Jerash and Ajloun

I am incredibly behind on my Jordan blogging but since I returned from the trip with only enough time to do laundry and repack before leaving for another trip, I forgive myself. I was pretty excited to help plan a conference in Jordan which required my presence. Tickets to Jordan from DC are not cheap so work trip plus a few vacation days = steeply discounted vacation! Sarah joined me for a few days and I think we managed to pack in many of Jordan's highlights in just a couple days; starting with Jerash and Ajloun.

Hadrian's Arch

Hadrian got around...an arch here, a wall in Scotland...

The main gate looks easier to side step than those alarms at Payless

Jerash was an adventure before we even got there. When we asked at the hotel for a car to take us the less than 50 kilometer drive, we were told that a car to/from with a driver who would wait a whole three hours would run us 75 JD ($106-Jordan's one of those countries where we lose on the exchange). Sarah was having none of that so instead we took at 5 JD cab to the bus stop where, while waiting for the bus, found a cab driver who would take us both all the way to Jerash for only 12 JD.

Pillar of some sort

South gate and road into the forum

Zeus Temple

We did a lot more walking than we intended to. The cab dropped us off as the visitor's center which is near the South Gate-unfortunately tickets are sold in the market below Hadrian's Arch-so we did a lot of walking back and forth until we finally found the ticket booth. Why you can't buy them at the visitor's center is beyond me.

The whole site is quite large and spread out. Even though we had water I was pretty convinced I was going to die of thirst before we made our way out. Lauren mocked me when I complained of the desert heat but she's all conditioned to it now. Plus there was almost no shade and we all know how very very white I am.

Zeus Temple again

I like pillars

The view from the Zeus Temple was great and we could see the oval forum in its entirety. It's always amazing to me when I visit city ruins how dependent much of the world has become on cities. Jerash, like many ancient cities, held a couple temples, a couple churches, a theatre, baths, and large common areas like the forum where people could gather for-why ever they needed to gather. Presumably the majority of people lived outside the main area of the city. I guess it's kind of like the American mid west-except even my homevillage has a coffee house now.

Oval forum

Entrance to the South Theatre

In order to demonstrate the superior construction quality of the theatre which gave it such great acoustics, a roving bagpiper and drummer, in Jordanian military regalia, play in the theatre on and off during the day. Bagpipes? you ask...why yes, apparently. According to Sarah's very informative guidebook, the British Empire left behind some very interesting traditions-including a bagpiping army.

Theatre stage

Sarah's very good with putting up with my moaning as I'm pretty sure that, by the time we left the theatre and crossed through the forum to main road, I was probably already predicting death by dehydration. However I bravely pushed on, largely since Sarah promised that we didn't have to walk all the way to the North Gate.

Main road with Zeus Temple in the background

This was also my first opportunity to use my brand new super wide angle lens. It was very exciting. Sadly I'm not as practiced as my little brother so I had to actually stop and stand still every time I thought I needed to switch lenses. Brian can walk and talk and chew gum all while changing lenses.

One day...one day...

Along the main road

Right about here I realized that (old ruined Jerash) was probably larger than the village where I lived until I was 22. And hotter. I blame the heat on not only on Jordan being a giant desert, but because genius Romans built the city with such pale stones. So when that burning desert sun is directly overhead and there are no clouds or shade to hide in the ruins were like an inferno.

It as very Dante-also tangent: have you ever wondered why the Seventh Circle is guarded by a Minotaur? Do people really want to get in?

I so wanted there to be water there so I could cool off

Naturally the sight of these seemingly endless stairs up to the Athena Temple was not something I greeted with glee. Those are a lot of steps and there are even more than you can see because once you got to the 'top' there were yet more.

Main entrance to the Athena Temple

But once we did get to the top and saw the Athena Temple I had to admit that it was worth the climb. Even though that middle pillar on the left sways in the wind. That's a little concerning.

Athena Temple

After refreshing ourselves at the Athena Temple we headed back down those horrible stairs and out of Jerash to have lunch. At the restaurant the host kindly arranged another cab for us which would take us to Ajloun, a nearby castle, and then back to Amman.

