November 19th

November 19th
Today we left Damascus. We ate breakfast at a restaurant I really like. I wanted to get pancakes but Mama said we had to get omelettes. I guess it was pretty good. After we ate, we got our bags from the hotel and then we went to get a TAXI! ..bum bum bum!! Please note the following sentence or two may not be completely true. One, because the taxi driver didn't speak english but this is what he probably said.
Papa went up to the stopped taxi and asked, "How much to the bus station?"
"300", said the taxi guy.
"Uh uh," Papa replied. "Our hotel guy said 150."
"250," said taxi guy.
"150," Papa said.
"Alright, 200, 200," said the driver.
Just then another taxi pulled up.
"No, 150, 150!" he said, so we went with him to our misfortune! When we got to the bus station, he pulled us right past all the service taxis (and screaming service taxi drivers). One said, "Where you want to go, Beirut?"
"No, Amman," said Papa.
"AMMAN!" shouted the guy.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!", yelled all the other taxi drivers who charged our taxi.
Our taxi guy drove us right past to another guy who negotiated a good price so we got going and then the police stopped us. The guy had done something wrong because you have to get a permit before you go. so we got another guy who was good.

November 22nd
Today we went to Jerash, a Roman city. We got a trustful taxi driver who drove us there. When we got there, Mama told us that the arch there was built far away because they thought the city would grow. It did, but hundreds of years later. There was a little Roman times battle show that showed how the Romans fought. They had a special formation just for attacking castles. I drew a picture of it in my journal.

November 25th
Yesterday we went to the Wadi Rum. We climbed up a HUUUUUUGE sand dune. It looked pretty big at first but once you started climbing it, it just never ended. When you took a step you slid down half of what you just climbed! We went with some New Zealanders that we met before in Damascus and Madaba. Isaac (the New Zealander) and I had lots of fun running down the dune. When we got to the campsite we found some big climbing rocks and Jonas had a great idea....we filled up bottles with sand and poured them over the side of the rock and it formed a sand stream. It looked really cool because the sand came down at weird angles.
We also played Rush and Tumble. It's a free for all - you run around and push people over and it's really fun especially because we were playing on sand so it didn't hurt when we fell, but sometimes you got a mouthful of sand.

Matthew