Jerash

 Ok so here we go over a month ago S, Little Lady and I went on a trip to Jerash with George and Allison. It was 95 degrees out. Don't even ask me what that is in Celsius we are still trying to adjust to that but we do know when it is near 40 that is hot. lol We only got slightly lost. As in we turned at a sign that said Jarash instead of Jerash. Now you may look at that and say duh it is not the same thing but since our street has one name and 6 different spellings (there would be more except there are only 6 street signs) it seemed possible this was spelled funny too. We immediately turned around when we were going away from the city. After we parked and figured out how to get into the place (Little did we realize you had to venture through the bazaar to get in) We were there!!! It was only 1/2 a JD each because we have our residency cards. WOOOOHOOO for being a resident of Jordan. Otherwise it would have been 12 JD. Yeah they kinda stick it to the tourist. We walk in and immediately have to climb the stairs. I tell you this country is not handicap assessable anywhere. Anyways continuing on. We climb the stairs and we are looking at what is the Arch of Triumph or as our map has it  Hadrian's Arch.

Hadrian's Arch- built to commemorate the visit of Emperor Hadrian in 129 AD

 

It is pretty impressive huh?

Yep I thought so. It had beautiful carving and details that I cannot imagine what they would have looked like when they were new. It is hard to believe that all of the stonework is still so beautiful and distinguishable today (although there have been restorations made in places). I guess when you only have a month or so of rain a year it helps but I would have thought the amount of sand whipping around in the air would have eroded it more.

 Once you walk through the gate you walk past the chariot race hippodrome. The hippodrome is 245 m Long and 52m wide and could seat 15,000. and as I have told you in the past we were saddened to discover that because it was EID they did not have the chariot races.

The back wall of the Hippodrome-

 You continue walking past the long oval tracked hippodrome and eventually find the place where they are collecting your tickets. This is good I suppose, I mean it is nice to know you actually had to pay to get in. We walk through The South Gate (130 ad) and along the city walls and the real ruins start. The city walls were built in the beginning of the 4th century. The walls of the city that are visible now are from the byzantine era and are 3,456 m long.

 

Part of a 2nd century Olive Press

View to the right of the tunnel

We walked through a tunnel and past the guy selling “ cameras, memory cards, hats, sunglasses” (yep read that with an accent and you will no what we heard). Then we climbed more stairs and we were in the Forum or Oval Plaza depending on the map you are using.

Random stone details.

The oval plaza is an oval that is 90 x 80m surrounded by columns from the 1st century

Center colum/ fountain space

 In the center there is a tall column that marks the spot of a fountain from 7th century ad. This is where they do music and things during the Jerash festival that happens in July and the column now carries the Jerash Festival Flame.

Looking back from the Forum onto the tunnel and city walls

 

Once you are done in the Forum you can exit and walk along the colonnaded walkway or Cardo Maximus.

The Cardo is 800m. It was remolded in the late 2nd century and again in 170ad.

It is a large walkway that was once a street with columns on both sides. You can actually see chariot tracks left in the stone. In the past this street would have been lined with shops and would have been considered the main street of Jerash. It is a bit of a bumpy path and we were wise not to bring a stroller along. Periodically along the route you are looking at different ruins. Ok actually the entire place is ruins so you never really stop looking at them. You just hop along and see a bunch of stairs, pillars, doorways, etc. Here are many things we saw along the path.

The Cathedral

The Cathedral was originally a 2nd century Roman Temple of Dionysus and then it was rebuilt in the 4th century as a Byzantine church. Through the door way is a set of stairs and at the top of those stairs is the shrine of St. Mary

Church of Saint Theodore

 The Church of Saint Theodore was built in                    496 AD

The Nyphaeum

an ornamental fountain that was built in 191 AD and dedicated to nymphs. Water would cascade through 7 carved lions heads into small basins on the sidewalk. The large basin in front was an addition from the Byzantines.