Ajloun Castle

Sarah has a mission to visit 12 castles in 2012 and since she was not country specific when she set her mission, this totally counted. Supplementing her excellent guidebook was our taxi driver, Abdulhameed who gave us a tour of the castle.

Wonder how hard it was to put in the wiring for the lights?

More stairs. Slippery stone stairs. Yippee

Granted since he didn't speak much English at all it was a silent tour. The only silent tour I've ever had come to think. He walked in front guiding us through the various rooms and outdoor areas, gesturing at things we might find interesting.

As castles go I suppose it wasn't the most fascinating one we could have visited. I mean, there were no flying broomstick lessons or anything. 

Still it was a nice little side trip. Not only did it add to Sarah's castle count but we also found out that Abdulhameed drove people to Petra. So for 60JD, instead of the 150 the hotel quoted us, we got a private ride to Petra that left from our hotel at a time we designated...and not on a bus that leaves from a station not too near our hotel at 6:30 AM.

View from the top of Ajloun Castle

 Up next...Petra!!

The Land of Pharaohs: Giza Necropolis

Oh hi! Lauren here...so in one of my last posts, I mentioned that I was leaving Iraq, and headed to Egypt. I spent five weeks in Egypt working on studying Arabic, and also seeing some sights. In the first weekend after I arrived, I decided that I needed a break to clear my head of a year in Iraq, and put it all behind me. I ended up at the world-famous Mena House Oberoi hotel, right at the base of the Pyramids with a great deal through booking.com for the weekend. Imagine! Waking up in the morning, and the first thing you see are the Pyramids looming over the hotel grounds while you drink your morning tea! Amazing!

On Friday morning, I met my roommates, just outside the hotel compound, at the entrance to the Necropolis. They'd already negotiated a deal for a carriage ride for about 40 pounds ($6.5 US) for each of us. Not a bad foreigner price, if you ask me, though the horses were not very well cared for, or well-treated as far as I was concerned. But by the looks of what I saw there, none of them were. 

Our Carriage Drivers

While our carriage drivers were friendly, I was frustrated because they were so focused on trying to secure their tip and they kept trying to take my camera to take my picture at various sites. With my brand new Nikon, I was not willing to just hand it over to a stranger for any reason.

This little boy was hawking souvenirs off the back of this donkey. There were really not many tourists, and certainly not the usual Western rubes. The Egyptian tourist economy has been hit really hard since the revolution and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the country. Most of the people that we saw at the Necropolis were other Arab people, or Egyptian school children on a field trip.

The Great Pyramid

As we started wandering around the necropolis grounds, I was imagining how I'd process my photos. I think they're much better in monochrome or sepia toned, giving them a more turn-of-the-century kind of look. And considering I'd been staying at the Mena House, which is famous for having been the site of the famous 1979 Egypt-Israel peace talks. 

The Giza Necropolis sits on the edge of a limestone cliff that overlooks the city of Cairo. Though, the city is rather difficult to see from there now, because of the hazy cloud of pollution constantly hanging over the city, just past the great western cemetery. There are three main pyramids on the grounds, and they are named, Khufu (the Great Pyramid), Khafre, and Menkaure. There are also loads of other tombs of non-royals, as well as the excavation of the workers' village just south of the Sphinx.

The Great Pyramid is one of the most well-known ancient structures in the world, and the pyramids are the only remaining structures of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. My pictures hardly do the size of the stones justice, but each one weighs about two tons. There are over two MILLION of these blocks making up the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It would have been covered with an outer coating of alabaster, and it would have have been smooth, and nearly sparkling in the intense Egyptian sun, and capped with a golden top. That alabaster was stolen over the centuries, and all that remains is just a little bit near the top of the pyramid of Khafre. 

Though I found the pyramids to be a bit underwhelming, this is likely to do with the fact that I live in contemporary society, and have seen buildings (even in Cairo) which are a great deal taller and more imposing. However, the Great Pyramid stood as the tallest man-made structure on earth until the 19th Century (CE). 

