We started out early early at the King Abdullah I Mosque. It started raining right when we got there. By the time we got off the bus and got changed it was POURING!! Some of the craziest rain I have ever seen. The exterior is beautiful with tons of blue mosaic tiles, and 3,000 Muslims can fit inside to pray. Jordan is particularly strict about non-Muslim visitors to their mosques. The women are expected to cover up extra well with these long black dresses with hoods. We brought scarves. We sat on the soft rug and listened to instruction from our guides for an hour or so. It was so quiet and pretty in there. You can feel that it is a holy place. We could hear the rain pouring outside the whole time.
There is Chadwick watching the news about the rain storm. We were in an underground small shopping area where they had the closet with the black robes for the women. We stayed under there for 20 minutes or so trying to figure out what to do - apparently the inner city was completely flooded, and roads were closed, so we couldn't get to our next stop. We were supposed to go to the Jordan Museum, but....plans had to get changed. We ended up at the Royal Automobile Museum...! It was pretty exciting. We had lunch delivered to us - shawarma and fries and Fanta. It wasn't the best tasting, but it was fun to have a little box of food to eat in the bus.
We headed of to the Jordan River. I was expecting something a bit different. This is the "location" of Christ's baptism by John. It has turned into this major tourist site. The first photo shows the actual place where it is thought that the river ran 2,000 years ago. It is completely different now.
The bank of the river has some cover and steps leading down to the brown water. Right across the water (not more than 20 meters) is the Israeli side of the river. The border between the two countries literally runs along the river! So there is an Israeli tour site on the opposite side. We watched multiple people getting into the water and being baptized. They would cheer and sing, they were so excited!! It was really cool to watch.
After this we headed across the border back home. Again, it took a few hours to get across...we just sat on the bus talking and killing time to get back to the Jerusalem Center for dinner! It was a fun busy four days.
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