Day one Jordan

On arrival in Amman it was so cold, foggy, damp and bleak that we needed to purchase a hat and gloves to keep warm enough to survive. This was duly accomplished with a walk downtown. Enroute we discovered that Amman is cleaner than Egypt, buildings are completed here, there are road rules that seem to be adhered to and cars stopped for pedestrian crossings! This is a region where the 21st century has arrived!! The first full day of touring Jordan was to the north of the country where we saw two towns. The first is Jerash and the second was Um Qais. Jerash is the best preserved Roman town in Jordan and we were allowed to spend 3 to 4 hours there. Besides colonnaded streets, masive pillars, temples to Zeus and Artemis, three amphitheaters, a hippodrome and three Byzantine churches with in situ mosaic floors... we saw evidence of the Greek ruins below this town. Like many places here, there are layers upon layers of towns. A treat was seeing a troupe of Roman legionaries put through their battle paces. Gladiators fought to the sound track of...guess which movie! There was also a chariot race...although only one pair of horses seemed interested in racing. The display brought Ancient Rome back to life. We proceeded to Um Qais where another Roman city has begun to be uncovered from below an Ottoman town. The use of black basalt in building amphitheaters, roads and pillars was a new sight for us. The location was interesting because on the next hill we could see the occupied Golan Heights that now belong to Israel, the border with Syria and evidence of military attacks on Jordan by Israel in the 1970's. The sea of Galilee was just to the left and religious stories seemed to relate to everything we could see. Our guide is a local Jordanian woman who lives in Jerash and is passionate about her homeland and her family. She was particularly keen to pick the local "weeds" to take home to feed her son in law with. Dinner was in a local restaurant where even ambassadors come to eat. We were fed with home made bread, multiple mezze's and four meat dishes that were delicious. Jamila (our guide) was quite disparaging of Egyptian food and made the comment that other Arab nations produce far better cuisines. This meal was a good start to supporting her arguement.