jordanian league against a team in the Qatar league. We spent about 3 euros on tickets. The kids loved it.

In traveling to new places we decided to let our kids get really excited about "new food". In Jordan it was felafel and hummus. We, well Lonely Planet, found this great restaurant across the street in our hotel. We ate there everyday, it was that delicious. This is one of my favorite pictures of Conley. Both of the kids loved the food.

One day we hired a driver and headed outside of Amman to see a few sights. One was the Dead Sea. Apparently you cannot just stop by the side of the road and jump in. In a lot of places it is disputed territory between Israel and Jordan and there are armed guards everywhere. We decided not to spend the ridiculous amount of money for the tourist beach and just enjoy the views.

On that same trip we drove through part the King's Highway and Wadi Mujeb.

The King's Highway is actually in the Bible.

Wadi Mujeb is like the Grand Canyon of the Middle East.

The coolest thing that we saw on our day out was a place called Wadi Numeira. It is not a well known place at all. Simon read about it and saw some pictures and was convinced that this would be an awesome hike. He somehow navigated us there (the driver didn't even known where this place was). I have to admit I was skeptical that we would find it, but I am so glad we did. This place was incredible. It was so beautiful and serene.