Post-travel pics.

I'm lame about posting, but I'm legitimately trying to do my work here! We traveled around all day Friday to Umm Qais, Ajloun Castle, and Jerash. I will leave the explanations of these sites to the experts: Umm Qais (Um Qais) , Ajloun , Jerash.

It was a long day, but I got a lot of good pictures (I think), and you can find them all here:
http://s683.photobucket.com/albums/vv191/kcarson147/Umm%20Qais/
http://s683.photobucket.com/albums/vv191/kcarson147/Ajloun%20Castle/
http://s683.photobucket.com/albums/vv191/kcarson147/Jerash/

The views from these sites were absolutely incredible. From Umm Qais we were overlooking the much-contested Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee, which was stunning. Ajloun Castle was up on a gigantic hill (I was fearing for my life on the bus ride up the twisty, steep hill. No joke.), so of course you could see like everything from there as well. Apparently, on a clear day you can see Jerusalem from Ajloun, but it was a little cloudy or something so we couldn't get that view. Jerash was my favorite, I think, just because it was an ENTIRE city of ruins. Once again, pictures don't do it justice, but I thought Jerash was pretty amazing.

We were discussing how funny it is that ruins in Jordan are just kind of all over the place, and you can touch them, sit on them, whatever- if these ruins were in America, they would be roped off and you would have to stand like 50 feet away or something. Being in a place as old as Jordan-- old as in having a long history of civilization... my Dad always tries to tell me that North America is old, too. Whatever, Dad :)-- it's just so strange to think about how long all of these pillars and steps and streets have really been there.

Oh, and we capped off the day by watching the Miss Lebanon pageant. I'm pretty sure Anne and I started this whole Miss Lebanon craze, because we were watching TV a few days ago, saw an advertisement for the pageant and were immediately like: "We MUST watch this." So we were mentioning it in casual conversation throughout the rest of the week and some of the other girls were totally interested in it, and then of course the guys got word of it...you know they would be into watching Lebanese girls strut around on stage. After we got back, we were all extremely excited for Miss Lebanon, and we thought it was on at 8:30, so we were frantically searching through the channels with no luck. Apparently the guys were calling, very concernedly, because they couldn't find it either. I got online and found the right channel (although the website apparently screwed up the time), and then we all gathered to enjoy whatever we could understand of the pageant (which was suprisingly more than I thought I would understand). Also, our fave girl won. Victory!

And now I've taken much more time than intended. Enjoy this bonus post, and enjoy the multitude of pictures!