Propylaeum

The propylaeum is entrance to the Processional way leading to the temple of Artemis.

The North Gate

Close up of the architecture

 Once we reached the North Gate we knew we needed to head up the path. Now the one strange thing about visiting these sites in Jordan is that there are no ropes, no security guards, no park rangers telling you “stay off the ruin”. There are not even signs saying it. So you are free to hop up and touch anything you like. You want to climb the thousand steps (ok I don’t know if it is 1,000 steps but there are a lot in this place) then go right ahead no one is stopping you. It is kinda strange to be able to just hop on history and get a real feel for it. This is one thing that would never happen in the US and yet these sites are still here. In the middle of a city but still here and seemingly doing well.

The North Gate was built in 115 AD

 So at this point we were still under the impression that there were chariot races starting in 20 minutes and we were on the far side of the city. SO we race through and skip past a bunch of stuff until we get back to the hippodrome.

Temple of Artemus

View from the overlook

One last look at the Oval Plaza/ Forum

We sit in the cool breeze for maybe 10 minutes and when the race was supposed to start and there were no chariots in sight we decided it was time to go home. We were hot, hungry and extremely tired. I also had extremely dirty feet. Instead of tan lines I had dirt lines because I wore sandals. Lol We made it to the car and gave Little Lady a bottle. Once she was finished we piled in the car and drove over to the Lebanese house for lunch. OH MY STARS!!! This place was great. We spend I think 30 JD on a lunch for the 4 adults that was amazing. We had grape leaves, hummus, fried kibbe, chicken tawouk, a meat platter (varying kebab meats), and pita, along with drinks. This place even has a small indoor playground for the kids. It was great. The one downside is do not be in a hurry. We were there for around 2 hours. It took forever to get someone to take our order and then we had to wait for the food but it was worth the wait. Once our bellies were full and we were all ready for a food coma we drove home. Yep perfect plan huh? S did a great job driving and it is only 40 minutes. We arrived back and came home to take a long nap and just rest. The heat really takes it out of ya.

Next time we go I think we will get the tour guide. In our rush to see the non exsistant chariots we decided to take the map and just wing it. I know we missed things and we may even have read it wrong who knows. So in the future I am sure we will see Jerash again and have a much better clue as to what went on. Oh and please notice that there is not a cloud in the sky. We have been in Jordan since the end of May and we can count the number of clouds we have seen with the exception of one day that was actually cloudy but that is only 4 maybe 5 days since we have been here. 

where does the time go

Here I sit at the computer with the intention of telling you all about our trip to Jerash (a few weeks ago) or our trip to Sharm el sheik, Egypt (last weekend) yet for some reason I cannot seem to get motivated to tell you about them. Maybe it is because Jerash is more pictures of ruins taken on an incredibly hot day (Welcome to Jordan!) or maybe it is because Sharm was fun but I feel I will inevitably end up ranting about the terrible hotel. So instead as I finally find the time to write something (by find the time I mean turn my back and ignore the piles of toys on the floor, the piles of dishes in the sink, the piles of laundry waiting to be done, and probably a few other piles of things) that is more interesting to me it of course goes back to Little Lady. Lets begin!!!!