Now we move on to the single most iconic symbol of ancient Egypt, and the oldest statue in the world: the mysterious Sphinx (أبو الهول). I say that it's mysterious, not because of the so-called, Riddle of the Sphinx, but because we really do not know much about it. The sculpture is 197 feet long, with the body of a lion, and the head of a man, with the Pharonic Nemes headdress. Some scholars argue that it was built by Khafre, but there really isn't any evidence showing its association with him. I once watched a show on the History Channel that showed that the structure had experienced water damage, and that would date it to prior to the time of Khafre. I honestly don't believe this, and from my obviously scientific eyeball study of the state of the bricks of the structure (many of which have been restored), I saw that the bricks miiiight have shown some water damage, but it seemed like it could also be explained by pollution and atmospheric conditions as easily as water. Here's a better picture of the Sphinx complex. You can probably decide for yourself:

The one question that comes up repeatedly when people start talking about the Sphinx, is always about his nose. What happened to it? Where did it go? Often, you'll hear that Napoleon's soldiers didn't like the "Africanness" of the nose so they blew it off with a canon ball. According to drawings of the sculpture that pre-date this period, the nose was gone LONG before the Napoleonic wars. An alternate story dates back to the 14th century, and was told by a 15th century Arab historian, saying that because the peasants in the river valley of the area would give offerings to the Sphinx, hoping to better control the flood cycle. Outraged by such a blatant display of paganism, the Sufi Sheikh of the area, Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr, destroyed the nose of the sculpture in 1378. He was later executed for vandalism. No one really knows if any of these stories are true, but I am much more inclined to believe the second story...

As I mentioned before, I decided to process these in monochrome/sepia tones. I think it just lends a more turn of the century look to the photos. I feel like, other than the excavation of various sites, the grounds of the necropolis itself hasn't really changed since then!

You can take either a carriage or a camel. I probably should have opted to ride the camel, but honestly, I really just didn't want to. I was pretty nervous about having it toss me off the front when it stood up! The rickety carriage was enough for me!

So I spent a total of five weeks in Egypt. Most of the time, I was sweating through my Arabic lessons and doing homework. However, I did manage to get out to a few things during the first month, and spent my last week on a tour of Upper Egypt (re: the southern part, or Nubia), and the temples of ancient Egypt there. So here's a rundown of the things that I'm thinking of writing about (below) I'd love to hear if you our handful of readers have any preferences, or questions in advance around which I can center some of these blogs. Requests welcome!!! For more pictures from the Mena House and the Pyramids, be sure to like our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ParMieuxAdventures


Here's the list of ideas:

• My neighborhood in and life in Cairo
• Coptic/Islamic Cairo
• September 11th, and the teargas
• Porto Sokhna and the Red Sea
• The Night Train and Luxor
• Luxor and Karnak Temples
• Temple of Hatsheput
• The High Dam/Unifinished Obelisk/Colossi of Memnon
• The Temple of Horus
• The Philae (Isis) Temple
• Abu Simbel

Fondant, Gum Paste, and SUGAR!

Today, I went to the 25th anniversary East Anglian Sugarcraft Exhibition, with some of my friends here in England. It was a bit on a whim, as we happened to catch a sign while driving last night, and decided that we would check it out today. What a great idea! 

The entry was a little expensive if you ask me, at five GBP, but in the end, the exhibition was quite surprising, and the craftsmanship was pretty incredible. Apparently, in the last 30 years, sugarcraft has become quite popular in England, and there are many people who take part in this art. As soon as we arrived surrounded by a sea of fondants, royal icing, and gum paste, and mostly just sugar. Andrea would have been in cake decorating heaven. 

One of the first things I saw was this painting on marzipan. I can not believe the level of detail here, and that this was painted with cocoa!

I was beginning to feel pretty hungry looking at these tea cakes. Can you believe that all of this is sugar?!

Each of the druplets on these blackberries are rolled and painted by hand! 

Yes, these carnations are completely made of sugar.

I loved how glassy these flowers looked. The woman at the club table told me they were made with some sort of sugar snowflake. 

I just loved the detail on this one. Beautiful!

This cat mask was really cute, and it looked so satiny!

This club entry was my hands-down favorite. It was called, "The Bearlyweds." There was so much to look at here, and each detail was so well done. I went back several times to keep looking. Check out the following photos of some of the details below:

Church Clock Tower:  Note the detail of the stones and bricks...