mt. nebo

First of all, it's Gmaw's birthday.  All she wants is a fish sandwich from McDonald's for lunch, and some fried chicken for dinner.  Also, some erasable pens.  I guess when you're 91, life gets pretty simple. 

Anyway, back to our tour of Jordan.  We are totally still talking about the same day that we've been talking about for almost a week and a half.  

Our next stop was Mount Nebo.  This is where Moses led his people after 40 years in the desert, beheld the Promised Land, and kicked the bucket.  I guess he was pretty tired.  

the summit

Unfortunately, the church there has had some problems with the roof caving in, so it's under renovation and we couldn't go in.  We did get to see this model of it though.  I have no idea what all that stuff is surrounding it.

church and stuff

To protect the original mosaic floors from being damaged while the church's roof is being worked on, they picked them up and moved them to another building on the grounds.  So we did get to at least see those.

And, I suppose more significantly, we saw what Moses saw - the Promised Land!  The Dead Sea is over on the left, and beyond that is Israel.

promised land!

We tried really hard to soak in the significance of the moment, but we were rushed, as we had been all day.  I also couldn't help wondering if Moses saw that big body of water and thought it would be a source of life, food, green, etc.  I wonder if they all expected this glorious fertile land, and were horribly disappointed when it turned out to be the Dead Sea. 

I didn't wonder about it for too long, because we had to go.  On our walk back to the car, we came across this turkey and his chicken friends.  

kind of a coincidence for the day before Thanksgiving.  I think this one probably made it through the week safely.

We got in the car and went.  And went and went and went.  We went past the Dead Sea, and this is basically all we saw of it:

dead n' shiny

Our driver really super duper wanted to get to this one spot high up in the mountains in time to watch the sunset and drink tea sold by his pal the tea-seller-guy.   He got us there just in the nick of time, and it was beautiful.  It was so cold though.  We definitely appreciated the hot tea.  Bear also appreciated the opportunity to practice his Arabic with the tea-seller-guy, who Bear said spoke weirdly perfect textbook Arabic with no slang and no dialect. 

the day is done

So, after the Roman theater and its museum, the Citadel and its museum, the mosaic workshop and the Chinese food,  Mount Nebo and its turkey, the long drive past the Dead Sea, and the sunset, we were freaking exhausted.  So when we finally got to our hotel near Petra, we ordered some mezze and fell asleep with our faces in our plates.

nom, zzzzzz

One year ago: happy birthday Gmaw!!