Where does the time go? I swear it was just a few days ago ( I could say yesterday but I know that isn't possible) when I was scared to death at 9pm to find out that they (the DR's) would be delivering my little peanut 5 weeks early. It was one of those moments when we went to the hospital (for the 3rd time) in labor and the Dr said those lovely words everyone wants to hear "we will wait and see". S and I sat in the hospital room, actually it was a triage room because they were unsure what to do with me at the time, staring at each other and staring at the monitors. We talked a little, joked a little, tried to take our minds off of what could possibly happen in a few minutes. We were completely unsure what to hope for. I mean the Dr is saying it is possible that we could see our little miracle tonight instead of in 5 weeks!! YAY!! Oh wait...she is not ready yet, her lungs aren't developed, are they sure they cannot just stop it again this time? I mean I could hang on a few more weeks right? If she is born tonight what will happen? Of course there was the unspoken question in our minds is tonight the first and last time we see her??? Well eventually the Dr does come back in and says "well looks like we are ago" or something along those lines. We stare are the Dr and are completely unsure how to react (see above unsureness) but we put on a brave face or well maybe I started crying I don't remember. Eventually we snap out of the shock and ask if we have time to make a few calls and for S to run out and get the camera out of the car (lucky I grabbed it on the way to the hospital- and yes I drove myself there) We did. Everyone we talked too seemed just as shocked as we were but excited. In what felt like a matter of minutes S was dressed in scrubs, I had on the doofy hat, and off we went to the operating room. The nurses got me ready and all I remember saying was Ok to everything they said. They told me what I would feel and what would happen and what was happening as I was getting my anesthesia and all I could manage was OK? Yep because I knew if I said more than Ok all my fears would come spilling out of me. SO Ok it was. A few minutes later  (more like an hour) and I am a Mommy! They say she looks great, even S kept telling me this (little did I know he and all of them were lying) I get a quick kiss and she is off to the NICU, "Just for a little air". Now what felt like an eternity later I am allowed to see her and she looks so fragile.

Our little miracle. Only a few hours old.

 She cannot breath very well, cannot eat, cannot keep her temp up, cannot even handle breathing the air in the room, cannot be touched because it would be too stimulating. Well no matter how many hurdles she had to cross I was determined to be there and help her as I could. It took what felt like a life time when in fact it was 11 days before she came home. Yep there were many fears that day and those days after that too. There were no monitors to help us anymore. We were on our own. She was home and in our arms and relatively healthy even before she was due. It is amazing what modern medicine can do and some, ok a whole lot, of prayers can do. Now today 9 months and 1 day later I sit asking myself where does the time go? How did we get this far? Little Lady decided that 2 weeks after she figured out how to crawl and 1 week after she figured out how to sit up was the time to try pulling up. She cleared the coffee table of all things that had piled (remember those piles) up there.

She also decided she needs more fiber and the coffee table is a great place to get it.

She pulled toys off of shelves, she pretty much destroyed the living room in one day. Would I change it? Nope! It is a lovely mess that I should be cleaning up right now, but I won't. As I put her to bed tonight in the crib that is now on the lowest setting (so little 5'4 of me cannot really reach the bottom) I just cannot get over how much she has accomplished in just 9 months. I marvel at it really. She is one determined little girl. She is probably too smart for her own good too. To elaborate on the smart thing - 1: within 1 hour of being given the spill proof snack cup she figured out how to make it rain puffs all over the living room. 2: the spill proof sippy cup? yep she has that figured out too. turn it upside down and push on it. the water pours out and you have a puddle to splash in. 3: Take a treat from Mommy that required taking bites??? yeah just lay it on the floor and smash it into little bite size pieces.- Yes she has learned things that we had to learn too but when you are the parent sitting back and watching the development it is amazing.  I just cannot figure out where the time goes. How does it fly by so fast? How can some minutes seem like hours and others feel like mere seconds?  If I stop and think I can remember all those sweet little milestones and moments that are now in the past but it still seems like a blur and from what I hear it will only blur more as she grows. Thank goodness for pictures right? I mean how else would we remember the toothless grin that suddenly has teeth, the skinny legs that are now chubby, the milk mustache that is now a squash stache,  or the little tiny 5 lb bundle that could do nothing (not even breath) on her own that is now ruining my living room and loving every minute of it? Yep thank goodness for pictures because Lord knows my brain can barely remember what I had for lunch today. I really think Mommy brain does exist and probably so we do not remember all the temper tantrums and other ....we shall call them ugly moments of the day.  Yep my peanut is a miracle, everyday a blessing and she is teaching me patience and makes me practice it often. So in that thought where has your time gone and are you spending it wisely?

I'm shocked and she is happy at her accomplishments