Last weekend CIEE took us to two sites of roman ruins in Jordan: Umm Qais and Jerash. Umm Qais is in the way north of Jordan right by the Golan Heights and the border of Jordan Israel Syria. Jerash has the best preserved roman ruins outside of Italy. I think it's the only place other than Pompeii where I really feel that people used to live here! And as a matter of fact, people still live here! on our way out of Jerash we stopped to hang out with a herd of goats that were grazing the grass right by the smaller theater of Jerash. It's always fun to run around old roman streets and scramble on top of buildings and explore caves and basements of old temples. I especially love to run around smaller passageways then pop up out of another entrance to basement and see where I end up haha.
In Umm Qais there were two Asian men flying a large balloon kite type thing. One guy was controlling it with a remote control that looks like it was used for an RC Car, and the other guy was holding a fishing rod which the balloon was attached to. For the life of me I could not figure out what they were doing. the remote control guy would say "haaa" then play with the nobs but nothing would happen to the balloon. occasionally the fishing rod guy would reel in or let out more string so the balloon went up or down. My best guess is that they were getting weather data because there was a small black box hanging off the balloon. They were flying the balloon over a new excavation that was taking place so they were constantly on the verge of falling onto the holes since they were looking up the balloons. The Arabs who were excavating the holes just kept looking at each other, looking up the balloons, shrugging their shoulders, and continuing on digging. It was a funny scene.
Here are some pictures from the weekend. Also if you're friends with me on facebook a bunch of my friends uploaded pictures just recently.
Some classmates all trying to squeeze on top of a column in Umm Qais:
A lizard at the base of a column.
the new excavation:
the mysterious balloon:
Jerash:
In Umm Qais there were two Asian men flying a large balloon kite type thing. One guy was controlling it with a remote control that looks like it was used for an RC Car, and the other guy was holding a fishing rod which the balloon was attached to. For the life of me I could not figure out what they were doing. the remote control guy would say "haaa" then play with the nobs but nothing would happen to the balloon. occasionally the fishing rod guy would reel in or let out more string so the balloon went up or down. My best guess is that they were getting weather data because there was a small black box hanging off the balloon. They were flying the balloon over a new excavation that was taking place so they were constantly on the verge of falling onto the holes since they were looking up the balloons. The Arabs who were excavating the holes just kept looking at each other, looking up the balloons, shrugging their shoulders, and continuing on digging. It was a funny scene.
Here are some pictures from the weekend. Also if you're friends with me on facebook a bunch of my friends uploaded pictures just recently.
Some classmates all trying to squeeze on top of a column in Umm Qais:
A lizard at the base of a column.
the new excavation:
the mysterious balloon:
Jerash:
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